Discusses current educational efforts to enable students to make high quality judgments, and argues that fostering critical thinking and decision-making must be a high priority objective if education is to be responsive to today's needs. (JG)

By merging the roles of teacher and administrator, a stronger and more stable system can emerge. Joint problem solving and decision making lead to innovative ideas. (Author/MLF)

Project Read, which began 10 years ago as a collaborative reading strategy, has evolved into the Inquiring School model. This model arose from the realization that critical literacy strategies and structures work equally well in kindergarten, sixth grade, peer coaching, or at faculty meetings. Key elements are improved classroom practice,…

The Teacher Involvement and Participation Scale, version 2 (TIPS 2) helps schools assess eight dimensions of the decision-making process, including goals/vision/mission; facilitating procedures and structures; curriculum/instruction; budgeting; staffing; staff development; operations; and standards. This article explains additional applications…

Educators commonly compare their restructuring efforts to rebuilding a 747 while in flight. Working smarter means monitoring the efficiency of faculty work from two standpoints: productivity in reaching desired student outcomes and depletion of important resources, including human energy. This article presents a five-stage model of the progress…

To measure teacher involvement in decision-making, the authors developed Teacher Decision-Making Instrument, a 68-item survey with 8 categories. This instrument can be used for follow-up analyses and for comparisons between teacher and administrator responses. The Shared Education Decisions Survey is designed for use by members of school…

An active parent describes how over 400 parent volunteers in the Carpentersville (Illinois) school district were trained to participate in their children's education through shared decision making. Each school practices a governance model focusing on trust building, collaboration, shared vision, and continuous improvement. Forging authentic…

To emphasize the belief that parents are a child's first teachers, the National Parent Teacher Association has developed new guidelines that support family involvement in schools. To improve family involvement, educators should create an action team, examine current practice, develop an improvement plan, develop a written family/parent involvement…

The effective ways of representing knowledge given the students and its use by teachers in departing the meaningful tasks are emphasized. An approach embodying five key principles like understanding big ideas, allotting tough assignments, thinking at high levels, problem solving and decision making ability are discussed.

Argues that although today's teachers are better educated than ever before, they also need authority to match their responsibilities, an environment conducive to professional growth, and the support of society. (Author/JG)

Article stresses the need for decision makers and educational researchers to work more closely together. (ML)

Seventeen individuals comment on school governance. All cite reasons for the decline of local responsibility in school administration. (MLF)

The two pillars--equal access to knowledge and public demonstration of results--will define the boundaries for decentralizing decisions about curriculum, instructional delivery, staff development, and evaluation. Several schools have already implemented team teaching, deeper course content, multidisciplinary curricula, portfolio student…