This executive summary provides background information and a brief overview of a study conducted to determine the organizational factors that produced high reading and mathematics achievement in a majority of students in three predominantly poor and black elementary schools. Six organizational factors and 12 functional routines that were found to…

Study examines determinants of organizational effectiveness. Results indicate that pupil-teacher ratio and administrative intensity depress median levels of achievement; whereas, staff qualifications foster student achievement. The percentage of non-whites is said to have a consistently significant direct effect on median achievement level.…

Author visits a school which, after ten years as a comprehensive, can boast academic results comparable to the grammar school formerly on the same site. (Editor)

Results of three experiments indicated that school achievement is predicted by intelligence and academic time on-task in traditionally-structured schools and by intelligence and student commitment in open structured schools. Increasing the amount of teacher-directed time would increase achievement in traditional schools but decrease achievement in…

Educational researchers and policy analysts concur increasingly that the organizational design and culture of schools can either enhance or hinder the effectiveness of school reform efforts. This book offers a series of essays that may help parents, educators, and policymakers understand and solve school organizational problems that get in the way…

American public schools historically have used a range of differentiating mechanisms to meet the needs of diverse groups of students. Examples from Title I service delivery include pullout, in-class, add-on, and replacement programs. These models have elements that differentiate the educational experience of Title I students to varying degrees and…

For the past decade in Connecticut, public school students have been tested in the fall of grades 4, 6, and 8, and results have been attributed to the school in which students are tested. Some Connecticut elementary schools end at grade 5 (Type I) and some continue to grade 6 or 8 (Type II). Grade 6 results are reported for Type II schools but not…

From 1990 to 1995, the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools at the University of Wisconsin-Madison examined questions about the effects of school restructuring on student performance. Center researchers analyzed data from more than 1,500 elementary, middle, and high schools throughout the United States and conducted field research…

Contrasting American education with that of other countries, compares systems that differ profoundly in objectives, values, and organization. The American decentralization, lack of a national examination system, and values of egalitarianism, utilitarianism, and individualism work against the single-minded concentration on academic goals of other…

A synthesis of the purposes of North American educational systems and processes of administering educational systems derived from research literature was affirmed through surveys of several thousand administrators. A study involving over 10,000 students and their teachers found effective-school organization to be a powerful predictor of student…

While central control can lead to bureaucracy and sclerosis, the local alternative can produce a wasteful duplication of effort. This paper analyzes how different levels of school autonomy affect costs across the United States. Results suggest there may be an optimal, cost-minimizing level of decentralized decision-making authority. Academic…

Discusses the use of technology in education, the restrictions placed on student achievements through current policies, and describes efforts by the National Alliance for Restructuring Education to restructure schools, including the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow project. Student performance, performance assessments, and new school organizations are…

Project SHAPE is a two-year intervention and enrichment program for underachieving and educationally disadvantaged ninth and tenth grade students in Toledo, Ohio. Operating through teacher empowerment; curriculum development; structural organization; and student, parent, and community involvement, SHAPE's goals are developing an academically…

This report summarizes the procedures and results of a 2-year project carried our collaboratively by a university-based research and development center and a nearby high school. The first section summarizes the setting and rationale of the project (the Focused Flexibility project.) The ideas basic to the project were (1) a school should try to…

Data on successful school desegregation is misleading. Schools claiming to be integrated have been subtly resegregated by manipulation of staffing and financing and by encouraging the attitude that black students do not have the ability for high academic achievement. (JD)