Programs of School Improvement: An Overview.

E ducators have become increas ingly convinced that the charac teristics of schools are important determinants of academic achievement. Since 1978 an extraordinary number and variety of school improvement pro grams have concentrated on a school effects interpretation of the relationship between achievement and family back ground. Such programs represent a ma jor educational reform and derive from a fairly rapid educator acceptance of the research of Brookover and Lezotte (1977), Edmonds(1979), ftutter (1979), and a number of others who have stud ied characteristics of both effective and ineffective schools.