How educational leaders initiate and sustain change is often hotly debated by those inside and outside of the system. Given the many reform initiatives of the past 30 years, and the resulting changes public educators have made lurching from initiative to initiative, one must ask if public education has truly improved. The answer to why public…

Describes a cooperative arrangement among several school districts that permits the hiring of a full-time professional negotiator to handle collective bargaining agreements. (WD)

Cooperative purchasing programs among school districts have grown rapidly in the past decade, but significant questions remain about the benefits and drawbacks of such programs. This document presents the results of a project sponsored by the Association of School Business Officials for the purpose of addressing these questions. Comprising…

With declining enrollments and budget limitations, it becomes more and more difficult for small rural schools to offer state-approved programs (often based on the "bigger is better" model of education). For many already consolidated districts, further consolidation is not a viable solution to the problem. Cooperative arrangements are…

Using interviews, observation, and archival documents, researchers traced the 4-year history of a "freestanding" interorganizational arrangement for school improvement in Santa Clara County (California). Called the "AB 65 Elementary Consortium," the interdistrict collaboration was started in response to California Assembly Bill…

The Rural School Consortium for Educational Leadership and Reform was formed by four rural Indiana school districts in 1991 to coordinate resources for providing staff development that would support reform and restructuring efforts. In the first consortium-sponsored activity, teachers, administrators, support staff, board members, and parents…

Every agency with a responsibility for teacher education has a legitimate role in inservice education, and these roles should be formalized in cooperative arrangements. Five types of power which affect an institution's ability to motivate teachers to continue inservice education are: (1) expert (innovation and research, management and…

This conference emphasizes the importance of collaboration among university training programs, education agencies, local business, and community groups in attracting minorities to teaching careers. A review of research on the best practices for recruiting minorities includes the following strategies: start early, use peer contact, involve parents,…

Partnerships is an Emporia State University program designed to strengthen university relationships with public schools in Kansas. It contains four strategies for offering services needed by public school practitioners: (1) providing leadership, research, and staff development assistance to formal school district consortia in the university's…

A consortium involving the Grayson County (Virginia) school system, Wytheville Community College, and Radford University was developed to address the teacher shortage in rural, economically depressed Grayson County. Using existing courses, a curriculum was developed that allows a student at Grayson County high school to obtain as much as 32 hours…

These proceedings consist of papers presented at a conference devoted to educational resource sharing. Included in the volume are the following papers: "Educational Resource Sharing: The Challenge for Illinois" by Lewis D. Patterson; "Resource Sharing: The Test Is Yet to Come," by John W. Huther; "A Response to the…

The Pioneer Cooperative Educational Service Agency (CESA) first-year (1976-77) activities were reviewed. The project was intended to implement the Far West Laboratory (FWL) version of experience based career education (EBCE) in three Hall County, Georgia, high schools, and to prepare for second-year (school year) implementation of the program in…