No abstract

&tccessJbr All (SFA) is a whole-school reJonn model that organizes resources toJbcus on prevention and early inten~ention Io ensure that students succeed in reading throughout the elementa,y grades. In this" article we use qualitative data gathered in. extensive inte~wiezvs and observations in two SFA schools" to examine how teache#:v respond to SFA and how their beliefs, experiences, and programmatic adaptations influence implementation. We found that teachers" ./'ell into four dis'tinct categories ranging ./~om strong supportfor SFA to res'istance. Supporl./br the reform did not directly correlaw with teachers' personal characterLvtics such as e.x'perience level, gende#, or ethnic background. Moreover, leachers' levels q/'support for SFA did nol necessarily predict the deglee of fidelity with which they im])lemented it. Almost all leachers made adaptations to the program, in spite co/" the developers' demands Io closely follow the model. Teachers supporled the continued implementation of SFA because the)J believed it was bene/Tcial Jbr students. At the same time many teachers./'elt that the program constrained their autonomy and creativity. Implications of th is study for the fulure succes.giU implementation of SFA and other externally developed reform models" are discussed.

This article addresses issues of leadership in school reform with respect to the roles of the principal and the reform facilitator, a teacher who works full-time to support reform activities. The Success for All reform model is used as a case in point because it, like many other reforms, views leadership as critical to reform success. Using qualitative data gathered in six Success for All schools, this article focuses on how principal leadership shaped and was shaped by the reform and on the successes and challenges faced by Success for All facilitators in occupying a position of teacher leadership. This article discusses the roles and relationships, tensions and ambiguities, and power dynamics that evolved among principals, facilitators, and teachers in the implementation of the reform. The findings of this study illuminate the challenges in reconnecting teaching and administration and reveal the importance of changing structures and cultures in this move.

In the 1990s, federal legislation authorizing funding for secondary vocational education, increasingly called career and technical education (CTE), began to mandate accountability requirements such as improved academic achievement. These requirements have necessitated a search for ways to integrate CTE into broader school reforms that have improved student achievement as their goal. This review examines research on the effects of CTE reform efforts in general and on efforts to meld CTE with comprehensive secondary school reforms. The authors found that the intersection of CTE with comprehensive school reform is under-researched. However, the studies reviewed here reveal the potential benefit for research and practice in re-examining CTE as a means of preparing our nation’s youth for the future.

This article presents findings from a 4-year study of 13 culturally and linguistically diverse elementary schools implementing comprehensive school reform (CSR) models. The study focused on: (a) the actions at the state and district levels that facilitated or inhibited reform implementation; (b) the adaptability of the various reforms in multicultural, multilingual contexts; and (c) the student achievement outcomes associated with reform, for schools as a whole and for language minority students in particular. Some schools implemented reforms and bilingual education programs in mutually supportive ways; others had difficulty adapting reforms to suit the needs of Limited English Proficient (LEP) students. Reforms generally helped educators meet goals for multicultural education, but in some cases, educators’ beliefs about student ability, race, and language served as constraints to reform. Students from CSR schools had achievement outcomes that were generally equivalent to those for students from matched comparison schools. Under some circumstances, though, LEP students and their English-speaking peers from CSR schools outperformed their comparison school counterparts.