Middle school transition brings with it considerable change for those involved. Using corporate and industrial management theories and practices presents a rationale for wholesale and comprehensive educational change. (six references) (MLF)

In an interview published in the June 1980 issue of "Principal," Paul Collins, pioneer principal of a model New Hampshire middle school, called for a real understanding of preadolescent students. The school has continued its experiential learning emphasis and has become involved in action research projects, such as an intensive inservice…

The education reform movement that began in the 1980s has produced disappointing and unsatisfactory results. This book asserts that the reform movement must be reformulated, and that this information is possible and even likely for a new and vigorous effort to save the children and the schools. It argues that the reform movement is rooted in a…

Focus groups are planned each year to gather regional needs assessment information on school restructuring as part of the Research for Better Schools (RBS) planning process. In spring 1991, RBS staff gathered rich, contextual data from five focus group discussions held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Newark, New Jersey; the District of Columbia;…

Organizational changes, within the existing structure of public schooling, have the potential to decrease the oppositional behavior of students and to foster humane, positive learning and working enviroments. It has been documented that managers can create organizational structures that promote positive behaviors and facilitate people's…

Educational restructuring, an emerging concept without a single definition or a definitive model, supports the notion of multiple alternatives. Typical school improvement and excellence initiatives do not, by themselves, constitute restructuring. Restructuring means that schools should be organized according to children's learning needs. To…

A case is made for public schools of choice based on major strands of evidence from the perspective of students, parents, and teachers. This is followed by a brief overview covering the extent of schools of choice, the nature of their support, their organizational features, and their accomplishments. The critical feature of the school choice issue…

New and continuing missions for the modern university are discussed. "Multiuniversities" are viewed as institutions with multiple purposes that have retained the basic university organization. The main response of multiuniversities to demands for cross-disciplinary activities has been the creation of relatively small centers and institutes each…

While history helps to trace the development of the American public school as a bureaucratic institution and the role of teachers within that institution, a more sociological view helps to clarify the authority relationships within the school and the teacher's role within that structure. It is the teacher's willingness to claim autonomy based…

This article emanates from a study of urban school teachers and administrators and discusses metaphors for the kinds of management styles encountered at a variety of schools. The intellectual histories of each type of management style--machinistic, organistic, market place, or conversational--are described and their educational applications are…

Examines the problems associated with maintaining ordinary senior middle schools (high schools) in China. Focuses specifically on the difficulties of paying equal attention to vocational and college preparatory programs. (BSR)

Instead of relying on largely unsuccessful partnerships between business and education, business needs to force its own agenda to help the U.S. regain competitive advantage in world economy. This article advocates free market choice; restructuring schools; professionalized, accountable teacher corps; higher academic standards; traditional values;…

Illustrating major points with specific examples (including a "Doonesbury cartoon), the main article faults schools' organizational efficiency and educators' ignorance of child development for forcing young children to work beyond their developmental readiness. An inset article presents the 19th century kindergarten as a haven for children to grow…

When the parents of school age children have significant relationships with their children's schoolmates, a particularly strong school-community relationship forms. Public schools in the United States are best organized to serve such functional, neighborhood communities, which are rapidly disappearing. School reorganization might renew community…

Presents an analysis of the concept of "teacher participation in school decision making," a set of empirically based hypotheses concerning the current scope and extent of teacher participation, and an outline for a systematic program of research that could provide information for policy development concerning teacher participation.…