This memorandum describes an approach to the development of school organization in which the basic research hypothesis is that the structure of a school or school district must be congruent with its technology and its environment if problems are to be solved and educational innovations are to succeed. Current environmental, instructional, and…

Since 1955, six major thrusts of the school reform movement have sought to give direction, substance, and meaning to education: Content revision, educational technology, equalized opportunity for children from poverty environments and from minority groups, individualized instruction, organizational flexibility, and teacher renewal. Organizational…

Organizational Development applied to schools offers great promise for the future. If education is to become more humanistic and begin to concern itself with the student as a total person and as one who will go forth to live in an increasingly complex and demanding society, such organizational renewal is indispensable. (Author)

Discusses the recent growth of free schools" and the need for change; makes a plea for alternatives to traditional schooling. (AJ)

This paper presents a case study of a major educational innovation introduced into a school at the time of pupil desegregation. It was found that the innovation was essentially a rite of intensification whereby Whites and Blacks established new interaction patterns within a unitary school system by reinforcing the customary relationships between…

Major elements of the theory of social behavior formulated by Talcott Parsons are applied to a study of organization. The organizational model developed is based on Parsons' four functional imperatives of goal attainment, adaptation, integration, and pattern maintenance. Organizations are regarded as social systems distinguished by different…

This paper, written from an organizational perspective, begins with an examination of the deficiencies of knowledge utilization and educational change literature. It suggests the explication of descriptive and heuristic conceptual dimensions as one approach for facilitating a descriptive perspective of knowldge utilization. The efficacy of three…

The question of whether alternative schools and educational programs serve to "deschool" society, as sometimes claimed, is considered throught examination of what criteria define an organization as a school. (RW)

School organization and incentive structures help thwart large-scale adoption of innovative educational practices. Evidence from the progressive movement and past curriculum reform efforts suggest that wide-scale reforms are ineffective under current conditions. Change requires external normative structures, organizations that focus intrinsic…

Concerned with how new schooling structures, once implemented, will remain in place, this paper reviews findings of the International School Improvement Project (ISIP) about institutionalization and suggests their application to educational restructuring results. According to the ISIP study, indicators of complete institutionalization include…

There is a tendency to simply view alternative schools as against tests, grades, bells, seats in rows, and dress regulations. This obscures the need for alternative schools to have stable organizational structures if they are to play an important role in education. There are five stages in the development of an alternative school. They include (a)…