Argues that change has become so much a part of school culture that it has become the constant. Presents four considerations for school administrators: (1) teachers work hard; (2) change requires much additional time and energy; (3) support the people implementing the change; and (4) teacher and principal autonomy and authority will foster change.…

Although Hungary's 1989 political transformation gave new credibility to existing policies, it did not necessarily translate into an understanding of participatory decision making or enthusiasm for school reform. Beyond the rhetoric are two dramatic curricular alterations: removal of the Marxist ideology infusing each discipline and elimination of…

This article describes forms of educational leadership observed as part of an evaluation of the Transforming School Workforce Pilot Pathfinder Project in England commissioned by the UK Government. The 32 Pilot Schools made interventions in organizational practice in ways that required them to think differently about leadership. Changes in the…

As China charges forward into modernity, the nation is confronted with major economic and social changes. China's one-child policy and economic growth, for example, have altered the values and attitudes of parents, thereby creating new challenges for Chinese teachers. In addition, nontraditional ways of thinking in China's youth have led to a…

The future of Greece's well-being will depend on improving educational performance to boost productivity and improve social outcomes. In the current economic context, with the need to get best value for spending, Greece must and can address inefficiencies in its education system. The challenges are significant. For example, Greece lags behind many…

The purpose of the forum was to establish an agenda for action, supporting steps that individuals, institutions, organizations, and governments can take together in working to reform and revitalize science and technology education at all levels. This report contains the comments of some 50 speakers and attempts to capture the essence of the wide…

Nearly three-fourths of public school teachers are women, yet the majority of the 132 people who sat on the 6 major school reform panels of the 80s were non-teachers and men. Women in education are, as President Bush would have said, "out of the loop," because positions of power belong to men. This book examines the status of K-12 teaching in the…

Education and teaching have changed in significant ways over the last decade. Since the late 1980s the Commonwealth of Australia has encouraged the development of "multi-skilled workers"; however, Alvin Toffler (1990) points out that changes in technology would create a deskilled work force with overly specialized, noninterchangeable…

Findings of a study that examined the working conditions that teachers face in an urban school district in the southern United States are presented in this paper. A survey mailed to 1,329 teachers in 15 secondary and 68 elementary schools produced an approximate 50 percent response rate per school. Interviews were also conducted with the union…

A major lesson of the past decade's education reform measures and school improvement efforts is that educational change of almost any stripe is a problem of the smallest unit. It is a problem that turns on the incentives, attitudes, abilities, and responses of those ultimately responsible for seeing that initiatives for improvement translate into…

This article discusses the status of the teaching profession, addressing such issues as entry into the profession, the job market, the image of teaching and teacher education, and reform efforts. The success of reforms will largely depend on whether teaching conditions, especially salaries, improve. (PP)

Describes educational reform efforts in Spain since 1970, when a new General Law for Education was adopted. The reform process now suffers from delays in developing new courses and teaching cycles. The country's economic crisis is creating a decline in funding for new programs, while the education ministry insists on working to improve teaching…

Discusses a three year research study in Namibia. Suggests that the failure of policy makers to take into account teaching conditions led to teachers' inability to implement English language teaching reforms. Explores objective and subjective classroom reality implementation factors. Provides guidelines from which to draw conclusions. (CAJ)

Explains why movements toward more progressive, inquiry-based teaching practices generally have failed. Examines resistance to change arising from school climate, greater demands of progressive teaching, nature of teacher preparation and teaching practices, deficiencies in teacher knowledge of subject matter, and controversy over purposes of…

The intensification thesis of change in teachers' workload and responsibilities suggests teachers' work is increasingly intensified, with teachers expected to respond to greater pressures and multiplying innovations under stable or deteriorating conditions. The article presents data from a study of how elementary teachers used newly provided…