The author's community, which includes parents of the 62,000 students who attend schools in Volusia County, Florida, has been baffled over the conflicting nature of Florida's school grading system of A, B, C, D, F based on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, and the federal system of pass or fail. While many of the 80 schools in her…

State legislators are increasingly determining how school sports are conducted. Following Texas's lead, several states, including Ohio and Florida, now require students to earn passing grades or lose playing and practicing opportunities on school sport teams. Kentucky's governor signed a bill imposing stricter penalties on those threatening…

Interviews with superintendents of eight charter-school districts in four states: California, Florida, Georgia, and New Mexico. Describes advantages and disadvantages. Includes a list (with website addresses) of all current charter-school districts. (PKP)

Organizational transformation, rather than improvement, is fast becoming the focus as dynamic and energetic leaders open new frontiers in work life and productivity. Schools can move beyond tinkering with structures and processes by creating a vision of school greatness. Florida's and Minnesota's experiments with professional partnerships are…

Examines 20 systematic SBM studies for insights about authority delegation, fiscal inputs, objectives, and student outcomes. SBM's effects on achievement were mixed. Nine studies gave no results; three asserted positive results but gave no achievement data; one asserted negative results but gave no achievement data; two with achievement data…

Japanese school management should consider more broad-based, active participation in school board policymaking and should democratize school board-school relationships by adopting the lay-control principle. Both U.S. and Japanese schools should improve the exercise of appropriate administrator leadership. Japanese schools are evaluated on a…