Examines the implementation of the comprehensive school reform package enacted by the Illinois legislature in 1985. Reform initiatives have produced little controversy in the educational community. District superintendents use the reform law to effect their own, local reform agendas. Superintendents respond to reform pressures by adopting…

A review of attitudes about the need for changes in the structure of postsecondary education in Australia and the role of the government in each sector concludes with the suggestion that the state take less responsibility for short-term planning and institutional development and focus more on long-term planning with strong involvement in technical…

Elementary teachers were more apt to implement the language arts curriculum as specified by the district than were secondary teachers. However, curriculum fidelity was extremely low at both the elementary and secondary levels. Teachers who followed the prespecified curriculum attached greater importance to implementation tasks and their…

Reports how the prolonged 1978 Levittown (New York) teachers strike initially depleted resources and created problems but proved to be the impetus for development of an effective school system. Reviews sources of conflict that led to the strike, reactions of community and teachers, and reforms focused on teacher empowerment. (FMW)

Discusses the use of technology as a catalyst for school reform. Four possible scenarios for the future of schools are presented, and suggestions to groups who are able to influence the success of the school reform movement are offered, including school boards, administrators, teachers, federal and state governments, universities, and foundations.…

Decentralization is usually accompanied by central state organizations' renewed efforts to control schools through managerialist policies and accountability processes. In New Zealand, such mechanisms have been adapted from "agency theory." This article examines the central tenets of agency theory, the New Zealand approach, and…

Teacher education reform at the University of Connecticut has been an ongoing, participatory effort to restructure the entire program. The new program features school-college partnerships (professional development centers) aimed at producing competent, reflective, and analytical practitioners capable of being change agents. An integrated…

This study finds that the New York City version of school-based decision making, School-Based Management/Shared Decision Making (SBM/SDM), fails to bring school-based management or shared decision making to the schools. This report begins by describing the seriously dysfunctional structure of the New York City public schools and explains the…

After closing a high school in 1983, the Scottsdale, Arizona, Unified School District needed to regain community confidence and support. Assisted by the dean of the Arizona State University College of Education, the school board agreed on four goals: (1) an instructional program that ensures all students will master competencies required for…

Based on recent school effectiveness literature, this paper suggests local policies to stimulate and facilitate school reform. After discussing the goals of the effective schools movement and briefly reviewing the literature, it presents a two-phase model for school improvement projects, based on the premise that a school's culture primarily…

DOCUMENTS IN THE EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION COLLECTION ARE INDEXED BY SUBJECT AND NUMBER. PART I OF THE INDEX CONTAINS A WORD LIST COMPILED FROM INDEX TERMS GENERATED FROM THE COLLECTION DOCUMENTS. PART II IS A SEQUENTIAL LISTING OF EACH DOCUMENT WITH A COMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL CITATION FOR EACH DOCUMENT. (HM)

Trends and changing conditions likely to affect state higher education boards and their functions, and responses to the changes are the focus of this paper. Three underlying factors are identified--that all changes will not affect all states in the same way, that no two state boards are exactly alike, and that many of the more recently established…

Although the federal influence on higher education is important, throughout the United States' history the state role in higher education has been a vital and changing one, and not always uniform. In 1976, two-thirds of the institutional revenue coming from government came from the states, making the state issue an important one. One of the most…

The principles of structure and procedure for innovative organizations articulated by both postbureaucratic essayists and the organization theorists of innovation are identified. The conditions necessary to generate innovation--small, collegial, problem-solving groups; autonomy of line professionals; separation of planning from the process of…

The seminar began with a report of some research that W.M. Phillips, Jr. had done in Newark. Three purposes guided the design of that study of educational change and race from 1958 to 1972: First, there was the fundamental curiosity to discover the changing nature of participation by the Black community in the creation and implementation of public…