Cancer treatment outcomes have improved over the past 20 years, but treatment decision making in this context remains complex. There are often a number of reasonable treatment alternatives, including no treatment in some circumstances. Patients and doctors often have to weigh up uncertain benefits against uncertain costs. Shared decision making…

The aim of this article is to consider the implications for research involving people with intellectual disability--a vulnerable group--of ethics committees' attempts to apply these guidelines. The issue explored is whether committees such as Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECS) and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are becoming increasingly…

In May 2004, a group of 25 teachers at Jenks High School in Oklahoma received an invitation to the Summer 2004 Advance. Although many organizations hold retreats for their employees, the administrators wanted to send a different message: we're not retreating; we're advancing! Like many states, Oklahoma suffered a school budget crisis during the…

The trouble started when an anonymous e-mail alleged abuse of power at Centennial High School in Howard County, Maryland. Each week, the local paper reported new developments in the investigation. On top of that, the family of a Black student reported that a culture of racism existed at Centennial. At the end of the year, members of the community…

The Kingdom Come School in Linefork is now a public school, but it began its life in 1924 as part of the settlement school movement that was all the rage at the beginning of the twentieth century. The school was founded by Hiram Frakes, a methodist minister who wanted to create a community that valued education, and promoted opportunities for its…

In the debate over school-management reforms, some policymakers have argued for greater accountability and centralized control, whereas others have supported greater decentralization through school-based-management approaches of various types. The 1990-91 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics…

The push toward decentralization raises questions about the composition and areas of responsibility of site-based decision-making bodies. This bulletin answers these questions by examining data available from the 1993-94 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). All states reported having…

This paper presents information useful to educational leaders considering a labor-management cooperation (LMC) process. LMC is a mechanism for changing attitudes and building an atmosphere of trust between two traditionally adversarial groups. The first section outlines categories and provides examples of LMC cooperative efforts, highlighting the…

The practical issues of financial, human, and political costs involved in the restructuring efforts undertaken by five Washington State secondary schools, each of which is a member of the Coalition of Essential Schools, are addressed in this paper. The crux of the restructuring problem is to develop ways to provide staff members with the needed…

This paper asserts that traditional leadership models are inappropriate for Catholic schools and offers a new paradigm based on transformational Christian leadership. Christian leadership is a function of the group that is not synonymous with position or authority. Everyone has the potential to be a leader. Such leadership is communal, generative…

This paper discusses barriers encountered by leaders when they attempt to implement change and redirect the collective focus in groups. It describes co-creative relationships that occur when leaders and followers work together in a reciprocally responsible relationship based on a common purpose. The process of covenanting toward a common purpose,…

This booklet contains the stories of six teachers who discuss, step by step, how they each handled a specific restructuring challenge in their schools. They describe what strategies worked and what did not, and provide diagrams and checklists to help other teachers. Chapter 1 describes the implementation of a collaborative school-based…

Evaluations of school restructuring, particularly school-based management (SBM) and shared decision making (SDM), have tended to focus on problems of implementation and on its consequent failure to fulfill its promises. Inadequate resources, unclear responsibilities, inhibiting regulations, and institutional resistance have all been cited as…

Many communities have replaced top-down, highly centralized educational structures with a decentralized model in which decisions are made at the school level. This concept relies on broad participation and support from the school personnel and the community. However, the effort to decentralize schools often faces opposition. This problem can be…

This booklet describes one of the earliest staff development models to support school-based improvement, the RPTIM model. The letters "RPTIM" represent the five stages of the school-based approach to staff development--readiness, planning, training, implementation, and maintenance. The model is based on the belief that the school is the primary…