Offers an overview of Japanese public lower secondary school education (the equivalent of American grades seven through nine), discussing school system organization, school customs and rules, school structure, and students' preparation for the future. (SR)

Discusses characteristics of instructional leadership as a form of proactive administrative behavior. Proactive administration is built on awareness of personal beliefs, understanding of organizations, instructional leadership as an ongoing process, sensitivity to alternative perspectives, consistency of personal behavior, and ability to…

Administrative mentoring can encourage new administrators to become instructional leaders. The article discusses the shortcomings of mentoring for professional development and proposes mentoring to support experienced administrators trying to be more than managers. The availability of mentors to guide beginning instructional leaders facilitates…

New assistant principals find their new leadership role quite different from their previous work as teachers. This book, based on a 5-year study, addresses the realities of day-to-day life for new assistant principals (APs) in secondary schools. The book presents the actual experiences of men and women who made the transition from teacher to…

There has been a recent increase in attention given to the school counselor's role in family counseling. Family counseling can be a useful way to provide early intervention with families whose children exhibit difficulties in school. However, many school systems do not adequately supervise counselors. Additional training in family counseling and…

The role of the principal as an educational leader for the 1990s is described in this keynote address. The first part discusses the roles and responsibilities of principals and supervisors as administrators, managers, and leaders. The second part examines educational issues of the 1990s, which include: (1) the importance of education to all…

A review of literature on the principal's changing role in shared decision making is provided in this paper, which discusses the following areas: policy development; the egalitarian ethic for teacher participation; the principal/faculty relationship; the principal's functions in shared decision making; and elements of successful decision making.…

Identification of the dimensions of effective supervisory practice is the focus of this literature review of the past 15 years. The two main objectives are to identify the knowledge, attitudes, and skills for effective educational supervision and to verify the importance of the knowledge, attitudes, and skills from a sample of practitioners. The…

To help principals with the supervisory part of their job, this tipsheet offers advice from industry and education experts. From Maxine H. Bishop and Lester R. Bittle comes a definition of supervision that distinguishes conceptual skills from human relations-interpersonal skills and findings from an industry study that identify six common…

The purposes of the research reported in this paper are, first, to study the actions taken by school principals to facilitate a curriculum change in their schools and, second, to determine the relationship between those actions, the leadership style of the principal, and the extant situational variables. Data were collected by means of bimonthly…

Because leadership theories and recent research into principals' roles have only limited validity, practical utility, and comprehensiveness, this study undertakes a description of effective principals' behaviors and a coherent explanation of them. Long-term goals, factors affecting student learning, strategies for goal achievement, and structures…

Research findings can assist secondary principals in promoting instructional effectiveness. Factors influencing effectiveness include societal structure, educational goals, teachers' learning theory attitudes, and student maturity, while problem areas range from selecting instructional materials to evaluating student progress. Cases indentify key…

The difficulties of putting the findings of an evaluation into practice in a city school district are discussed with two emphases: the number and variety of the demands on the time and attention of the superintendent and administrative staff, and the complexity and detailed work required to implement a new or revised program. A hypothetical, but…

This paper examines the relationship between organizational climate and the values held by teaching staffs and administrators. To test a number of hypotheses bearing on this relationship, a sample population of 707 teachers and administrators was drawn from a random selection of public elementary schools in metropolitan Vancouver. The position is…

This study sought to determine how members of boards of education perceive the role of the superintendent, the role of the high school principal, and their own roles. Fifty of the 61 independent school districts in the upper 26 counties of the Texas Panhandle were randomly selected and one person from each board of education was randomly selected…