Third-year outcomes of Re:Learning, a national collaborative effort to redesign the total school system, are presented in this report. The introduction describes the rationale underlying the preparation of the status report and describes the project. The next section describes the 1990-91 activities of Pennsylvania's nine Re:Learning development…

This booklet contains four selected conference papers on educational reform and restructuring. In "Can Rational Organization Models Really Reform Anything? A Case Study of Reform in Chicago," Fenwick English describes reform efforts in the Chicago Public Schools and examines the political, social, organizational, and bureaucratic factors that have…

This paper examines the nature of educational changes in Australia, places them in a historical perspective, and describes their implications for the teaching profession and education system. Harrison's (1979) model of the school as a socio-technical system is used to explore current changes in the locus on decision making in New South Wales…

The School-Based Improvement Project (SBIP) is a joint venture of the Office of Community Education of the Massachusetts Department of Education and the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents (MASS). SBIP is a multiyear professional-development initiative designed to help public school superintendents become effective leaders in…

This document analyzes six school-reform models for at-risk youth. Part 1 examines three curriculum-based reform programs that explicitly target curriculum and instruction: Reading Recovery; Success for All; and the Academy model. These programs focus on changes in student achievement and work within the structure of existing schools. Part 2…

This paper examines the change process that occurred in four elementary schools that implemented a participatory mode of school organization, the Accelerated Schools model. Methodology included document analysis and a total of 35 interviews with teachers, administrators, social workers, and parents. Findings indicate that: (1) the principal's…

In the Australian state of Victoria, virtually all decisions about spending, curriculum, and personnel are made at the school level. Victoria's experience in developing a system of school-based management (SBM) and shared decision making offers a perspective on school reform efforts in the United States. Underlying the school restructuring trends…

There are many forms of school decentralization within and among countries. This paper presents findings of a study that compared decentralization efforts in England and the United States to identify changes that have been made in school-management structures and the effect of these changes on school operation. Data were derived from: (1)…

The relationship between the political context of school districts and their choices of decentralization policy is explored in this paper. It was expected that district politics would affect decentralization policies in two ways: the form of decentralization adopted and the degree of change. The decision to decentralize in three large urban school…

This report summarizes an evaluation of Shared Decision Making (SDM) in Los Angeles (California) schools and also includes some comments about School Based Management (SBM). SDM is a democratization of local school decision making that delegates decisions formerly made by principals to local school leadership councils composed of teachers,…

Few efforts have been made to inject teachers' voices into discussions on school restructuring. Qualitative, in-depth interviews were conducted with 14 teachers to ascertain what the "average" teacher thinks about restructuring. The majority of interviewees held positive perceptions about restructuring, but opinions differed on the feasibility of…

With the passage of legislation providing financial rewards for merit schools, the Dade County Public Schools and the United Teachers of Dade negotiated a program, now known as the Quality Instruction Incentives Plan (QIIP), designed to recognize significant improvements in student physical and academic achievement. The success of QIIP initiated a…

In 1988, the East Baton Rouge (Louisiana) Parish School System implemented an education reform plan to reduce mandatory busing by offering a controlled choice plan allowing educational options. Two years later, parent and community involvement in schools has improved and white enrollment has increased. To understand why a few schools have had…

Factors that influence the perceptions held by school site council members and others about the quality of site-based management (SBM) are examined in this study. Specifically, the relationships among a group's assessment of SBM, perceived level of influence on council decision making, perceived level of support from other groups, and perceived…

While research on school-based review is in progress, and while--thus far--it has proved difficult to show a causal link between school self-evaluation and educational improvement (especially when pupil performance is the main criterion of success), some schools have been quick to implement decisions regarding the curriculum that have arisen from…