This bulletin focuses on the role that community plays in creating a positive school environment. Drawing from research and practice, it offers insights and suggestions for helping children form social bonds, instilling in them core values, and serving as a safe haven for those students whose home lives lack a sense of safety. The bulletin begins…

Although there has been a paucity of research on what effective secondary school principals do, two recent studies offer some clues. A 1983 report by William Firestone and Bruce Wilson asserts that a high school principal may best be able to influence the school through bureaucratic and cultural linkages. Bureaucratic linkages are formal enduring…

Data from seven California elementary schools suggest that effective instructional leadership is both multidimensional and sensitive to school socioeconomic status (SES); in low SES schools, it involves direct supervisory activity and attention paid to school climate. Twenty-six reference notes are appended. (MLF)

This newsletter summarizes a research project in Sweden aimed at studying the participation of school personnel in the school planning process. The project involved following the planning of three schools in Sodertalje where the personnel had been given the opportunity to participate. Project data were collected by attending planning meetings;…

Learning strategies can be defined as behaviors and thoughts in which a learner engages and which are intended to influence the learner's encoding process. Thus, the goal of any particular learning strategy may be to affect the way in which the learner selects, acquires, organizes, or integrates new knowledge. Good teaching includes teaching…

This loose-leaf compendium, the first in a projected series of five, includes three types of brief research summaries: "topical synthesis,""close-ups," and "snapshots." The single topical synthesis, by Greg Druian and Jocelyn A. Butler is entitled "Effective Schooling Practices and At-Risk Youth: What the…

Opinions abound on what students should wear to class. Some see student dress as a safety issue; others see it as a student-rights issue. The issue of dress codes and uniform policies has been tackled in the classroom, the boardroom, and the courtroom. This Policy Report examines the whole fabric of the debate on dress codes and uniform policies…

Research during the 1960s and early 1970s suggested that the different outcomes of schooling for different students were due to factors outside the school. There was no consensus among the researchers over which factors outside the school had the greatest effect on student achievement. Swedish educational research has made many important…

Many educational administrators are too overwhelmed by paperwork and too short of time, resources, and training, to be effective leaders. Yet some educators and schools are finding ways to make good leadership easier through improving time management skills, providing assistants, instituting administrative training programs, and cutting paperwork.…

Developing and pursuing a "vision" for school success is a crucial part of effective educational leadership. This document explores theoretical models of vision for school success and leadership forces in education; discusses principals as visionary leaders; offers practical advice on developing, implementing, and maintaining a vision for one's…

Factors that can powerfully affect an educator's ability to manage school change are culture, leadership, and readiness. Movement from bureaucracy to community, from isolation to collaboration, involves cultural changes. Managing the change process within a cultural context is influenced by the structural, human resources, political, and symbolic…

Recent research is beginning to shed some light on the nature and extent of violence and crime in American schools, the role that schools themselves play in producing, aggravating, or reducing school crime, and how changes in the schools can remedy social control problems. Data from these studies indicate that: (1) despite public opinion, school…

This bulletin is an overview of research that explores stress and suicide and its impact on the lives of American youth. Chapter 1 examines student-environment interaction as a means of identifying factors that contribute to students' feelings of distress or perceived inability to cope with their internal or external world. Chapter 2 presents…

The two articles in this issue of "Network" report on the comments of speakers and participants in the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) 1992 Networkshop. "Systemic Reform: Teachers and the Conditions of Teaching," discusses: the evolution and definition of systemic reform; systemic reform in relation to systems involving federal…

Over the last 20 years, the college enrollment rate of Latino high school graduates has dropped dramatically in comparison to that of non-Latino Whites. Among college graduates, the only category in which Latinos earned a degree at a higher rate than non-Latino Whites was at the associate's degree level. Latinos have nearly reached parity with…