Sinclair discusses how school climate and organization are important to individualized learning, and offers a survey instrument by which children can express their feelings about the school environment. (Editor)

This case study discusses assumptions and objectives of organizational development (OD) in general, some background of a school which recently participated in a very brief taste of OD, some essential features of the package itself and some results, and some implications. Comments follow by Gilbert D. Moore, State University of New York, Buffalo,…

Identifies a set of considerations for school systems and policy makers contemplating the development or improvement of alternative schools, including whether systems need more than one alternative school, how their effect should be judged, organization for instruction and for staffing, and how the learning environment should be arranged. (SR)

Data from a large school district in the southwestern United States were analyzed to investigate relations between student and school characteristics and high school freshman dropout patterns. Application of a multilevel logistic regression model to student dropout data revealed evidence of school-to-school differences in student dropout rates and…

The author visited Japan's secondary schools and here reports on the lessons to be learned from the way the country has organized its comprehensive school system. (RK)

Develops a descriptive model of school organizational patterns using the concept of complexity of environment, and explores the implications different organizational patterns have for students and teachers. (Author)

Students learn much that is not publicly set forth in official school philosophy or in course syllabi. This learning, which includes information, beliefs, and ways of behaving, can be attributed to the implicit curricula of schooling. Discussed are the messages imparted by the classroom and school environment. (RM)

Inequality of educational opportunity, as indicated by the effect of father's occupational status on years of schooling completed, is greater in France than in the U.S. the difference is accounted for by school structural variables, indicating the importance of structure for inequality of opportunity. (Author)

This paper explores how high schools, through their structures and organizations, may influence their students' decisions about whether to stay in school until graduation or drop out. Traditional explanations for dropout behavior have focused on individual students' social background and academic behaviors. What high schools do to push out or hold…

Paper attempts to show how students can be given the opportunity to select their instructors for valid educational reasons; provides a model showing how students can select the way they will be taught; and how teachers can still do what they feel is necessary to accomplish their teaching objectives. (Author/CB)

Familiar high school problems include unprepared and apathetic students, inadequate teachers' salaries and benefits, and outmoded grade-level systems. Improvement requires new schooling models including clearer goals, advancement linked to skills mastery, promotion of thinking skills, less fragmented school time, elimination of age-grading, less…

The educational community must acquire the organizational capability to engage in systems design, envision new stages of education, and bring the image to life. The first stage probes the essence of education: its relationship to society, the designation of social functions, the kind of learning to be offered, and the feasibility of organizational…

Explores relationship between teacher perceptions of structural coupling in their schools and their perceptions of school robustness and effectiveness in study of 79 participating schools. Results suggested that teacher perceptions of relatively tight coupling of goal direction and work supervision structures and relatively loose coupling of…

Discusses how schools are seen as powerful sources of health promotion in South Africa and how organization development is a potent strategy for managing change and enhancing the school's growth towards becoming a healthy learning environment. Addresses the implications for the role of school psychologists in contributing towards the development…