Assessing the progress of New American Schools : a status report / Mark Berends with Joanna Heilbrunn, Christopher J. McKelvey, Thomas Sullivan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Berends, Mark, 1962-

Contributor:

Rand Education (Institute)

New American Schools (Organization)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

New American Schools (Organization).

School improvement programs--United States--Evaluation.

School improvement programs.

Educational change--United States.

Educational change.

Physical Description:

xviii, 42 p. : ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Santa Monica, CA : RAND, 1999.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

New American Schools (NAS), a private nonprofit corporation, began in 1991 to fund the development of designs aimed at transforming entire schools at the elementary and secondary levels, seeking to engage the nation's best educators, business people, and researchers in an effort to create, test, and foster the implementation of schoolwide designs that break the mold. The competition, development, and demonstration phases of this effort have been completed; the current scaling-up phase, with the goal of forming a critical mass of schools within partnering school districts, began in 1995. This report describes RAND's plan for collecting the data needed to address the overall questions posed for the effort: What were the NAS schools like before they implemented the designs? How have the designs and the assistance they provide evolved over time? Are the critical components of the NAS designs being implemented across a wide array of schools? Do the NAS designs extend beyond

Contents:

PREFACE

FIGURES

TABLES

SUMMARY

RAND'S ASSESSMENT OF NEW AMERICAN SCHOOLS

Critical Issues

Key Questions

Data Collection

PURPOSE OF THIS REPORT

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND FUTURE WORK

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

THE NEW AMERICAN SCHOOLS REFORM EFFORT

KEY QUESTIONS UNDERLYING RAND'S ASSESSMENT

ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT

TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF SCHOOLWIDE

REFORMS: ASSESSMENT OF THE SCALE-UP PHASE

KEY ELEMENTS OF THE DESIGNS

NEW AMERICAN SCHOOLS APPROACH

Design-Based Assistance

Engaging District Support

RAND'S ASSESSMENT

Data Collection Efforts

Analytic Approach to Key Questions

SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF RAND RESEARCH

BASELINE DESCRIPTION OF

NEW AMERICAN SCHOOLS

SAMPLE OF NEW AMERICAN SCHOOLS

SOURCES OF DATA

RESPONSE RATES

DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF SCHOOLS

SCHOOL CLIMATE: NAS SCHOOLS COMPARED TO THE

NATION'S SCHOOLS

Problems Related to Diverse Student Populations

Problems Related to Engagement of Students and Faculty

SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT BEFORE DESIGN

IMPLEMENTATION

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND WORK AHEAD

REFERENCES.

Notes:

"Prepared for New American Schools."

"MR-1085-EDU"--P. [4] of cover.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-42).

ISBN:

0-8330-4351-X

0-585-34925-8

OCLC:

923689146