The school improvement process of the Springfield (Massachusetts) Public School System is offered as a model for school reform. The efforts in Springfield began from the premise that institutions do not reform themselves, and that pressure from the outside, enough to be noticed, but not enough to disrupt, was necessary to spur reform. The work in…

This paper presents, describes, and explains the results of Project SIGN (a school improvement groups network) collaboratively conducted by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the Camp Lejeune Dependents' Schools during the 1989-90 school year. The collegial, professional in-service program, designed to improve school effectiveness…

This Senate bill would initiate a variety of measures aimed at improving the recruitment, retention, and professional development of qualified elementary and secondary school teachers. It focuses these efforts particularly where acute teacher shortages have been identified, including shortages of minority teachers, teachers for limited English…

Successes and setbacks of 14 school-university partnerships in the National Network for Educational Renewal (NNER) are discussed in relation to the general characteristics of individual and institutional change cycles. Six observed problems related to achieving NNER agenda are as follows: (1) misunderstandings about the agenda; (2) diversity of…

The Tyler (Texas) Independent School District's Instructional Leadership System, which is based on the premise that effective leadership is the basis for the success of the instructional program, is described and evaluated in this report. The system is described in terms of administrative organization; management design; the system's basis in the…

This report presents the preliminary findings of the District/Secondary School Study. The study had two purposes: (1) to identify ways of managing urban high schools to produce excellence, and (2) to recommend policy-relevant guidance to existing school and district administrators. The study design focused on the testing of two specific theories…

Addressed is the administrative dilemma of principals' and teachers' sharing decision-making and its effect on strong instructional leadership. The findings were developed as part of an exploratory field study conducted in six public middle schools in a large urban school system. The sample consisted of five black male and one white female…

A growing number of educators are focusing their efforts on improving the work environment of teaching. In place of the typical school's norms and practices that isolate teachers from one another, collaborative schools have norms that encourage teachers and principals to cooperate for school improvement. Such schools are characterized by frequent…

Reviews school reform movements and strategies. Describes, in depth, the School Development Program (SDP), whose key factor is parent involvement. Demonstrates the empirical validity of the elements of the SDP. (FMW)

Addressing the underlying tension that generally exists between school-level autonomy and systemwide uniformity, the author's nine commandments include recognizing the school as the key organizational unit in public education, selecting and nurturing first-rate principals, and granting more budgetary authority to the school level. (JBM)

Selections in this book, which grew from a seminar at New York University between 1994 and 1996, discuss the recent educational innovations of charter schools, contracting arrangements, and choice that are designed to liberate educators and raise the levels of opportunity for all students. The essays, which focus on the urban experience, explore…

This study investigated how teachers described current decision making structures, culture, and the power/micropolitics of their work, examining how they used their agency to accomplish work and make decisions together under Florida's reform. Data came from interviews with 1996 and 1997 elementary educators selected as teachers of the year. The…

This document consists of the six issues of the "Abbott Bulletin" published during 1998. The "Abbott Bulletin" is a one-page per issue newsletter that reports on developments in response to a set of rulings by the New Jersey Supreme Court in the Abbott v. Burke case. In its fifth ruling in the Abbott case in May 1998, the Court…

This paper reports on a study to determine if teacher self-efficacy in site-based managed schools differed from teacher self-efficacy in schools that were not site-based managed. The study also examined whether there was a relationship between self-efficacy in site-based managed schools and schools that were not site-based managed in regards to…

This article presents the traditional view of schooling as a barrier to reform; it explicates the learner-centered vision of schooling as an alternative, identifies the underpinnings of the learner-centered approach to schooling, and explores how this vision of schools as learner-centered environments might be enacted. (SM)