Among the top reasons public school superintendents leave their positions is the poor relationships and conflicts with board members, and union representatives (Grissom & Mitani, 2016). The national average of superintendent tenure is less than four years resulting in K-12 leadership instability, at all levels of the school and district office…

Restorative Justice (RJ) is an educational "innovation" introduced into school communities as a counter approach to traditional punitive discipline practices. In this paper, we provide a critical examination of RJ in education by naming common pitfalls to RJ implementation in schools and providing four transformational cultural shifts…

This book brings together for the first time research informing leadership practice in special education from preschool through transition into post-secondary settings. It provides comprehensive coverage of 1) disability policy 2) leadership knowledge, 3) school reform, and 4) effective educational leadership practices. Broader in scope than…

This report focuses on the activities of school advocacy groups in the area of school discipline. It concludes that the advocacy approach, while not always appropriate, is the most desirable for problems which neither conventional school programs nor relatively new conflict resolution mechanisms adequately address. (Author/RLV)

Teachers' attempts to establish and maintain authority in their classrooms give rise to one of the essential tensions of teaching: reconciling caring and controlling. This paper examines sociopolitical questions about the nature of classroom authority and the uses of power to understand this tension. The first part presents an overview of the…

Micropolitical perspectives address the processes through which individuals and groups in an organization acquire and exercise power to promote and protect their interests. This chapter synthesizes major findings on actor roles and relationships in select formal and informal areas, concentrating on profession-patron and principal-teacher…

Explores the various leadership models (structural-functional, open-systems, cultural-pluralism, interpersonal, and political) used to illuminate headteachers' work and considers the problems faced by leaders in professionally staffed organizations. School leadership activities center on managing organizational cultures and the external…

This paper examines the transformed governance structures of four schools engaged in systemic restructuring efforts and looks at how those transformations have affected principals' roles by reshaping the micropolitical environment of the school. Principals' roles have changed as: (1) decision-making jurisdictions are redrawn; (2) power dynamics…

The book, "Managing by Negotiations," by Earl Brooks and George S. Odiorne, is reviewed in this document. Negotiation is discussed as an answer to the dilemma of achieving organizational effectiveness created by the recent shift in educational administration from autocratic to democratic management. Eleven reasons why traditional power-based…

Power, or influence, in educational governance is increasingly becoming diffused. Everyone in education now feels relatively powerless. A political model of decision-making, emphasizing consultation with representatives of interest groups is now appropriate. In this model, the school board functions as "meta-mediator." This modifies the…

The seven narratives in this document were drawn from the reflective writings of administrators of color involved in the Nevada Project LEAD. Six school principals and one district administrator describe experiences they have encountered in managing ethnically and racially diverse elementary and secondary schools in Nevada. The first and last…

The hypothesis of this paper is that the patterns of political influence on public school systems are changing. Public school systems are subject to so many political influences that one can raise the question, "Who governs?" The educational policy-making procedures seem to have become politicized in the wake of the turbulence of the 1960's. The…

A 3-year research project was conducted to compare the conflict management behavior of school superintendents and city managers, both of whom are professionally trained experts held accountable to lay legislatures. Chapter 1, "Professionalism and Responsiveness," addresses the inherent tension, in a democracy, between elected officials'…

School administrators' uses of subjective understandings and common language to gain and maintain power and predictability in their environments are described. Micropolitical theory, with a focus on language, is utilized to understand administrators' knowledge of the assumptive worlds of their subculture, and how these assumptive worlds constrain…

The guide presents learning activities and teaching methods relating to law and citizenship education for grades K-8. The objective is to aid the teacher in preparing students for citizenship responsibilities. The document treats five basic topics, liberty, justice, equality, property, and power, and is designed for adaptation into existing…