About Urban School Reform: Lessons from San Diego

Today's urban school reformers face a bewildering array of challenges. Urgent problems pertaining to governance, management, labor relations, classroom instruction, and numerous other areas face those who wish to reform and improve urban schools. Having undergone one of the nation's most comprehensive school reform efforts in recent years, San Diego has been a site of nationwide interest--one that is uncommonly well suited to learning about the challenges facing all reformers.

This timely book addresses the full range of critical issues pertaining to urban school reform by looking closely at the recent reform efforts in San Diego. In essays by an impressive gathering of scholars and practitioners from across the country, the book considers crucial dimensions of reform efforts in the San Diego schools, including performance, governance, the external environment, central leadership and management, district infrastructure, support services, and school-level instructional efforts. The result is a full-scale assessment of San Diego's reform efforts--a record of unmistakable relevance and value to other urban reform movements throughout the United States.

An indispensable book for administrators, policymakers, scholars, and practitioners, Urban School Reform presents a revealing portrait of reform efforts in a much-discussed urban school system while identifying the full range of issues that education reformers will need to address in districts across the country in the years ahead.

Contributors include Daphna Bassok, Alan Bersin, Julian R. Betts, Christine Campbell, Amy C. Crosson, Michael DeArmond, Kate Garrison, Jane Hannaway, Amy M. Hightower, Frank Kemerer, Nonie K. Lesaux, Catherine Maloney, Milbrey W. McLaughlin, Jennifer A. O'Day, Margaret E. Raymond, Peter Robertson, Jon Schnur, Maggie Stanislawski, Sara Taggart, Michael D. Usdan, Victoria Van Cleef, Joe Williams, Patrick J. Wolf, and Andrew C. Zau.

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Table of Contents for Urban School Reform: Lessons from San Diego

Preface

Introduction
Frederick M. Hess

Board Governance and External Constituencies
Michael D. Usdan

The Labor-Management Showdown
Joe Williams

Flip-Flops in School Reform: An Evolutionary Theory of Decentralization
Jane Hannaway and Maggie Stanislawski

Building and Sustaining an Infrastructure for Learning
Amy M. Hightower, with Milbrey W. McLaughlin

Reforming the Principalship
Jon Schnur and Kate Garrison

Standards-Based Reform and Low Performing Schools: A Case of Reciprocal Accountability
Jennifer O'Day

Toward a Portfolio of Schools: High School Renewal
Christine Campbell, Michael DeArmond, and Sara Taggart

The Promise and Challenge of Accountability in Public Schooling
Julian R. Betts

Half Empty or Half Full? Challenges and Progress in Hiring Reform
Victoria Van Cleef

The Role of Information and Communication Technology in Educational Reform
Peter Robertson

The Evolution of School Choice
Andrew C. Zau and Julian R. Betts

Charter Schools: Opportunities and Challenges
Catherine Maloney and Frank Kemerer

Addressing Variability and Vulnerability: Promoting the Academic Achievement of English Learners
Nonie K. Lesaux and Amy C. Crosson

Reforming Special Education
Patrick J. Wolf

Performance Trends and the Blueprint for Student Success
Daphna Bassok and Margaret E. Raymond

Reflections of an Urban Reformer
Alan Bersin

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Publishing Information

Urban School Reform: Lessons from San Diego
Edited by Frederick M. Hess
©2005
ISBN 1-891792-58-X $59.95 library, ORDER
ISBN 1-891792-57-1 $29.95 paperback, ORDER
300 pages

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