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This article describes accounts of grading reform initiatives that while well-intentioned, met with staunch opposition and eventually were abandoned. The implementation strategies employed by the leaders of these reform initiative are explored, along with reasons these strategies failed to result in meaningful and enduring change. Alternative grading reform strategies with supporting evidence are offered, justification for their use explained, and new directions for grading reform initiatives recommended.

This study sought to determine if the implementation of standards-based learning in high schools affects students' transition to learning in university courses. Surveys and interviews with 13 students who had graduated from high schools implementing standards-based learning and who had completed their first academic semester at a midsize, private, Midwest university revealed no detrimental effects. The most frequently mentioned transition difficulties related to social issues and time management. Implications for implementing high school grading reforms are discussed.

School leaders today are making important decisions regarding education innovations based on published average effect sizes, even though few understand exactly how effect sizes are calculated or what they mean. This article explains how average effect sizes are determined in meta-analyses and the importance of including measures of variability with any average effect size. By considering the variation in effect sizes among studies of the same innovation, education leaders can make better decisions about innovations and greatly increase the likelihood of achieving optimal results from implementation.

This study investigated the stability of students' grades in high school courses during the academic year. Records of over 8,000 high school students from five large southeastern high schools were analyzed to determine the relationship between the first achievement grade students were assigned during an academic term and their final course grades. Results showed that grades were remarkably stable, with correlations between first achievement grades and final course grades generally ranging between +0.4 and +0.7. Correlations were typically larger for 9th- and 10th-grade courses than 11th- and 12th-grade courses. Multiple regression results revealed that differences among departments (subject areas) were statistically significant, but differences among schools were not. Differences related to student gender, grade level, ethnicity, and poverty level also were statistically significant but modest in magnitude. The implications of such stability and its probable influence on student motivation are discussed. (Contains 6 tables.)

Although much has been written recently about gaps in the achievement of different groups of students, the problem has been with us for many years. This manuscript presents a historical perspective of the problem, viewing it as one of reducing variation in students' achievement. Specifically, it reviews the work of renowned educator Benjamin S. Bloom, who argued that to reduce variation in students' achievement and have all students learn well, we must increase variation in instructional approaches and learning time. Bloom also outlined a specific strategy to accomplish this instructional differentiation, labeling it "mastery learning." Bloom's work is described, along with common misinterpretations of his ideas and the results of research on the effectiveness of their implementation.

In recent years, different researchers and research agencies, teacher associations, national education organizations, and the U.S. Department of Education have published lists of the characteristics of effective professional development to guide school leaders in their improvement efforts. This study analyzed 13 of the better known of these lists to determine whether they were derived through similar procedures, based on similar frames of reference, and included the same elements or characteristics. Results show that individual characteristics vary widely in their frequency of inclusion in the lists and that no characteristic is consistently named in all lists. In addition, research evidence supporting most of the identified characteristics is inconsistent and often contradictory. Implications for leaders interested in improving professional development activities are discussed, as well as ways to enhance efforts to identify the characteristics of effective professional development.

Issues are presented concerning the reform initiatives which need to be taken by schools in order to improve the standard of education. The disadvantages of existing grading systems are discussed.