Describes the various roles (monitor, information gatherer, communicator and feedback provider, clarifier, coanalyzer, assister, resource provider, and motivator) played by the supervisor when evaluating administrators. Presents a sample evaluation instrument assessing five major performance areas (management, professionalism, leadership,…

To overcome the superprincipal complex, principals must become expert in processing information and making decisions. To make informed decisions most effectively, principals should employ participatory management, become process consultants, and incorporate the Situation-Target-Proposal (STP) method for resolving problems. Otherwise, change will…

Principals should focus curriculum development around specific questions mirroring journalistic who-what-where-why considerations. This means striving to clarify definitions, rationale and philosophy, policy origins, procedures, temporal arrangements, learning sites, and value. For example, schools have multiple curriculum philosophies that…

Management and instructional leadership need not be construed as competing interests for the principal. A unifying view of the principal's "educational leader" role (combining salient features of both managerial and instructional leadership responsibilities) provides a much healthier model and draws a rational relationship between…

To carry out their roles as information providers, instructional consultants, and teachers, school library media professionals must demonstrate competence in at least five specific functions, including communication, collection management, organization, administration, and instructional leadership. Principals need to understand school libraries'…

Institutionally empowered principals provide teachers with decision-making possibilities and use this empowerment to benefit the exchange between teacher and principal. Cultural empowerment requires even more effort. Teachers and principals must work together on the school's institutional and cultural climate by using dialogue and critique.…

A positive climate is characterized by a comfortable, orderly, and safe environment. A healthy culture exists when all stakeholders understand an organization's goals and purposes and work productively to achieve them. This article contrasts the "McSchool" (efficiency-celebrating) cultural model with the spaceship-discovery model,…

Describes the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, a database of online instructional and professional development materials developed for use in higher education. Provides examples of potential applications in elementary and secondary education. (PKP)

Defining a vision based on shared values is a crucial step that administrators must consider as they lead their schools through reform efforts. This article reports findings from a national study of creating professional learning communities in schools and how an organizational framework helped to explain vision development in 18 schools.…

The author discusses a project that affords high school principals an opportunity to create collaborative relationships between members of their school communities and college-based teacher education programs. In its 13 years, this collaboration has been shown to increase student and teacher engagement: Students gain perspective on what goes into…

An instrument is presented for self-assessment by secondary school principals to identify both their willingness to intervene and their style of intervention in conflict situations with students and colleagues. (Author/MLF)

A parent recognizes principals as the educational leaders in their communities and urges them to be aware of the importance of parents in making schools effective learning places. (Author/MLF)

Describes a comprehensive guidance model designed to help the middle school student achieve the developmental and learning tasks of transescence and outlines a step-by-step plan for implementing the model. (Author/IRT)

Teachers participating in a school's budget development understand better why resources are allocated as they are. Participative budgeting involves submission of prioritized requests by each department's teachers, review of the requests by the principal, and revision of the requests by department heads in response to each other's demonstrated…

Recent research suggests that principals can improve the content and delivery of staff development programs by selecting practical topics, involving teachers in topic selection and presentation, keeping teachers' experience levels in mind, emphasizing ongoing staff development processes, avoiding lecture-based programs, and encouraging personal…