Series Overview

Traditionally, schools that have wanted to improve have had to wander the wilderness looking for the right ideas and the help to bring them to bear. They have had to use valuable energy that could be directed at change instead of at their search for solutions.

But a growing national movement known as "comprehensive school reform" is giving schools the chance to choose designs for improvement from some of the nation's leading authorities - James Comer, Howard Gardner, and Robert Slavin, for example - and learn from years of study on how to make the models work.

Comprehensive school reform gives schools a chance to adopt a proven framework for schoolwide change - strict enough to guide educators through the inevitable tough issues, but flexible enough to let them resolve those issues in unique ways that consider the conditions in their own communities.

This series lets viewers look inside classrooms across the country to see how New American Schools, a leader in comprehensive reform, and its "Design Teams" are working with educators, administrators, students, and parents to improve student performance dramatically in all core subjects and all grades.

The Design Teams give schools the help they need to use these models effectively - both from national experts and from educators already using them. The workshops document how each Design Team takes a different approach to reaching the same goal: raising achievement for all students.

The series explores the tenets of each Design Team, and examines how the teams address critical issues such as classroom instructional practice, student assessment, and professional development. Viewers see the New American Schools designs at work in more than 20 schools.

The opening workshop features educators and experts, including Secretary of Education Richard Riley, discussing the momentum nationally for comprehensive school reform - including new federal aid to jump-start schools. The closing workshop examines the critical role school districts and their leaders play in supporting schools trying to transform themselves, and how New American Schools partners with districts.

The series can be invaluable to schools already planning to seek the new pool of federal and state dollars available to fund comprehensive school reform. They can hear the story of each Design Team from teachers, principals, students, and parents.

For newcomers to the idea of comprehensive school reform, the workshops can serve as the introduction to the great promise it represents. Rather than fragment schools' work with add-on programs or isolated projects, comprehensive reform improves the entire school, from curriculum and instruction to parent and community involvement. The Design Teams give communities the tools and advice to reshape what their children learn, how teachers teach, and how schools are organized to improve student performance.

Support resources for the series are available. They include a viewers' guide, which introduces each weekly segment and poses key questions to consider while viewing. The guide is available in print form and on the series Web site. The Web site also includes links to New American Schools and the Design Teams.