A Study On The School Improvement Grants Program In The United States

School improvement is a kind of school change with clear goal and a strong driving force to promote the education fair. With the advancement of compulsory education in our country, the low-performing school has become one of the "bottle neck" of balanced development of compulsory education in our country. Although our country has put forward specific plan on low-performing school improvement, it still has a series of problems in the process of policy making, fund input, school leaders, teachers’ professional development, the quality of students, school culture and so on. The School Improvement Grants Program in the United States is improved by more than half a century school experience summary.It is the crystallization of the progress of school improvement development. Through the appropriate identification of the standard and selection of improvement model, detailed improvement strategies and clear division of responsibilities of organization and management, the school improvement, especially the low-performing school improvement has achieved some results under the joint efforts of the department of education at all levels in the United States. This study begins with the analysis of background of the School Improvement Grants Program, and has a deep research on the School Improvement Grants Program’s main content, improvement strategy and organizational structure, and selects the California’s School Improvement Grants Program as a case to analysis the implement of the program, then analyzes the characteristics and effect of the School Improvement Grants Program. Finally, the study makes some enlightenments and references for the problems existing in the low-performing school improvement in compulsory education stage in China.The introduction of the School Improvement Grants Program in the United States has its specific historical and realistic background. The development of the school improvement in the United States mainly divided into three periods:germination, development and maturity. Its realistic background are American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 promoting the multiplied increase of the education expenditure, fair and efficient policy value orientation, the low-performing school improvement in the United States coming into the bottleneck period. The main content of this program include the goal of it is to help the lowest-performing school. It defines the low-performing school into three levels:Title 1,Title 2,Title 3.There are four school improvement models of it:turnaround model, restart model, school closure, Transformation model and its concrete content. The specific improvement strategies of the School Improvement Grants Program are divided into five parts. It includes the reform of educational philosophy, teacher professional development, curriculum and teaching reform, study plan and schedule, support and guarantee for student need. In order to guarantee the smooth implementation of the program, the department of education the in the United States subsidies the objects in three levels’assessment standards. And through the establishment of organizational structure to supervise and control the program, In the implement of the program, choosing the California state as a case research to analyze and summarize the implementation mode and experience of the program in the California state. Based on the study above, further analysis and summarize the characteristics of the program. And summarizing the achievements and shortcomings from the process of implementation of the program.