The psychological fallout of school restructuring can paralyze central office staff. Superintendents need effective incentives to keep people engaged in organization-building. They must create a trusting, risk-taking environment, develop a shared mission, empower staff to make decisions, provide learning opportunities, afford professional…

Based on the author's experiences working with several elementary schools, this article explores numerous issues confronting change agents who venture directly into grass-roots school reform projects. Focus is on the change-agent role and issues concerning ideology, power, and commitment. Outside consultants should be participants rather than…

Two studies demonstrate that teachers' views of administrative behavior have profound implications for the reactions of teachers to school policy matters in general and to evaluations of their teaching in particular. (Editor)

If school-based management means shift in decision-making authority, all school operations and organizational roles will be affected. Progress may be impeded by participants' traditional mind sets about power, winning and losing, problem solving, model programs, and everyday reality. These and other implementation problems may be resolved using…

After describing the nature, promise, and reality of school-based management, this document discusses delegation of authority to the school site and distribution of authority among site participants as critical issues in the implementation of school-based management and reviews the importance and benefits of shared decision making. Eight major…

Two studies were conducted to determine the degree to which various types of power were employed in the classroom and the effects of each type on both cognitive and affective learning. The primary focus of the first study was to determine the degree to which teachers and students shared perceptions of the use of power in the classroom. Power was…

This paper presents a critical analysis of events that surrounded the efforts of four mothers to gain access to the educational decision-making process. A basic premise is that a hegemonic relationship based upon gender pervades American education. The roles of administrator and parent are "gendered" concepts that affect the ways that…

This study examined the relationship between leader power and the amount of conflict with teachers' perceptions of their empowerment. Drawing from the literature, the study identified underlying dimensions of empowerment as teachers' involvement in decision making, and teacher impact, status, autonomy, opportunities for professional development,…

According to legislation, a teacher center governing board should be composed of a majority of elementary and secondary teachers, including those from the special and the vocational fields; representatives from local institutions of higher education; and the school board. A simulation game, designed to provide board members with an understanding…

The managerial mystique is built around a core that is mathematical in rationale, steeped in business jargon, male in orientation, and predicated on assumptions about power relationships. To the extent that it is all of these, it is an obstacle to women. Tracing the history of managerial inroads into education and reviewing recent research related…

This study of the school board agenda-setting role among 30 Minnesota superintendents interprets their perceptions in relation to environmental contexts, group demands, issues control, and district enrollment size. A microperspective of David Easton's political systems model provided the guiding conceptual framework. Respondents were interviewed…

Four dimensions (work tempo, professional focus, career reward structure, and sense of personal power and efficacy) involved in public school-university collaboration are examined. The study had the objectives of using summated rating scales to measure shared perceptions and to describe work perceptions of professional educators. A questionnaire…

This paper examines the relationship between Paulo Friere's philosophy and methodology in "Pedagogy of the Opressed" and the use of simulation games for consciousness raising. Friere suggests that the supposed insurmountable barriers facing oppressed peoples are as much a product of their perceptions as they are of the oppressor. The…

The paper presents a detailed overview of educational policymaking and discusses the need for minority groups to be involved in policy formation. The first section describes the distinguishing characteristics of the main elements of the functions of administration and policymaking process. The second section examines the following three models of…