To prepare school professional personnel to design and/or function within a system for systematic planning requires preparation programs that will provide them with more sophisticated planning skills that are typically found in current educational programs. (Author/MLF)

Guides school administrators through a process to institute a workable criterion-referenced instructional system. (Author/MLF)

Offers guidelines for making counseling programs accountable and the reporting of counseling activities relatively easy. Counselors must show that their work does make a positive difference in the lives of students. (Author/WD)

School administrators make hundreds of decisions each year that affect their schools' academic and ethical quality. This article presents 12 practical dilemmas involving evaluation, discipline, and community relations to test secondary principals' character and reveal the ethical quality of their leadership. (MLH)

To manage its special education programs more efficiently, a large school district streamlined its student review process by centralizing its databank and careful teamwork. Success resulted from obtaining accurate statistics, planning and reviewing necessary activities, establishing a master calendar, securing participants' commitment, following…

Describes the development of a program that improved communication among pupil personnel department workers in a high school. (IRT)

A six-step process of accountability is presented to support counselors and counseling programs. The six stages are: goal setting, needs assessment, priority setting, planning interventions, evaluating outcomes, and reporting results. (MD)

Emphasis on the specific advantages of PPBS for principals, with special attention to evaluation as a component of PPBS and how it can improve principals' decision-making. (Editor)

Schools are out of step with the real world by retaining the traditional semester organization of the academic year, the author says, and should adopt the quarter system to be relevant. (Editor)

To accept accountability, the author says, educators must know the dangers involved in misapplication of the concept. They must also know how to reduce these dangers by becoming involved in the pre-planning, implementing, evaluating, and follow-up stages. (Editor)

Reports the results of a study of principals as middle managers. Concludes that middle managers should enjoy privileges commensurate with their professional stature, be held accountable for their clear responsibilities, and be evaluated according to well-understood and accepted criteria. Recommendations are offered. (Author/WD)

In the 21st century, the redefinition of teacher professionalism will include three primary features: recognizing oneself as a learner; using that learning-centered spirit to transform schools into learning organizations; and reasserting one's own moral autonomy to provide space and time for serious, reflective thought and study. This redefinition…

A sample of University of Montana students in several introductory classes were asked how they remembered their high school principals. Graduation years ranged from 1964 to 1994. The vast majority of principals described by respondents were male. A majority of 1964 to 1979 high school graduates had negative images of principals; 1982 to 1994…

The primary uses of teacher assessment at the local level are to improve instruction, inform tenure decisions, and fulfill contractual requirements; in most districts, teacher assessment has little influence on educational practice. Principals can substantially enhance the success of teacher assessment by understanding its purpose, considering…

Attempts to make teacher evaluation objective has been a recurring theme in educational research. The current research attempts to link accountability with performance-based objectives. (Author)