This case study shows how joint organizational efforts and individual initiative counteracted social structures inhibiting Latino students' pursuit of higher education. A high school principal, university president, institutional units responsible for student preparation and access to college, students, and their parents created social…

Based on visits to 11 schools in 6 urban areas across the country, this article describes the perspectives and behavioral responses of school staff to "reaching out" policies that lead schools to form partnerships with parents and community organizations for the purpose of enhancing children's development and academic achievement. All of…

This study of the school board agenda-setting role among 30 Minnesota superintendents interprets their perceptions in relation to environmental contexts, group demands, issues control, and district enrollment size. A microperspective of David Easton's political systems model provided the guiding conceptual framework. Respondents were interviewed…

Drawing on interviews with 180 staff members from 45 public high schools in 15 states, this document examines the advantages and disadvantages of teacher participation in shared decision making. The settings of six high schools that had structured mechanisms for teacher participation in school decisions are described, and problems that emerged…

A 1982-83 study conducted at Brigham Young University compared K-12 rural schools with fewer than 300 students to those with enrollments of 301-900, using information from districts in 45 states. Of the 15,601 American K-12/1-12 public school systems, 1,414 (9.1%) were identified as enrolling 300 students or fewer, and 2,711 (17.4%) enrolled…

The study reported in this document examined how special education administrators and staff in 100 school districts were involved in the adoption of new educational technology. The sample was drawn from the known population list of operating school districts from the Common Core of Data of the National Center for Educational Statistics. Selection…

A study explored the relationship between job satisfaction and teacher turnover of practicing and former vocational education teachers in Northwest Ohio. Factor analysis, discriminant analysis, and an instrument with 38 job satisfaction indicator statements were used to determine these relationships. A total of 745 of 1,025 practicing teachers and…

Understanding effective school leadership as a function of culture building through quantitative and qualitative analyses is the purpose of this paper. The two-part quantitative phase of the research focused on statistical measures of culture and leadership behavior directed toward culture building in the school. The first quantitative part…

This survey project of 129 randomly selected school systems in Ontario, Canada, investigates: (1) dominant patterns among secondary principals' practices and their effectiveness in the improvement of school processes and outcomes; (2) differences in practices between elementary and secondary school principals; (3) factors determining secondary…

This monograph, structured for administrative use in analyzing and building systems for selecting teachers, outlines the legal, applied, and theoretical issues of teacher selection. This overview is presented in five sections. "Legal Aspects of Teacher Selection" examines individual rights and employer reactions in relation to federal and state…

This study examined instructional leadership in eight diverse secondary schools in four urban, suburban, and small-city school districts in one western state. The aim was to gain access to a set of schools that provided both variety in instructional leadership and diversity in school size, organization, grade level, faculty and student…

The development of continuing education programs for school administrators has traditionally relied on the formal survey and the utilization of small samples of practicing administrators to provide direction to program planners in designing inservice activities. The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility, validity, and…

While the initial phases of instructional program development are heavily dependent on knowledge sources outside the classroom, knowledge developed in the classroom by the individual teacher is usually vital to program implementation. Interviews with teachers, principals, and district administrators connected with four urban elementary schools…

Using ethnographic case study methodology (involving open-ended interviews, participant observation, and document analysis) theories of administrative organization, processes, and behavior were tested during a three-week observation of a model comprehensive (experimental) high school. Although the study is limited in its general application, it…

This report identifies and describes practices that support the achievement of students enrolled in five high performing, high poverty elementary schools. Findings indicate that despite variations, the school share many similarities in terms of the strategies they employ to strengthen academic performance: (1) the schools embrace the belief that…