Many years ago when the author assumed the role of assistant principal for school climate, discipline, and attendance, he inherited many school policies and guidelines that were outdated, unfair, and without merit in the current school climate. Because the school conduct code had not been revised since the school opened in 1960, many of the…

Current research indicates that new teachers want to be involved in school-level decision-making. Upon entering the profession, many novice teachers are surprised and disillusioned to find they have considerably less involvement and influence than expected. Based on strategies that have been developed, revised, and refined over a number of years…

The increasing recognition that children and young people should be consulted and involved in decision-making about their lives is reflected in national and international legislation. A great deal of this legislation, stemming from the UN convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), requires education authorities to consult children and young…

Most schools and districts have created an artificial distinction between working and learning. They operate in a way that suggests teachers work (teach) 180 or so days a year and learn (attend programs) on four or five days each year set aside for professional development. The author states that school leaders must end this distinction between…

The study describes an initiative to increase retention at a 2-year college in the Northeast United States. The process involved a collaborative, intrusive advising approach to intervene with students at-risk for academic failure or experiencing difficulty with the transition to the college. Components of the mixed-method design included…

The headteacher's role in school improvement and the changing nature of the role suggest the need to investigate how new school leaders learn their jobs, that is, their socialization to the leader role. This study has two purposes: (1) to identify the content and methods used in the professional and organizational socialization experiences of new…

Purpose: This article explores distributed leadership as it relates to two teacher teams in one public secondary school. Both situational and social aspects of distributed leadership are foci of investigation. Methods: The qualitative study used constant comparative analysis and discourse analysis to explore leadership as a distributed phenomenon.…

Many recent school-reform efforts have called for increasing decision-making power at the local school level. This report examines state differences in the amount of control that public school teachers believe they have over establishing curriculum; selecting textbooks and other instructional materials; and selecting topics, content, and skills to…

This report contains findings of an evaluation of the first phase of Tayside Region's (Scotland) Devolved School Management (DSM) scheme. The evaluation sought to evaluate the first phase of implementation and to suggest ways in which the scheme and accompanying training might be improved. Sixty schools chose to participate in the first phase,…

The Schools for the 21st Century (C21) Consortium was created in 1988 to produce change within 30 schools in a zone of the Seattle School District. Changes in four areas--staff development, networking among the schools, school-community linkages, and school restructuring--were implemented under "School Focused Leadership," a move toward…

This paper presents findings of a case study that explored the micropolitical strategies used by a principal to influence teachers in a school-based decision making context. The selected suburban school was located in the south-central area of Texas and had utilized school-based management for five months. The principal was recommended as…

This report discusses the application of the International Organization for Standards's ISO9000 quality assurance standard and Total Quality Management (TQM) to higher education in light of the "new collegialism." It defines the basic elements of ISO9000 and TQM, reviews the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, and notes efforts…

From September 4 to 6, 1996, the Committee on the Future of Arizona Community Colleges conducted a charrette, or structured decision-making process designed to develop consensus, to provide recommendations for improving Arizona's community colleges. In developing the charrette, the Committee issued a request for ideas in March 1996 and selected 79…

The School Community Based Management (SCBM) process for the Hawaii public school system, legislated in 1989, elicits input from administrators, teachers, support staff, parents, students, and community members. SCBM shifts some of the decision making powers to the school and can be adopted by a school on a voluntary basis. This study develops a…

This book follows a ficticious school community called "Dewey Middle School" in its transition from a traditional junior high school to a middle school. The stories were conceptualized around recommendations made in the 1989 report, "Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century." The purpose of focusing on one…