Recently, charter schools have gained popularity with parents, students, and others as alternatives to public schools, but what are charter schools and what effects are they having? This Spanish-language Digest defines charter schools and clarifies some of the administrative and legal details surrounding such schools. The Digest also lays out some…

Recently, charter schools have gained popularity with parents, students, and others as alternatives to public schools, but what are charter schools and what effects are they having? This digest defines charter schools and clarifies some of the administrative and legal details surrounding such schools. The digest also lays out some of the potential…

Presents results of an empirical research project focusing on an explorative analysis of decision structures in schools. Outlines structural patterns of school organizations, taking into account the perspectives of teachers and principals. Provides a starting point for a multi-dimensional modeling of school organizations. (CAJ)

The need for a micropolitical reference frame in educational research is critiqued. The six articles discussed illustrate the stratified structure of statuses in school organization that have the character of a caste society as their defining polity feature or essential governance attribute. (RLC)

Children spend more time in school than in any social institution outside the home. And schools probably exert more influence on children's development and life chances than any environment beyond the home and neighbourhood. The purpose of this book is to document some important ways schools influence children's development and to describe various…

As of January 1996, 20 states had enacted charter school laws. This brief summarizes the history of charter school laws and updates their current status across the country. The brief presents the findings of various charter school research projects conducted at the state and national levels. When substantive changes have been made to existing…

In the study reported here, it is argued that recent policies implemented to improve the quality of the teaching profession by altering career structures are not likely to affect positively teachers' practices, teachers' work conditions, students' learning, or traditional school organizational patterns. Analyses of four teacher career structures…

Prepared for a meeting of the Northwest Regional Exchange (NWRx) Advisory Board and its staff and consultants, this document first reviews nine reports' findings on nine hypotheses concerning the institutionalization of educational change or innovation, especially as institutionalization relates to the dissemination functions of state…

Information on research efforts concerning higher education in Sweden is presented. The development of the research program has involved a shift of emphasis among four major problem areas (the role of higher education in society, the organization of higher education, the educational function, and the research function). While in the early 1970s…

By adapting the theoretical framework and tools of several organizational researchers, hypotheses are formulated and tested related to the problem of compatibility between student personality needs and the authority structure of schools. (Author/ND)

A revision and clarification of organizational authenticity in terms of responsiveness claimed by administrators and responsiveness experienced by teachers. (Author/ND)

This study examined the relationships between various components of organizational control and individual teacher reports of autonomy. The effects of two types of control were examined: information-gathering structures (such as observation) and directive control structures (such as rules). The data for the study were drawn from a survey of 35…

THE CENTER FOR COORDINATED EDUCATION SEEKS, THROUGH PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS IN SCHOOLS, TO LEARN MORE OF NEEDED IMPROVEMENTS AND THE PROCESSES FOR THEIR REALIZATION. DURING THE 1967-1968 PERIOD, THE CENTER IS SPONSORING THREE SERIES OF PROJECTS. (1) TESTING OF A NEW APPROACH TO THE PROFESSIONAL GROWTH OF PRINCIPALS AND TEACHERS WILL INVOLVE 10…

Five papers focus on the interrelated themes of school organization and innovation. They report on some preliminary analyses of field studies conducted during 1968 on such structural, sociocultural, and sociopsychological variables as division of labor, performance of organizational functions, decision making studies and processes, hierarchies of…

This study attempted to examine the organizational structures of elementary schools in terms of complexity, centralization, formalization, stratification, and job satisfaction; and to analyze the relationship of these variables to the adaptiveness of elementary schools. More specifically, it compared the Multiunit School-Elementary (MUS-E) type of…