Describes implementation of several different classroom organization plans within Wyoming's Douglas Elementary School East, allowing for response to varied student needs, parent wishes, and teachers' styles. The principal's role in the program is outlined. (PGD)

De-departmentalizing the high school into smaller integrated quads would make possible the necessary frequent review and revision of the curriculum and facilitate change with greater ease. Inflexibility could give way to creativity and provide a humanistic environment to meet the needs of adolescents. (Author)

The principal of P.S. 84 in New York City recounts how his school has, with the aid of parents, managed to change and implement open education while suffering from staff cuts and other consequences of reduced funding. (IRT)

When faced with budget cuts, a region of the District of Columbia public schools undertook a massive training program to make up for reduced supervisory services. (Author)

Observation from British classrooms in the use of written language as a creative learning device with six- and seven-year-olds. (BF)

Constructed a longitudinal database to examine how basic science departments have been reorganized at U.S. medical schools. Found that there were fewer basic science departments in the traditional disciplines of anatomy, biochemistry, microbiology, pharmacology, and physiology in 1999 than in 1980. But as biomedical science has developed in an…

Challenges current orthodoxy of school organizations and seeks to extend the current debate about distributed leadership. Offers an inclusive view of teacher leadership. Focuses on learning-centered development in which teachers act strategically to improve the quality of teaching and learning. Includes illustrative cases and proposals for…

Using complexity theory, examines standards-based accountability focused on improving school organization. Compares Chicago Public Schools' outcomes-based bureaucratic accountability approach with Baltimore City Schools' combined administrator-professional accountability. Concludes that the combined approach should result in more lasting change.…

Argues that complex educational change is relatively unmanageable. Draws on research on reorganization of schools to identify sources of ambiguity in the change process. Identifies characteristics of reorganization complexity and offers tentative practical themes for managing complex educational change. Offers an agenda for future research,…

Reseachers collaborating with international colleagues should consider cultural, structural, and interpersonal/interprofessional factors that impinge on the process. Before embarking on collaboration, researchers should understand each other's interests, seek funding for face-to-face meetings, and learn about each other's culture. (SK)

The new principal should not plan or implement major school changes during the first month. The first-year principal's initial areas of concern should be to understand the school's political and organizational environments and to obtain a clear notion of how to run a good school. Includes one reference. (MLH)

Educational restructuring demands come from all quarters except school administrators resistant to change. Restructuring requires scrapping the screening type of school and sweeping out the frozen, ritualized, instructional methods that produce poor results. Brain-based education calls for numerous changes, including working from theory and…

Unlike the effective teaching research, which attempted to identify generic teaching skills, current research focuses on relationships between teaching and learning in specific subjects. Attempts to change school structure have rarely led to reliable changes in either teaching practice or student learning. When geared to students' conceptual…

Analyzes the scheduling process in four San Francisco Bay Area high schools as a study of stratification. Finds that the processing of clients takes precedence over the delivery of educational services, especially for the less advantaged. (DM)

Students can activate their minds in a school envisioned as firm (a disciplined production system featuring high production workers); family (a caring, supportive social network of concerned adults and respectful students); fair (a community celebrating participants' best work); and forum (a public meeting place of open dialogue and inquiry).…