A positive climate is characterized by a comfortable, orderly, and safe environment. A healthy culture exists when all stakeholders understand an organization's goals and purposes and work productively to achieve them. This article contrasts the "McSchool" (efficiency-celebrating) cultural model with the spaceship-discovery model,…

The learning organization learns continually and has the capacity to transform itself. This article presents a model addressing three levels of interrelated learning (individual, team, and organizational) and discusses seven action imperatives. Creating continuous learning opportunities, promoting dialog and inquiry, and building teams are vital…

Solution-focused counseling (SFC) brings a positive, competency-based perspective to problems experienced by individuals and organizational systems. Instead of looking for what is wrong and how to fix it, this approach discovers what is already working and investigates how to use it. SFC employs five principles: a salutary centerpiece, exceptional…

The two models in Florida's Educational Quality Benchmark System represent a new way of thinking about developing schools' work culture. The Quality Performance System Model identifies nine dimensions of work within a quality system. The Change Process Model provides a theoretical framework for changing existing beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors…

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)

Two suburban high schools, one outside of Denver, Colorado, and the other near New York City, have developed experimental programs that attempt to introduce their students to the city. (Author)

To maintain a culture supporting effectiveness, school leaders must carefully monitor the school's climate, collect measures of goal attainment (student performance and student satisfaction), and plan school improvement initiatives based on these assessments. The Comprehensive Assessment of School Environments (CASE) model fosters data-based…

Outlines the findings from the NASSP Task Force on Effective School Climate including clear definitions of school climate and a model illustrating the inputs and outputs of the school environment. Includes a table for the model. (MD)

When teachers become technologically literate, students are the beneficiaries. Principals can ensure that appropriate supports are present and the school climate encourages teachers' professional development efforts. One such program is Computer Assisted Teacher Talk, a summer-institute program that helps teachers learn to use computers to foster…

Before attempting block scheduling reforms, some issues must be addressed, including information retention, transfer students, advanced placement offerings, electives, coordination of teacher and student schedules, and cost effectiveness. There are problems surrounding academic pacing, staff development needs, and time's interaction with other…

Many middle schools use teaming or other models to create smaller teaching and learning units. Too often, schools align these models with characteristics advocated in the literature, rather than focusing on collaborative work environments' effects on teachers' and students' lives. These structures' true value lies in the collaborative work…

Broad-based effective schools research suggests a school excellence model attributing student achievement to principal leadership, a positive school climate, the primacy of basic skills, high teacher expectations, an assessment and monitoring system, and the integration and coordination of the real and ideal curriculum and student assessment. (DCS)