Information Resources—Foreign

An Educators’ Guide to Schoolwide Reform found that only Direct Instruction, High Schools That Work, and Success for All made the grade. Commissioned by five education groups-including the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers-the report is the most comprehensive rating of school reform programs.  
Copies of the report, An Educators’ Guide to Schoolwide Reform, are available from the sponsoring organizations for $15.95 each for nonmembers and $12.95 each for members. The full text of the report is also available here

Educators Reference Desk is the mother of all education resources. It is sponsored by Syracuse University, the U.S. Department of Education and Sun Microsystems, of Mtn. View, California. AskERIC has been rated among the top 5% of all sites on the Internet by Point Communications.

For information about Direct Instruction, see the Association for Direct Instruction, which also has useful essays on mathematics, reading, grouping, and Project Followthrough.

The Center for Education Reform is a “spunky, non-blobby group”, based in Washington, D.C., which operates as a clearinghouse for innovative reforms in public education, especially charter schools. The Center maintains a comprehensive database of education reform efforts. 

Don Potter‘s site offers free phonics material and valuable essays.

Electronic Educational Excellence Network, a project of the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., features very knowledgeable articles and information about education reform in the U.S. Of particular interest is the Network’s report  “The State of State Standards,” by Chester E. Finn, Jr., Michael J. Petrilli, and Gregg Vanourek, July 1998. Three Fordham staffers summarize the findings of the five previous state standards reports and tease out some lessons for American education 

The Friedman Foundation, dedicated to the improvement in the quality of the education available to children of all income and social classes in the USA, whether that education is provided in government or private schools or at home.  See Bill Robson and Claudia Hepburn’s paper on this site, Learning from Success: What Americans Can Learn from School Choice in Canada.

PBS TV: The Battle Over School Choice.

Reading Reform Foundation, a UK-based group which promotes a type of phonics education.

UK Department for Education and Skills: performance tables.

Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance contains research and information on school choice and school reform policy.

U.S. Charter Schools.

Parents for Evidence Based Education - a U.S. group that provides education information based on high-quality research.

Clackmannanshire, U.K. Reading Study - a long term study on the benefits of synthetic phonics instruction PDF version.

Knowledge is Power Program

National Reading Panel

Mathematically Correct

Illinois Loop