How to Make a Better School

School administrators, teachers, community leaders, and parent advisory groups looking for specific steps they can take to improve their schools will find concrete ideas and insightful recommendations in this positive and practical book. Anyone bewildered by the recent barrage of educational reports, standards, guidelines, and innovations will be pleased to find a coherent and comprehensive description of the well-run school. From defining the school mission to evaluating the results of school improvement efforts, the authors pinpoint key questions to ask and outline procedures that will help school leaders devise their own solutions to the problems that affect their school.
Readers will find a wealth of ideas in all aspects of school improvement - evaluating and developing the curriculum; enhancing, teaching and learning; assessing student achievement; hiring, evaluating, and supervising teachers; developing the school environment; and providing the school leadership needed to support desired changes. Every chapter includes specific examples that demonstrate how real schools have chosen to address the issues and solve the problems discussed in the book. Throughout, the authors emphasize the benefits of creating a coherent educational experience for students - one in which students consistently apply the information and skills they learn in one grade or subject to educational activities they encounter in other grades and subjects.
Here are dozens of creative ideas any school can implement. One example shows how a school can deal thoroughly and effectively with a specific social problem that is affecting the school, such as interpersonal violence or an increase in eating disorders. In other chapters the authors explain how extra-curricular activities that are popular with students and parents can be targeted to achieve important educational goals and how alternatives to traditional courses and homework (such as apprenticeships, investigations, independent projects and exhibitions) can be used to enhance learning and increase student motivation. In the difficult area of assessment, the authors suggest a variety of techniques (including questionnaires, interviews, observations, recorded data, portfolios, projects, lab experiments, and quantitative investigations) that can be used in addition to traditional pen and pencil tests to assess student achievement.