Although educational leaders have been coping with declining enrollment for almost a decade, educational researchers have begun to focus on the topic only recently. The first part of this introduction to a special issue of the Peabody Journal of Education briefly summarizes the contents of the subsequent essays, which are intended to bridge the…

Recent research has suggested that the principal's role in the effectiveness of schools is far more important than had been believed earlier. What the principal's role typically is, what it ideally should be, and how it can be changed are the topics of this report. The first two chapters survey (1) the research on characteristics of principals of…

In its thirtieth year of publication, this volume is a comprehensive reference to state appellate and federal court decisions affecting the operation and governance of public elementary and secondary schools in the United States. This edition includes all cases relevant to public schools decided during the 1979 calendar year and reported in West's…

Describes one statewide process of basal series selection and outlines the concerns of eight groups involved in the process. (FL)

This paper explores what happens to the old central office when the familiar top-down structure of school governance is replaced by a charter-district system in which independent public schools operate on charters or contracts. For the most part, the paper examines districts that authorize and oversee a significant number of charter schools,…

Examines the challenges of providing educational leadership in rapidly changing rural school settings. Describes a leadership development model that stresses learning in action, examines the role and responsibilities of school boards related to educational leadership, and suggests that the Individual Education Plan process can be a model for…

Critiques views of the one-room country school experience in the Midwest states. Describes advances an alternative interpretation grounded in the social, political, and economic circumstances that impinged on local institutions, arguing that these schools may not have been the "laboratories of democracy" that conventional wisdom calls…

This report of a Virginia interdisciplinary task force on children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the schools reviews what is known about this disorder and presents recommendations to the Virginia Department of Education and local school districts. Recommendations include the need to provide a systematic program of…

This book identifies factors, structures, and procedures contributing to effective statewide coordination and governance of public colleges and universities. The heart of the book consists of descriptions of representative structures in 4 states, where interviews were conducted with 114 individuals--legislators, gubernatorial staff, system heads,…

Case law concerning the schools covers a variety of areas, such as the constitutional rights of students and teachers, that were not at issue to previous generations of school leaders. This monograph is the 15th in a series designed to help school officials keep up to date on current court decisions and their implications for local school district…

A model for improving school and classroom effectiveness must pay attention to: (1) leadership; (2) school climate; (3) supervision; (4) teacher behaviors; (5) student behaviors; and (6) student achievement. Chapter 1 of this book on effective schools and classrooms introduces these important issues and describes a model incorporating these…

This monograph is designed primarily to provide a broad scope treatment of case law involving public school issues. The cases included were selected from judicial decisions found in federal and regional reporters in the period from June 30, 1988, to June 30, 1989. Cases were selected on the basis of their relevance to contemporary problems in…

This report provides Minnesota legislators with background information on establishing state educational standards and periodic testing to measure student progress. Scientific management, the accountability movement, and the basic education movement were educational trends of the 1970's providing pressure on states to set standards to improve…

This report synthesizes the findings of four studies that focused on school districts as the center of focus for school-improvement efforts. The studies did not examine school systems that had been high performing for a long time; rather, they took their data from districts serving high percentages of students who typically struggle but were…

This book challenges fundamental assumptions about the opportunities for equity-minded educational reform, using data from case studies of districts nationwide and their experiences with court-ordered detracking. The case studies show how white, upper middle class parents exercised a disproportionate amount of power in local school policy making…