Cuban says schools reflect our society's fascination with fads, which increases their vulnerability to pressures from different constituencies. The most long-lasting innovations have avid supporters and equitable intent. Kindergarten and preschool education are prime examples. Policymakers' efforts to change classroom teaching practice usually…

Instead of inviting public engagement, the current educational system reinforces a hierarchical, bureaucratic pattern that gives neither students nor parents an official voice. Today's parents are demanding, more market-oriented, and organizing on the Internet. Strategies for fully involving parents in improvements for the common good are…

Natural experiments explored the effects of attending public Philadelphia K-to-8 schools or public middle schools on eighth- and ninth-grade achievement. Found that students attending K-8 schools had higher reading, mathematics, and science achievement than students attending middle schools serving similar communities. Suggested that number of…

There is a profound cultural chasm between K-12 and higher education. School Board members can play an important role in calling attention to interlevel connections. Major issues include equity factors and lack of congruence between the expanding state standards movement and college admissions and placement practices. (MLF)

An important subset of issues involved in describing the process of educational globalization emerges when considering the reception, response and/or rejection of international proposals, ideologies and agents by indigenous national and regional educators. This case study describes and discusses how foreign/Western education proposals and policies…

A two-year qualitative study of mathematics and English teachers in two urban comprehensive high schools investigated how teacher community serves as resource for teacher development and school reform. A school engaged in whole-school reform sustained high teacher commitment and school-level community by constituting professional community…

"On the day we heard that there was agreement to establish an upper secondary school in the region, every house in Snaefellsnes flew the Icelandic flag," explained one parent in the first workshop to develop the Snaefellsnes Upper Secondary School. The new school in this rural Icelandic region will be a "meeting place to learn"…

It has long been assumed that schools which were "effective" with respect to one set of outcomes (usually academic performance) were generally more "effective" in relation to others. This article reviews the last three decades of British evidence across a range of affective, social and other non-cognitive outcomes including:…

This article reports on a study of teachers in New South Wales (Australia) and their practices surrounding outcomes assessment and reporting, which took place in 2003 and 2004 as a follow-up to a major study in 1995. The study explored whether the main focus of a teacher's work involves planning, teaching, assessing, rewarding and sharing in their…

Protests the trend to turn cultural analysis into a managerial tool by arguing that our research on school culture has only skimmed the cultural surface, and demonstrating the promise of language analysis for research on school culture. (BJV)

Educational reform depends more on clearly defined missions and operational efficiency than on improved teacher quality. This article defines adequacy, equality, equity, and efficiency; examines numerous production function studies of teacher characteristics and policy and administrative structures; and summarizes seven policy implications.…

Recent state reforms that embrace the effective schools movement may actually be counterproductive. These mandates encourage the persistence of outmoded, teacher centered, pedagogical practices and current school organizational structures, inhibiting the development of students' independent reasoning and problem-solving skills, as well as the…

Sets forth the essential characteristics of Japan's approach to education, including the content, structure, and objectives of public schools; teaching conditions, teaching methods, and the characteristics of teachers; the role of parents; the role of supplemental private education; and the cultural factos that underlie the system's…

Offers a comparative framework for school organizations which illustrates tacit differences in teacher role expectations inherent in unique types of organizations. Expresses the central idea that the effective classroom teacher's role is operationally defined by the organizational system in which the teacher functions. (CSS)

Discusses strategic planning of the University of Wisconsin-Madison to facilitate the 1998 accreditation process and achieve alignment with the campus vision. Describes campuswide framework, with learning as the theme connecting the university's structures, and the models used to facilitate accomplishment of goals. (YKH)