School-based management is only one way to restructure decision making and planning to create a collaborative and collegial ambience. Schools should not forsake the strong possibilities for improvement through applying effective schools research in exchange for pursuing uncertain goals associated with recent teacher empowerment and self-governance…

Efforts to empower teachers will be aided by parallel attempts to strengthen principals and other supervisors' ability to perform their job better. Principals need to be specifically trained in using personal power to help empower their teachers. Further research is needed concerning the exercise of power in schools. Includes nine references. (MLH)

Evaluates the Ohio Reading Recovery Program as a way to redesign teachers' work, empower teachers and affect the core technology of teaching. Analyzes data collected by a survey consisting of open-ended questions and categorical response items, using the restructuring paradigm. Discusses implications for school restructuring. (28 references) (MLH)

This paper draws on a three-year study of 24 schools involving classroom observations and interviews with teachers and principals. Through an examination of three cases, sets of leadership practices that focus on the learning of both students and teachers are described. This set of practices is called productive leadership and how these practices…

Purpose: After decades arguing the necessity of transforming schools into collaborative workplaces, teacher collaboration has been taken up by various discursive logics offering different viewpoints of the concept. This article reviews some of these discourses and looks at their main arguments, pointing to the contradictions and tensions between…

Teaching is a trade that hasn't yet discovered the power of self-transformation and self-rejuvenation. To become empowered, teachers must stop seeing themselves as victims of bureaucrats, citizens, and recalcitrant children. Only by restructuring their jobs from the ground up (by determining to serve children better) can teachers emerge as…

A teacher's identity is shaped by direct work with individual students, not by paperwork or competitive tasks. Teacher empowerment is grounded in teacher motivation, with emphasis on teacher-student relationships. Empowerment depends on relating new roles and decision-making tasks to classroom work, recognizing teachers for success with difficult…

Scientific management and hierarchical accountability tend to destroy dialogue and issue ideas as orders to be obeyed. Instructional technology packages can actually enslave teachers. The emendation or feedback loop built into all instructional systems should allow educators to alter design in the context of practice and help technologists design…

Examines the relationship between English primary teachers' professional autonomy and the increasing managerial control over teachers' work. Explores how teachers develop an understanding of the managerial culture in education and how they reconciled it with their ideas on teaching and learning, professional interest, and career aspirations.…

Educators embarking on school-based management/participative decision-making report changes in relationships not only between administrators and teachers and between management and unions, but also between teachers and their union. Decentralization means teacher empowerment at the local level, collaborative bargaining, union involvement with…

Analyzes the question of whether mentor teaching, career ladder, and teacher empowerment programs expand teacher opportunities. Describes several such programs now in place in American school systems. Concludes that teachers, teachers' organizations, administrators, and policymakers need to consider the long-range implications of teacher…

According to National Center of Educational Statistics data, principals perceive that their influence on schoolwide issues has increased slightly (from 75% in 1987-88 to 85% in 1993-94). Teachers perceive their own influence as remaining the same and primarily confined to classrooms. Only 35% of teachers said they had considerable influence in…

In his experiences as a prekindergarten teacher, this author was struck by a simple revelation that has informed and guided his teaching practice. He discovered that the things he enjoyed teaching most were almost always connected to his own passions and values. He found that during fascinating, teachable moments the most novel thing happened: He…

After reviewing the literature on the power of collaborative community in schools, the authors describe interview data collected from educators involved in collaborative change projects related to literacy. First, the authors interviewed a teacher from a middle school team that had changed their literacy instruction toward a more inclusive and…

If you are looking for a book that provides concrete advice for establishing group reflection, then "Talking Teaching" is the perfect choice. The work is the product of a 3-year grant-supported induction year program. College faculty from an associated group of colleges joined staff developers from a growing suburban district in creating an entire…