New American Schools after six years - Glennan, Thomas Keith (RAND, 1998)
"Supported by New American Schools, RAND Education.". - "MR-945-NAS"--Page 4 of cover
Includes bibliographical references (pages 87-90)
Figures and tables -- The initiation of New American Schools -- Overview of report -- The potential contribution of school designs and design-based assistance to education reform -- The nature of New American Schools designs -- The character of the design-based assistance New American Schools design teams provide -- Vision inherent in design -- Strategies for implementation -- Assessment of progress and adjustment of implementation activities -- Resources and time to enable school transformationl -- Continued professional support for school staff -- Design-based assistance as a focus for jurisdictional reform -- Potential benefits of using design-based assistance as a cornerstone of a reform strategy -- Jurisdictional operating environments: lessons learned during implementation -- Marching teams with schools -- New American Schools and jurisdiction responses to problems with matching schools and design teams -- Aggregating investment resources -- School-level authority -- Lack of alignment of designs with jurisdiction accountability systems -- Professional development -- Challenges for design teams seeking self-sufficiency -- Evolution of New American Schools strategy for supporting design teams -- Challenges the design teams faced in phase 3 -- Marketing and sales -- Setting prices for services and materials -- Building a staff to provide assistance -- Further development of products and services -- New American Schools' assistance to teams for business planning -- Looking to the future -- Whole school designs -- Design-based assistance
In July 1991, New American Schools (NAS) was established to develop designs for what were termed "break-the-mold" schools. Its initial goal was to create designs to help schools enable students to reach high educational standards. This simple goal has evolved into something considerably more complex. The notion of a whole-school design remains at the core of the New American Schools mission. Experience made clear, however, that designs by themselves were unlikely to effect change in schools. NAS and its design teams began work to develop design team capabilities to assist schools to implement the designs, terming this "design-based assistance." Experience also made clear that the character of the school district influenced a school's success in implementing the designs. Thus, in the last two years, NAS has devoted increasing attention to helping jurisdictions develop what it terms a "supportive operating environment." This evolution in the NAS program reflects an awareness that NAS initiative is only one of many factors affecting school performance in participating jurisdictions. For example, building and district leadership, teacher quality, union support, and community support also play major roles in shaping those outcomes. RAND, in its role as evaluator of the NAS initiative, will continue to carry out a variety of studies of the NAS initiative in an effort to understand the effects of many of these factors on student outcomes