Purpose: After decades arguing the necessity of transforming schools into collaborative workplaces, teacher collaboration has been taken up by various discursive logics offering different viewpoints of the concept. This article reviews some of these discourses and looks at their main arguments, pointing to the contradictions and tensions between…

The purpose of this study was to determine the perceptions held by business education teachers regarding the effect of technology training on instructional practices. A causal-comparative research design was used in this study to determine the relationship, if any, between technology training and instructional practices of business education…

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if there were commonalities in the approaches of 10 elementary school principals in the state of Florida identified as "success stories" in leading reading improvement in their schools in 2002, shortly after enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act at the national level and the Just…

The issues of teacher empowerment and decentralized management have been a part of the educational reform agenda for decades. Recent legislation has required that leadership teams have teacher, support staff, and parent representation, and possibly student representation. Principals receive specific instructions from their Boards of Education as…

Considered a successful university-operated, urban middle school serving an overwhelmingly African American student body, "Charter" Middle School was dechartered suddenly, then merged a year later with students from a neighborhood school to become "Choice" Middle School, a school of choice in the urban district. Using a situated learning framework…

This book is based on a review of the literature on decentralization and teacher management. The focus is on basic formal education, mainly the primary and junior secondary levels of schooling, and on presenting a rationale for decentralizing teacher management. The book presents three models of decentralized teacher management, explores the…

This collection of 29 articles is devoted to the question of "what works" in regard to parental involvement. The two main objectives in compiling this volume were: (1) to provide general information about successful strategies and programs to interested educators and parents; and (2) to offer context-specific, "tailored"…

Three policy strategies interpreted as intended to empower teachers within the new policy context of school autonomy were studied. Teacher services in Kentucky's school councils seemed to have little effect on empowering teachers since the researchers found in two studies involving 168 and 318 Kentucky teachers that teachers were not even…

This publication is the second in a series of monographs developed as a resource for middle-level leaders. It presents case studies at three fictional schools to show variations in improvement efforts and to examine faculty members' participation in the process. The teachers at one school were informed about change initiatives but were never…

This document contains the four Faculty Association of California Community Colleges (FACCCTS) newsletters published during the 1997-98 academic year. The first issue, entitled "Realities, Myths, and Perceptions of the California Community Colleges," contains the following articles: "Myth Perceptions,""Budget Brings Great…

In New York City, a $25 million Annenberg grant was targeted to 100 individual schools to empower their staffs via innovative networks and accountability structures. However, the changes that graced the proposals did not create the desired momentum. Targeting school-level groups cannot in itself lead to systemwide change. Problems arose from…

Examines the relationship between English primary teachers' professional autonomy and the increasing managerial control over teachers' work. Explores how teachers develop an understanding of the managerial culture in education and how they reconciled it with their ideas on teaching and learning, professional interest, and career aspirations.…

Educators embarking on school-based management/participative decision-making report changes in relationships not only between administrators and teachers and between management and unions, but also between teachers and their union. Decentralization means teacher empowerment at the local level, collaborative bargaining, union involvement with…

Analyzes the question of whether mentor teaching, career ladder, and teacher empowerment programs expand teacher opportunities. Describes several such programs now in place in American school systems. Concludes that teachers, teachers' organizations, administrators, and policymakers need to consider the long-range implications of teacher…

Through sharing and collegiality, teacher empowerment, and effective leadership, the principal and staff at DeKeyser Elementary School, in Sterling Heights, Michigan, have created a culture for change. The school's cultural elements include Tuesday meetings, planning sessions, schoolwide themes, cross-age teaching, schematic displays, and…