Towards a Theory of School Development -- Developing the Twenty-First Century School: A Challenge to Reformers -- Reconnecting Knowledge Utilization and School Improvement: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back -- The School Effectiveness Knowledge Base as a Guide for School Improvement -- The Contemporary Context of School Improvement -- School Evaluation and Improvement: A Scandinavian View -- Quality Assurance Reviews as a Catalyst for School Improvement in Australia -- Assessment and Accountability in Kentucky: How High Stakes Affects Teaching and Learning -- Tensions and Contrasts in School Improvement Strategies -- Innovations in Planning for School Improvement: Problems and Potential -- Curriculum Reform, Educational Change and School Improvement -- The Conduct of Inquiry on Teaching: The Search for Models more Effective than the Recitation -- Three Rival Versions and a Critique of Teacher Staff Development -- Why Teachers need their Colleagues: A Developmental Perspective -- The Effectiveness of School Improvement Strategies -- “World Class” School Improvement: An Analysis of the Implications of Recent International School Effectiveness and School Improvement Research for Improvement Practice -- “Inside-Out” and “Outside-In”: Learning from Past and Present School Improvement Paradigms -- Sand, Bricks, and Seeds: School Change Strategies and Readiness for Reform -- Using “Promising Programs” to Improve Educational Processes and Student Outcomes.ANDY HARGREAVES Department of Teacher Education, Curriculum and Instruction Lynch School of Education, Boston College, MA, U.S.A. ANN LIEBERMAN Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Stanford, CA, U.S.A. MICHAEL FULLAN Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada DAVID HOPKINS Department for Education and Skills, London, U.K. This set of four volumes on Educational Change brings together evidence and insights on educational change issues from leading writers and researchers in the field from across the world. Many of these writers, whose chapters have been specially written for these books, have been investigating, helping initiate and implementing educational change, for most or all of their lengthy careers. Others are working on the cutting edge of theory and practice in educational change, taking the field in new or even more challenging directions. And some are more skeptical about the literature of educational change and the assumptions on which it rests. They help us to approach projects of understanding or initiating educational change more deeply, reflectively and realistically. Educational change and reform have rarely had so much prominence within public policy, in so many different places. Educational change is ubiquitous. It figures large in Presidential and Prime Ministerial speeches. It is at or near the top of many National policy agendas. Everywhere, educational change is not only a policy priority but also major public news. Yet action to bring about educational change usually exceeds people's understanding of how to do so effectively.