The essential elements of school board governance involve four dimensions: (1) setting the vision for what the community wants the public school program to be; (2) ensuring that districts have a solid staff infrastructure to achieve the vision; (3) setting standards; and (4) advocating for schools. (MLF)

College and university administrators can apply lessons learned from corporate management to expected financial pressures of the 1990s. Problems requiring strong leadership include unclear expectations of staff; weak measurement systems; accelerating change; and the strangling effects of excessive administrative processes. (DB)

Compares some Western and Russian school-management approaches. Drawing on Larry Cuban's work, reveals differences in language and terms used; shows deep cultural differences in how scholars study the field; explains difficulties in performing some transcultural reconceptualizations; and demonstrates how alien approaches can facilitate scholars'…

Describes a rationale and method for crafting and analyzing personal/professional stories of leadership and administrative practice, based on doctoral students' interviews with experienced school administrators and educational leaders. Stories illustrate explicit rules used by administrators to manage problems and the more tacit assumptions…

This article describes Outcome Based Management components, including identifying highest level outcomes, targeting priorities, clarifying outcomes, maintaining stakeholder collaboration, declaring realities, producing stakeholder benefits, outlining needs, establishing rules, comparing results, productizing around outcomes, providing feedback,…

As a matter of survival, we need to educate current and future generations to live sustainably. We need to ensure that future generations have access to quality environmental education. This paper provides guidelines for educators and managers to use to better understand and manage the learning environment in which environmental education,…

The author lampoons twenty-first-century academic priorities. Using a fictional campus facing state-mandated budget reductions, the author parodies a system that retains high-salaried administrative and public relations positions, special-interest majors, athletic programs and junior/ad-hoc faculty, while relinquishing admissions staff, library…

This essay considers recent implications of "new public management" (NPM) strategies for the universities of Germany. It argues that NPM poses a threat to the traditional values of the academic profession, and asks what the universities should do to restore public trust in their methods and management.

Meeting the needs of the school community in the Australian context in current times has become a complex task, due to substantial school restructuring over the last three decades. More and more, schools are required to engage, and be accountable for developing programs that address the needs of the school community, while satisfying…

Three decades of mounting academic and testing requirements are snagging growing numbers of students in the 9th grade. "The bulge" is the name education researchers give to the percentage increase in students in the 9th grade over the same period. This article reports on factors that might explain the growing 9th grade bottleneck and…

In 1983, Burton Clark published a study that was to become a classic work on the organisation and government of higher education systems (Clark 1983). He constructed three "ideal types" of system--state system, market system and professional system, and summarised the way that national systems of higher education are dependent on the…

Communities of Practice offer state agency personnel a promising approach for engaging stakeholder groups in collaboratively solving complex and, often, persistent problems in special education. Communities of Practice can help state agency personnel drive strategy, solve problems, promote the spread of best practices, develop members'…

The guide is designed to help states and localities create or strengthen their own youth councils. It is a synthesis of theory and practice that provides a general framework for thinking about youth councils, explaining the principles for youth action and the importance of youth engagement. It also incorporates advice and lessons from people in…

This article seeks to replace the traditional and authoritative staff appraisal at a case-study school by a concept of performance management depicted as the performance enhancement and peer appraisal of teachers. It is achieved by elaborating an open system of performance management where teachers are empowered within the existing vertical…

There is a large literature on the productivity of universities. Little is known, however, about how different types of leader affect a university's later performance. By constructing a new longitudinal data set, I provide evidence that the research quality of a university improves after it appoints a president (vice chancellor) who is an…