Prevailing among college students is the belief that higher education is but a mechanism for achieving material prosperity. This perception has impelled them to focus ever more narrowly on ever more specialized fields in a system that has jettisoned broader concerns about the human condition. Karl D. Stephan calls on schools to carve out a place…

During the last two decades teachers in many countries have found themselves facing new demands and changes. In his "intensification thesis" Apple made a powerful attempt to conceptualize and explain these changes: the growing economic and management oriented perspective on education leads to intensification of teachers' work, implying deskilling…

This article presents a study that explores the relationship between charter schools and teacher autonomy. The theoretical framework is based on the charter school concept, whereby three policy levers--choice, deregulation, and accountability--lead to various goals for the charter school. One of the first and foremost of these is the enhancement…

The 2012 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education was designed to provide up-to-date information and to identify trends in the areas of teacher background and experience, curriculum and instruction, and the availability and use of instructional resources. A total of 7,752 science and mathematics teachers in schools across the United…

This paper examines the School Culture Survey developed by J. Saphier and M. King (1985) and its association with school and teacher characteristics. The research was conducted in the context of a Department of Education Fund for Innovation in Education grant to a large school district in the western United States. Participants were 27 principals…

In some educational systems, legislative action mandates teacher participation in decision making through the formation of policymaking bodies such as school councils. This paper presents findings of a study that investigated high school teachers' perceptions of empowerment in schools with and without school councils. The study investigated…

The purpose of this monograph is to heighten awareness about action research for both teachers and administrators involved in California middle level reform efforts. This approach to educational research is a means of developing knowledge through collaboration in a process that improves both student learning and professional autonomy. The…

Decentralization has driven educational reforms in Norway since the 1970s, but this has raised questions of who should assume responsibility for education. Ways in which principals and teachers are affected by reform initiatives, such as the change of established zones of control as represented by a work-time agreement for teachers, are presented.…

Findings of a study that examined the relationship among three variables of principal leadership--principal vision, environmental robustness, and teacher sense of autonomy--to school leadership are presented in this paper. Methodology involved an ex post facto analysis of a 1990 survey of 1,338 teachers in 34 Oregon public high schools. Interviews…

Discussions on how best to improve the professional status of teaching are necessarily based on certain consciously or subconsciously held assumptions of what the terms "profession" and "teaching" are. As a result, disagreements regarding the best way to improve teaching may be more the result of a difference in definition of…

The inherent political conflict between the professional decision-maker and citizen participation in those decisions is explored in the perceptions of city managers, planning directors, and school superintendents responding to a national mail poll. From the sample of 750 administrators, there were 406 (54 percent) returns, distributed almost…

A description is given of a faculty development program that is run by the faculty of the McCallie School, a private secondary school in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Three principles guide the program: (1) the quality of the educational program is the responsibility of the entire school community; (2) faculty that shares the responsibility for the…

For a variety of reasons, including overemphasis on professional autonomy, many classroom teachers experience disillusionment and feelings of isolation. This paper explores teaching clinics as a way to break down barriers and foster dialogue among teachers. The Schenley High School Teacher Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, developed a teaching…

Using the Rockefeller Foundation's project CHART (Collaboratives for Humanities and Arts Teaching) as a basis for the study, this book examines the demoralization and lack of status that plague the teaching profession today. The premise of the book is that doors will open toward empowerment if teachers are given the proper circumstances to become…

This Third Edition of the 1985 report, "Dialogue for Change," discusses options and examples of educational choice and teacher empowerment and summarizes developments between 1985 and 1987. The following key options are discussed in Chapter 1, "Proposed Options for Change": (1) magnet schools; (2) open enrollment; (3) purchase…