school improvement programs

A facilitator's guide for leading discussion of Alan M. Blankstein's "Failure Is Not an Option," which provides six basic principles for implementing effective school reform, with chapter-by-chapter activities and discussion questions.

Identifies the goals of the SMART way of thinking about education, including strategic and specific, measurable, attainable, results-based, and time-bound, and describes a framework for creating a SMART school through focus, reflection, collaboration, and leadership.

"W. James Popham outlines six fundamental understandings of assessment, giving busy educators the keys to the most cost-effective means of school improvement." --.

"Educators are being told they need to begin using data to drive their efforts. A high percentage of educators we have worked with either don't know how to use data, don't want to use data and/or are afraid to use data. We believe this book will teach educators a common sense approach to the importance of data and how to use it correctly free of fear. This book will help educators learn how to identify, collect, analyze, and most importantly use data to inform their decision making process. We are actively working in approximately 40+ school districts in 11 states nationwide and have been told that Multi-Dimensional Assessment is the most comprehensive approach to data collection in schools. Educators are using the district diagnosis contained within our individual school and district reports (see http://mdedinc.com/Resources.shtml) to provide the data they need to make informed data-driven decisions related to leadership, instruction and much more. This book will explain the Multi-Dimensional Education approach to help educators develop a new lens for seeing how they can get started or more strategically approach using data to drive their achievement. We hope the book will help educators embrace data as a means toward inquiry, action, and school improvement"-- Provided by publisher.

Teachers in both general and special education classrooms are being asked to collaborate to give all students access to the general education curriculum. The challenge is that teachers receive very little training in how to work together to educate students successfully. Collaborate, Communicate, and Differentiate! addresses those issues and more, taking collaboration out of the abstract and supplying easy-to-use strategies that apply to daily tasks. --from publisher description.