Introduces a special section forecasting problems, delineating issues, and proferring strategies that should prove helpful as early childhood policies and programs are crafted. Today's programs are grounded in research that verifies the efficacy of early intervention, particularly for low-income children. School restructuring will play an…

Restructuring is this era's main contribution to improving America's schools. Teachers, parents, and communities must become more involved in school decision-making, and children need more choice in curricular decisions. Ten "commandments" for successful early childhood collaborations are presented. Care and education are inseparable.…

In late 1988, the Soviet Union's "perestroika" entered a new stage aimed at developing human resources and fostering democratic processes. Educators' and parents' discontent with the centralized bureaucracy and rigid educational administrative structure will press officials to formulate a comprehensive new education theory to achieve 19…

Efforts to improve American high schools must center on their most fundamental deficiencies. Out of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development's High School Futures Planning Consortium have evolved experience-based principles (outlined in sidebars) that other school leaders can adapt for improving their schools' organization,…

The Executive Leadership Program at Fordham University presents a model for practicing school administrators' continuing education that reflects a changing society and schools' changing needs. The program is based on four innovations: an intellectual/change agent approach; a clinical, field-based research experience; an instructional agenda…

Small elementary schools are frequently perceived as having discrete organizational problems that are intensified when such schools are located in rural areas. Article reports a study conducted in a Welsh local education authority that established clustering arrangements to resolve some managerial, administrative, and curricular problems. Views…

Examines the concept, implications, and dilemmas of school restructuring, whose meanings are confusing and complex. Restructuring can be synonymous with top-down reform or ruthless retrenchment or can signify redefined power relationships in classrooms, staff rooms, and schooling communities. This paper identifies four restructuring dilemmas…

For National Board certification to change teaching as a career, reformers must attend to accountability, monitoring, and quality-control concerns and demonstrate clearly how a staged career would attract and retain excellent teachers, revitalize pedagogy, strengthen instructional programs, and create more responsive schools. (Contains 44…

The shortage of school leaders, mainly caused by the growing complexity of the job is steadily growing in recent years. This study reports on the results of a comparative empirical study into the causes of premature departure for male and female principals in primary and secondary education. Principals who have experienced premature departure…

The behaviorist world view, influential in many social-science disciplines, is challenged by theories of action. With steady developments in nonbehaviorist thinking and related social-action conceptions, the study of school organizational structure can be transformed into a field centered about the dynamics of individuals' practical actions. This…

Promising research evidence linking achievement, empowerment, and parent participation are dwarfed by troubling indications of negative, infrequent interactions between families and schools. Middle-income parents seem to participate in school-based and home-learning exercises at higher rates than lower-class parents. The study summarized in this…

This paper applies the strategic planning process to the task of school renewal and improvement. After outlining the basic elements of stratgic planning (planning-to-plan phase, research, writing a mission statement, forecasting, contingency planning, and development of the strategic plan), the paper focuses on using this model to restructure…

Besides setting the tone for accomplishing student learning goals and effecting improvement, school climate serves as a determinant of teacher attitudes toward personal and professional growth and development. Bureaucratization of schools decreases teacher effectiveness through rules, controls, and reduced autonomy and authority. The formal…

Because they fail to set consistent goals or direct funds toward solving systemic problems, U.S. schools are not structured productively. A productive educational system would focus all its energies on a limited number of clearly defined, stable goals and align its functions to achieve them. Productive school leaders would establish standards,…

Teacher collegial groups (TCGs) may be a structure capable of promoting much-needed professional dialogue among teachers. This article frames TCGs within the organization development perspective, explains how one principal implemented a TCG in her school, and analyzes how the process affected a school's organizational culture. Includes 24…