School Reform Networks at a Glance
This is a resource guide to some of the nation's largest and best known programs of school improvement and reform. The school-reform networks webfiles were put together and are updated and maintained by the students of the University of Texas Pan American and their Professor Dr. José R. Llanes. A school-reform network is a group that: 1) provides services to schools and/or school systems and, 2) has as its stated purpose the improvement of educational outcomes in K-12 education.

In order to qualify as a School Reform Network,the group must have over 25 members and its services must be available to any school districts across the nation who wishes to join. State-wide networks qualify only when they expand to serve other states. Each organization (marked in red in our index) was surveyed and asked to describe its mission, its scope of activities, its educational philosophy and its strategies for improvement of the nation's schools. These descriptions were then edited for space. The list is not meant to be all inclusive. There are far too many reform networks to include them all. For example, the list does not include any of the numerous subject-matter organizations. Instead, it focuses on groups that are working on whole-school reform or on the professionalization of teaching.

How are these reviews put together?
University of Texas - Pan American students enrolled in ED 6381 Issues in Organization and Administration of Public Schools at the masters level and ED 8345 Issues in Educational Leadership at the doctoral level, are assigned the task of periodically surveying the networks by mail and phone. Teams of students are assigned to review one or two networks in depth. They write a "Program Review" paper that focuses on the program's effectiveness and is written so as to be useful to policy-making staff in school systems. The professor's criteria is that the paper be accurate, balanced and optimally useful to those decision-makers in school systems who are presently considering their membership in one of these networks.

If you want to submit a program for review write to us: jrl001@auburn.edu