Observations of and interviews with teachers and administrators in three elementary and three secondary schools provided support for the hypothesis that the social organization of the school as a workplace affects the fruitfulness of staff development efforts and the effectiveness of the school as a whole. This report reviews the relevant…

Both time and circumstance have convinced many a school district that it must find a better way to educate its students. For many districts the way has been alternative schools and programs that offer students a choice of goals, structures, and approaches to curriculum. One report estimated that as many as 5,000 alternative schools would be in…

This report is an early release of a measurement instrument used in a longitudinal project Management Implications of Team Teaching (MITT), and is taken from a larger, technical Project MITT report, "Governance and Task Interdependence in Schools: First Report of a Longitudinal Study." The instrument, "task interdependence,"…

Part of a series of studies on higher education in different countries, this paper examines internal differentiation of Japanese higher education and the problem of coordination, using a comparative perspective. The crucial difference in the division of universities by subjects among different nations has been between chair and department…

This study investigated middle school organizational patterns and their impact on teachers' efficacy and perceptions of the working environment. Analysis of survey responses by 81 eighth grade teachers indicated that teachers on interdisciplinary teams with common planning time were significantly more positive than were teachers on…

For this study, middle-school teachers, students, and principals completed surveys on organizational climate, quality of life, and use of recommended middle-school practices. Student attitudes toward school life were only slightly affected by openness in faculty relationships; they were more affected by classroom organization and use of accepted…

Reviews the system of elementary education in the Republic of Ireland. Examines demographic data on the nature and size of school population and the organization of elementary education; describes curriculum at the junior and senior grade levels; presents research findings relating to reading, mathematics, science; and considers teacher and…

Reports on the effect of external political pressure on the distribution of influence in school districts. Focuses specifically on the influence exercised by school-level administrators and teachers on school-level policy. Expounds on a theory of local variation across institutional organizations using the High School and Beyond study. (CFR)

The purpose of this study was to examine the startup of a charter elementary school specifically designed to be fully inclusive. Twenty-one adult stakeholders, including parents, teachers, staff, and an administrator, were interviewed and asked a series of questions designed to solicit information about what they identified as strengths and…

Opinions of middle school students, called "transescents," were studied in an effort to provide feedback to adminstrators, parents, and teachers involved in program development in a school district with a K-5, 6-8, and 9-12 grade level configuration. Participants were 200 students from a school district in east central Michigan. A…

The relationship between educational finance and organizational effectiveness or "health" in 50 Connecticut high schools was examined. Data were collected using existing organizational health questionnaires and archival data. A sample was randomly selected from the population of public high schools in Connecticut. Seven…

This is an interim report of the longitudinal research presently being conducted by the staff of the Management Implications of Team Teaching (MITT) Project. The MITT Project examines a fundamental change in the organization of the instructional staff of the American elementary school generally referred to as team teaching or team organization.…

Land scarcity dominates the thinking of school planners in Singapore. Techniques for optimizing the use of land for schools include (1) the construction of multi-storied or high-rise schools; (2) operation of a double-shift system and, in some cases, a triple-shift system; (3) multiple use of educational spaces; and (4) construction of several…

The summary report, a condensed version of the final report of the Thai-Alberta Cooperative Assessment Project, is drawn largely from Chapter 8 of the final report and presents the essential nature, scope, and findings of a project involving data from over 5,000 Thai participants (principals, teachers, students, parents and alumni) in a sample of…

This paper distills from a research conference, arranged by the Council for American Private Education (CAPE), six questions that constitute an agenda for research on private education. Discussed after each of the following proposed questions are some of the past research studies relevant to the question, and the status of research in progress.…