• v. I. Excellence and equity in education
• v. II. Policies and practices for successful schools
• v. III. Students' well-being
• v. IV. Students' financial literacy
• v. V. Collaborative problem solving.

• v. I. Excellence and equity in education. Foreword and acknowledgements
• Executive summary
• Reader's guide
• What is PISA?
• Overview: Excellence and equity in education
• Science performance among 15-year-olds
• Students' attitudes towards science and expectations of science-related careers
• Reading performance among 15-year-olds
• Mathematics performance among 15-year-olds
• Socio-economic status, student performance and students' attitudes towards science
• Immigrant background, student performance and students' attitudes towards science
• What PISA 2015 results imply for policy
• Annexes. PISA 2015 technical background
• PISA 2015 data
• PISA 2015 test items
• The development and implementation of PISA: a collaborative effort.

• v. II. Policies and practices for successful schools. Foreword and acknowledgements
• Executive summary
• Reader's guide
• What is PISA?
• Overview: Policies and practices for successful schools
• How schools and teaching practices shape students' performance in and dispositions towards science
• The school learning environment
• School governance, assessment and accountability
• Selecting and grouping students
• Resources invested in education
• What PISA 2015 results imply for policy
• Annexes. PISA 2015 technical background
• PISA 2015 data
• PISA 2015 test items
• The development and implementation of PISA: a collaborative effort.

OECD's triennial international survey, PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students, examining not just what students know, but what they can do with what they know. In PISA 2015, the survey was carried out for the first time in all 28 EU Member States in the same year, among 72 countries and economies worldwide, the results showing educators and policy makers the quality, equity, and efficiency of school systems and student learning outcomes achieved elsewhere, allowing them to learn from the policies and practices applied in other countries. The 2015 survey had a special focus on science performance but also assessed students' skills in mathematics, reading, collaborative problem solving and financial literacy.
Volume I, Excellence and equity in education: Summarizes student performance in PISA 2015, and examines inclusiveness and fairness in participating education systems.
Volume II, Policies and practices for successful schools: Examines how student performance is associated with various characteristics of individual schools and school systems.
Volume III, Students' well-being: Describes how well adolescent students are learning and living.
Volume IV, Students' financial literacy: Examines 15-year-old students' understanding about money matters in the 15 countries and economies that participated in this optional assessment.
Volume V, Collaborative problem solving: Examines students' ability to work with two or more people to try to solve a problem.

• Preface-- Guiding Principles: A Resource Guide for Improving School Climate & Discipline--
• Appendix 1: Directory of Federal School Climate & Discipline Resources--
• Appendix 2: Compendium of School Discipline Laws & Regulations for the 50 States, Washington, D.C., & Puerto Rico-- Dear Colleague Letter: Nondiscriminatory Administration of School Discipline-- Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Developing positive school climates and improving school discipline policies and practices are critical steps to raising academic achievement and supporting student success. However, there is no single formula for doing so. Rather, the growing body of research and best practices in the field should inform locally developed approaches to improving school climate and discipline policies and practices. Positive school climates enhance safety in the school and community by increasing communication among students, families, and faculty, and reducing violence and bullying. This book provides a guide of principles for improving school climate and discipline, as well as resources that can be used, and laws and regulations that apply to this topic.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• Time as Storyline
• Telling Tales Over Time
• Absenteeism
• The Current Absenteeism Scene
• Time Structures and the Canons of Testing
• Inequities and Effectiveness
• The Role of Virtual Learning Environments in Time and Spatial Structuring
• The Challenge of Changing Curriculum Stories Over Time.

How do calendars and clocks influence considerations of school effectiveness? From the creation of compulsory education to the future of virtual schooling, Weiss and Brown trace two centuries of school practices, policies and research linking the concept of time with 'opportunity to learn'. School calendars and clocks are shaped by both the physical and social worlds, and the 'clock of schooling' is shown to be one of the 'great clocks of society' that helps to frame school effectiveness. School time does not operate in a vacuum, but within curriculum, teaching and learning situations. The phrase 'chrono-curriculum' was devised by the authors as a metaphor for exploring issues of school effectiveness within the time dimension. Using American and Canadian sources, stories are created to illustrate four themes about time and school effectiveness. The first three stories utilize access, attendance and testing as criteria associated with these eras of schooling. How will the story read in the fourth era, the digital age, which forces us to a reconsideration of time and its influence on education? Quoting David Berliner in his Foreword: " this is an opportune time for these authors to bring us insights into the reasons we in North America created our public school systems, and how the chrono-curriculum influences those systems. The authors' presentation of our educational past provides educators a chance to think anew about how we might do schooling in our own times."

• Introduction
• Time as Storyline
• Telling Tales Over Time
• Absenteeism
• The Current Absenteeism Scene
• Time Structures and the Canons of Testing
• Inequities and Effectiveness
• The Role of Virtual Learning Environments in Time and Spatial Structuring
• The Challenge of Changing Curriculum Stories Over Time.

