Outlines the economic costs of dropping out of high school and proposes dropout prevention strategies, such as taking a long-term approach starting with school readiness, enhancing schools' holding power, and addressing outside factors and at-risk groups.

One of a series of guides for school district leaders on resource allocation, outlines a strategic design including before- and after-school small-group instruction, block schedules, and integrated curricula to optimize student loads and planning time.

Excerpts presentations and discussions from a May 2009 conference on the intersection of cognitive neuroscience, the arts, and learning -- the effects of early arts education on other aspects of cognition and implications for policy and practice.

Examines cost savings, impact on student performance, and political fallout from large-scale school closings in six cities. Outlines lessons such as the need to convince the community early of necessary closings and establish clear, quantifiable criteria.

Outlines a program to develop and test measures of teacher effectiveness by analyzing student assessment data, classroom observations, teachers' pedagogical content knowledge, and student and teacher surveys. Proposes evaluation and development criteria.

Describes data-driven efforts to raise high school graduation rates in New York, Philadelphia, and Portland, Oregon by replacing low-performing schools with smaller schools or offering alternative schools and programs, as well as their outcomes to date.

Few people hail teachers' unions as leaders of education reform. Teachers' unions are routinely characterized as part of the problem, protecting the interests of members at the expense of quality instruction and exercising unchecked political power. School districts fare little better in the public eye; they are often perceived as large, ineffective bureaucracies which perpetuate under-performance among low-income and minority students. Furthermore, community involvement in public education reform, though a widespread phenomenon, is largely unrecognized in the national policy debate about the future of schools. Given this, it is difficult to imagine three less likely partners in education reform than a local teachers' union (labor), district leaders (management), and local organizations and foundations (community). Yet the work of some education and community leaders has shown that collaboration between labor, management, and community has the potential to build capacity and improve student learning.

Outlines strategies for district leaders to create a supportive environment and a collaborative working relationship with high school principals that encourage innovation and enable principals to lead effective school reform efforts.