Bringing School Reform to Scale: Five Award-Winning Urban Districts

Zavadsky (policy and communications, Institute for Public School Initiatives, U. of Texas), who has served as a project director of the Broad Prize, examines five school districts that have been honored recently by the Broad Foundation, whose annual award is granted to urban school districts that show the greatest overall performance and improvement in student achievement while also reducing achievement gaps among poor and minority students. She details the successes of the Long Beach and Garden Grove Unified School Districts in California, Norfolk Public Schools in Virginia, Boston Public Schools, and Aldine Independent School District in Texas, and the paths they have taken over years of focus on the sustainable improvement of teaching and learning and the alignment reforms at all levels of their systems, through use of an organizational schema. She then compares the districts through the National Center for Educational Achievement Best Practice Framework themes and other factors. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)