How do calendars and clocks influence considerations of school effectiveness? From the creation of compulsory education to the future of virtual schooling, Weiss and Brown trace two centuries of school practices, policies and research linking the concept of time with 'opportunity to learn'. School calendars and clocks are shaped by both the physical and social worlds, and the 'clock of schooling' is shown to be one of the 'great clocks of society' that helps to frame school effectiveness. School time does not operate in a vacuum, but within curriculum, teaching and learning situations. The phrase 'chrono-curriculum' was devised by the authors as a metaphor for exploring issues of school effectiveness within the time dimension. Using American and Canadian sources, stories are created to illustrate four themes about time and school effectiveness. The first three stories utilize access, attendance and testing as criteria associated with these eras of schooling. How will the story read in the fourth era, the digital age, which forces us to a reconsideration of time and its influence on education? Quoting David Berliner in his Foreword: " this is an opportune time for these authors to bring us insights into the reasons we in North America created our public school systems, and how the chrono-curriculum influences those systems. The authors' presentation of our educational past provides educators a chance to think anew about how we might do schooling in our own times."

• v. 1. What students know and can do : student performance in reading, mathematics and science
• v. 2. Overcoming social background : equity in learning opportunities and outcomes
• v. 3. Learning to learn : student engagement, strategies and practices
• v. 4. What makes a school successful? : resources, policies and practices
• v. 5. Learning trends : changes in student performance since 2000
• v. 6. Students on line : digital technologies and performance.

• Honing your leadership and growing new leaders
• Developing a vision and a mission
• Promoting excellence among your staff
• Helping students succeed
• Making the most of your time
• Facilitating effective meetings
• Mining and using data with purpose.

Learn how to maximize "tough times" and "money issues" to help your school thrive with inexpensive, and time-efficient programs and initiatives. Topics include identifying stages of team development that lead to more productive and time-efficient meetings.

• Empirical consequences of school trust / Patrick B. Forsyth
• Building trust in schools : a review of the empirical evidence / Curt M. Adams
• Evaluating the culture of high schools in relation to their demographic characteristics and performance / Theodore J. Kowalski and Kathleen Hermann
• Defining, measuring, and validating teacher and collective responsibility / Laura LoGerfo and Roger Goddard
• Systems thinking and culture change in urban school districts / Leigh McGuigan
• Measuring district climate / Michael DiPaola and Kathleen Smith
• U-turn required : how Virginia's first school turnaround specialists are meeting the challenges of improving low-performing schools / Daniel L. Duke [and others]
• Encouraging teacher leaders / Marc A.L. Shelton, Virginia Davidhizar Birky, and W. Scot Headley
• Curriculum and instruction policy in the context of multiple accountabilities / Jason P. Nance and Helen M. Marks
• African American female superintendents speaking the language of hope : reconstructing the multi-dimensions of passion / Juanita Cleaver Simmons and W. Yvonne Johnson
• Charter schools, communities, and local newspapers : new questions to examine / Ann Allen and Dwan V. Robinson.

• Setting the stage for the right decisions
• Creating a positive school culture
• Culture, climate, and decision making
• A model for individual decisions
• When two (or more) heads are better than one
• Who are some of these stakeholders?
• Rationality in decision making
• The importance of feeling empowered and the power to empower
• Faculty buy-in : appropriately using teacher leaders
• Parent participation : gaining support for decisions
• Decisions and school improvement
• Decisions and school bureaucracies
• In summary : we are family.

• Figures ix
• Tables xi
• Chapter 2 History of NAS and the Scale-Up Strategy 7
• Chapter 3 Research Approach and Methods 21
• Chapter 4 Findings on Progress Towards Implementation 35
• Chapter 5 The Influence of the Selection Process and School Climate 43
• Chapter 6 Influence of Design and Team Factors 59
• Chapter 7 Influence of School Structural and Site Factors 79
• Chapter 8 Influence of Jurisdictional and Institutional Factors 85
• Chapter 9 Caveats and Conclusions 107
• Appendix A Backgroound History of New American Schools 115
• Appendix B Descriptions and Designs 119.

New American Schools was established in 1991 to help schools transform themselves into high-performing organizations. This report is a formative assessment of the first two years (1995-1997) of the scale-up phase, during which NAS partnered with 10 jurisdictions to implement design-based programs for improving student performance. A series of lessons emerged from this analysis: (1) The effort at school reform is complex because of the multiple actors involved. (2) Design teams do not accomplish implementation by themselves but only with the cooperation of schools and districts. (3) Teachers found stable school and district leadership and clear signals about the effort's priority to be important. Perhaps the most important lesson is that there still are no silver bullets for ensuring the implementation of reforms, but several districts have made significant progress in the two-year period.