Responding to concern over school safety, state legislatures and school boards in recent years have enacted a range of zero-tolerance policies focused on combating weapons, drugs, violence, and antisocial behavior. Results have been mixed, with some critics discounting the policies altogether. This report describes the origins of zero-tolerance policies, presents evidence on their effectiveness, examines criticisms of them, and recommends strategies to make the policies more useful.

In an age of reform and restructuring, educators are seeking new models to improve their schools. One approach is to replicate the qualities, and hopefully the advantages, of a small school by creating a "school-within-a-school." This approach establishes within the school a smaller educational unit with a separate educational program, its own staff and students, and its own budget. This Digest briefly introduces the school-within-a-school concept, summarizes existing research on school-within-a-school models, and reviews some of the advantages and disadvantages.

Thousands of schools across the country suddenly have smaller classes, and now school boards and administrators face a new challenge: making sure the enormous investment in CSR pays off in higher student achievement. Should school officials rest content in the hope that achievement gains will be an automatic byproduct of smaller classes? Or should they proactively initiate strategies to capitalize on CSR? This report explores several topics that are prominent in school districts' efforts to derive the greatest benefit from smaller classes.

School governance has long been a political football, as local, state, and federal stakeholders work-sometimes cooperatively and sometimes at odds-to establish or influence policy and then implement accountability measures to track the quality of schools in the United States. This report explains why public-school governance is the subject of increasing scrutiny, identifies who is held accountable for results in the current governance system, and describes several recent proposals for transforming governance structures.

Over the past forty years, the emphasis in writing instruction has shifted from product to process. This report focuses on the experiences of individual teachers as they searched for ways to put the principles of process writing into practice in the classroom.

Center for Substance Abuse Prevention has begun to formalize, synthesize, and extract lessons based on hard scientific evidence regarding the ability of intervention programs to decrease substance abuse. CSAP’s substance abuse prevention programs have provided direct services to tens of thousands of children, youth, families, and communities across the country.

This press release from The Urban Institute explores the possibility of enrolling 4.7 million more uninsured children in Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) by coordinating coverage with four programs-the National School Lunch Program, the Food Stamp program, the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and the Unemployment Compensation Program.

Here you will find information on a range of issues -- recruiting and preparing teachers, providing professional development opportunities, and raising teaching standards. It includes classroom resources, research and information for individuals interested in becoming a teacher.

A comprehensive statement on research in education, including recommendations on changes that will improve the research, development, and communication of research activities sponsored by the federal government.

This report estimates the number of children in homeschooling nationwide over time. The number has possibly tripled in the 5 years studied. By the 1995-96 school year, from 1 to 2 percent of the total school-age population were in homeschooling. Based on an examination of state data gathered from families that filed papers, and estimates of the number where states do not collect or families do not submit such papers, it appears that between 250,000 to 350,000 children were homeschooling in 1990-1995, and around 700,000 to 750,000 in 1995-96.

Understanding Information Literacy (September 1999) addresses the importance of information literacy for teaching and learning and its relevance to schools, libraries, workplace settings, and society in general.

This research project looked at nine school sites where school staff were active participants in incorporating technology in ways that support education reform. These pages report on the experiences of the teachers and students at these schools.

This publication is a mapping of the charter school landscape that will guide policymakers through areas they need to examine in their initial consideration of charter schools or their evaluation of existing charter school legislation

This report reviews research on class size, discusses approaches taken to assess the costs and benefits of reducing class size, and explores implications of smaller classes for classroom management and instructional strategies, particularly for students at risk.

The study on curriculum reform, conducted by the University of Colorado, Boulder, aimed to learn from pioneering curricular reform efforts in science, mathematics, and higher order thinking skills.

The SRI study investigated models for incorporating technology into education that provide new ways for students and teachers to work with each other. In these models, technology serves the goals of education reform by contributing in a variety of ways.

This study examined parent and community involvement programs, particularly those that focus on: helping parents strengthen home learning; restructuring schools to facilitate more parental involvement in the education of their children; or, comprehensive district-wide parent and community involvement.

The need to "raise the performance of at-risk youth" has become a popular rallying cry for school reform, yet there is often confusion or disagreement about which children are at risk, why they are at risk, and what can be done to improve their chances for success in school and adult life. The purpose of this monograph is to bring together what has been learned over the past few decades about children at risk, to analyze current strategies designed to improve student and school performance, and to propose ways of achieving academic excellence with high reliability.

The eight papers in this volume bring to bear a complex set of perspectives on a common problem: how can we make education more effective now and in the future. Taken together these papers spell out a prescription for change that is ultimately rooted in our ability to change the way we think about education -- about the process and substance of education, about the key actors and ultimately about the future we want to build for our children.

This idea book paves the way for creating programs under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that are grounded in the lessons of successful Chapter 1 schoolwide projects. It describes how innovative educators leveraged Chapter 1 funds to reform schools that serve some of the nation's most disadvantaged children. This book is a resource for policymakers and practitioners, designed to show how local initiative and determination can become a foundation on which to plan future projects that ensure that all children meet high academic standards.