This paper describes the progressive/collaborative model high school program, a model designed to facilitate student movement from special day classes into regular classroom environments with an ongoing emphasis on serving at-risk students. Charts outline options available to special education students through this model and differences between…

This paper is a proposal for supervision focusing on a definition of and rationale for leadership roles that provide support, development, and implementation of the curriculum process together with a school organization structure accommodating these roles and purposes. First, general perspectives on the supervisory process are offered, followed by…

This paper hypothesizes that both the structure and function of school systems are influenced by the following environmental factors: the institutional division of labor, the degree of homogeneity, the degree of stability, the degree of competition, and the amount and source of funding. Support for the hypotheses relies on open systems theory and…

Failure has frequently been the result of attempts to implement new educational technologies within a school organization that evolved in response to an older technology--the technology of the classroom, the blackboard, and the textbook. This failure may be due in part to specific causes in individual cases, but the pattern of failure suggests…

Although it is not without flaws, decentralization of the school administration--returning decision-making power to school principals and classroom teachers--can contribute to a return to humanistic education and to the elimination of assembly-line education. Researchers, curriculum developers, and educational publishers can help in this movement…

Applying matrix organizational structure to the organization of special education services is the focus of this paper. Beginning with a list of ways in which educational organizations differ from business or military organizations, the author warns that educators must be cautious when transferring organizational structures from other disciplines…

A replication of Peter Blau's theory of differentiation was carried out in a sample of 100 school districts. Blau has demonstrated that as organizations increase in size, the levels of hierarchy and the number of horizontal components increase at a decelerating rate with the result that large organizations have proportionately fewer administrators…

Some criticisms of high school have been concerned with what organizational theorists call operations technology. Broadly, technology refers to the work an individual teacher or the school's collective professional staff does with or for students, the school's "raw material." Technology can be studied more closely by separation into three…

The school superintendent for Duval County (Florida) describes his experiences in developing a school-based management organizational structure. The following elements are involved: (1) funds are allocated to schools based on needs of children in schools, (2) specific educational objectives for a school are set by people associated with the…

This paper discusses different approaches to analyzing the internal control structure of organizations and describes a model interview structure that was developed for use in a longitudinal study of decision-making in 41 elementary schools. The model is designed to garner objective accounts of school decision-making through periodic interviews of…

The author, editor of the National Society for the Study of Education yearbook on secondary education, reports some contentions and observations presented by the yearbook's chapter authors. Each author addressed one of nine central issues. The issues are in the areas of the individual, values, social realities, man's experiences, education's…

Considering the science teacher's role in the implementation of environmental issues in school, a survey was carried out (Benetti, 1998) to identify science school teachers' perspectives regarding environmental education-related activities in fundamental schools (11 to 14 year-olds). The interviewees' statements were divided into four categories…

This paper examines transformational leadership, defined as follows: an influencing relationship between inspired, energetic leaders and followers who have a mutual commitment to a mission that includes a belief in empowering the members of an organization to effect lasting change. The article presents the results of a qualitative and quantitative…

This paper focuses on school-level differences and their implications for educational policy reform. It presents studies of two distinct educational reforms--a local community-based collaborative-services initiative and a state educational-accountability program--to illustrate important organizational features that vary across school levels. Both…

Presents the first William Walker Oration given to the the New England Association for Educational Administration in Armidale, Australia. Following a history of the establishment of the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration, the role of leadership in the education system is described; particularly the transformational leadership. (22…