ABSTRACT
Any adequate preface to a description of school improvement efforts in the USA within an international framework should begin with two American contextual considerations: the size/diversity of the nation and our history of seeking change in the name of improvement. School improvement research in the 1960s in the USA was limited to curriculum reform. Stallings and Kaskowitz conducted the Follow Through Classroom Observation Evaluation, which was the first effort to gather detailed classroom observational data in a large number of schools that were attempting to implement diverse reforms. Another well- known, large- scale study of the period was the Rand Change Agent Study, which focused on three stages of the change process: initiation, implementation and incorporation. One of the largest and most ambitious studies of educational change ever attempted in the USA was the Dissemination Efforts Supporting School Improvement study.
