Marisa Castellano

Managing and Guiding School Reform: Leadership in Success for All Schools

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.

Secondary Career and Technical Education and Comprehensive School Reform: Implications for Research and Practice

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.

Comprehensive School Reform in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Contexts: Implementation and Outcomes from a Four-Year Study.

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.

Chapter 8 Exit exams and organizational change in a vocational high school

This chapter examines one vocational high schools response to a state exit exam. Many states now require high school students to pass an exit exam before graduating, a key element of standards-based accountability reforms. Little is known about how educators and students inside vocational schools respond to these exams which typically emphasize literacy and academic skills. We examine how one such school attempted to respond to demands linked to the exit exam and the states labeling the school as underperforming. While teachers reported support for state intervention and placing stronger demands on the school, one remedy involved becoming more selective in terms of new students admitted. As a result, tensions arose between academic subject and vocational teachers. Deep frustrations were voiced by several teachers and students about whether preparation was sufficient to ensure a reasonable pass rate. We employ a critical public policy framework to illuminate how this policy shock spurred positive action while penalizing students for years of insufficient preparation in the public schools.