This commentary describes the limitations of 40-minute class period times. The forty-minute system makes hash of the lives of teachers, especially in small schools, and about 80 percent of high schools have fewer than two hundred pupils. These small schools crowd their forty-minute periods with as many diverse and unrelated activities as possible,…

Recent research in the human ecological tradition has made increasing use of causal modeling in the search for understanding of aggregate-level social processes. This approach has great appeal because it helps make hypotheses explicit, provides a convenient way to structure the application of statistical controls, allows the representation of…

Recent theoretical and empirical study has considerably refined knowledge as to the dynamics of peer processes operative within secondary schools, but has tended to neglect models incorporating reciprocal effects. This situation results partly from a scarcity of appropriate data, and partly from limitations of older methodologies of estimating…

Structural equation models incorporating unmeasured variables make possible the rigorous testing of theories previously difficult to test adequately because of fallible measures of the theoretic variables. This paper first discusses a simple causal model; incorporating a single unmeasured variable for the purpose of exposition. A substantive…

The implementation of year-round schools requires careful planning and management. An activity plan provides an effective technique for implementation and action by necessitating the outlining of goals and the identification of procedures and activities to achieve those goals. Additionally, it provides techniques for monitoring ongoing plans and…

The recently chartered city of Poquoson, Virginia, has a separate school division that is completely independent from New York County. The division superintendent describes in this practicum the processes involved in planning and constructing a new high school building. A building needs study was the first step followed by the selection of an…

The main article in this newsletter concerns the adoption by an architectural firm of elements of a systems approach as a means of providing school buildings responsive spatially and environmentally to educational change, and how these activities were later instrumental in facilitating entry by the architectural firm into the construction…