When examining school-level funding, the Chicago Panel discovered that schools with at least 90 percent low-income students average $350 less per pupil than schools with more affluent students. To overcome these inequities, the Chicago Panel proposed a finance system based on funding schools rather than school districts. (12 references) (MLH)

A study of 310 British school leaders' learning style preferences identifies a trend toward activist, as opposed to reflector, theorist, and pragmatist approaches. Education Reform Act changes are pressuring headteachers to act quickly and decisively as part of whole-school management teams. This has weakened their perception that analysis,…

Describes Audenshaw High School in Manchester, England, the first school to achieve grant-maintained status under the 1988 Education Reform Act, as an example of future school administration in the United Kingdom. Examines five aspects of budgeting that this change has entailed, highlighting funding problems and opportunities. (10 references) (MLH)

Deming's work emphasizes advantages of teamwork, investment in ongoing training for all employees to increase their value to the company, and insistence that research and employee-gathered data guide and inform every decision and improvement effort. The parallel between psychologist Mihaly Csikszenmihalyi's work and Deming's shows that Total…

Changes in the Australian public school principal's role have been sweeping and dislocating. Schools will move even further toward self-management under market conditions. To be effective, principals must be able to develop and carry out a cyclical process of goal-setting, need identification, priority setting, policy making, planning, budgeting,…

Since 1988, National Center for School Leadership at University of Illinois has systematically explored what school leaders can do to enhance classroom teaching and student learning. Articles in this section focus on NCSL findings and illuminate connections between leadership and reform. Researchers assumed leadership is multidimensional, student…

Educational revolutions in Great Britain and the former Soviet Union were initiated by charismatic national leaders, looked back to more "authentic" conditions where teachers and students dominated formal education, encouraged parent participation, and sought to destroy bureaucratic intermediary agencies in the educational…

The entire concept of shared decision making can be accommodated into collective bargaining if the parties involved begin by building trust and deal with matters outside of the contract. Community Consolidated School District No. 34 in Glenview, Illinois, has had apparent positive results in shared decision making. (MLF)

Discusses school-based management, explaining what PTAs need to be prepared for discussions about restructuring through school-based management. The article discusses origin of governance, school-based management councils, decision making, and parent-community involvement. (SM)

Educators at a Connecticut middle school are creating programs to help students develop more positive self-images within a safe, supportive learning environment. Schoolwide restructuring efforts led to teams of professionals concerned with school learning climate, team teaching, monitoring of pupil progress, staff development, at-risk students,…

The Kentucky Beginning Principal Intern Program provides supervision, assistance, and assessment for determining the effective instructional leadership abilities of new/beginning principals, emphasizing instructional leadership, school management, interpersonal skills, and professional responsibilities. Supporting intern committees complete three…

The problems attending democratic freedom and responsibility have not been solved since De Toqueville's day; improving democracy is each generation's legacy. Site-based administration is education's response to business/industry "downsizing" and a shift from assembly-line manufacturing to caseload service. Strategies to help SBM…

Outlines and evaluates Chicago's (Illinois) school reform efforts which used a school-based management experiment that granted authority to local parents, community representatives, and school professionals as a strategy for improving student achievement. It also covers recent trends in school-improvement efforts and discusses how extensively…

Draws on the results of two different studies to explore the changing nature of the principalship in Chicago public schools since the passage of the Chicago School Reform Act. It reveals changes not only in the characteristics of the principals hired since the act's passage but also changes in their roles. (GLR)

Examines three case studies picked from a longitudinal study of the effects of Chicago school reform and investigates school improvement under site-based management. Two elementary schools represent descriptive accounts of school reform and improvements, and one high school illustrates constraints on reform. (GLR)