Orange Grove Middle School in Tucson, Arizona, is part of a movement to transform schools into learning organizations. Systems thinking, combined with the related disciplines of building a shared vision, working with mental models, team learning, and personal mastery, is the essential component. The key to effective leadership is harnessing the…

Evaluates a small New York school district's efforts to reorganize its two K-5 elementary schools into one K-2 primary grade school and one 3-5 intermediate school, focusing on student, staff, and parent reactions. Although the new arrangement created more focused schools, the intermediate principal misses the energy deriving from the Kindergarten…

Examines the concept, implications, and dilemmas of school restructuring, whose meanings are confusing and complex. Restructuring can be synonymous with top-down reform or ruthless retrenchment or can signify redefined power relationships in classrooms, staff rooms, and schooling communities. This paper identifies four restructuring dilemmas…

Examines Hong Kong secondary schools' organizational values, using the School Values Inventory. Uses LISREL modeling techniques with a sample of 554 teachers to develop a four-factor model of organizational values. Binding forces such as bureaucratic and cultural linkages and tight and loose couplings provide insights for understanding school…

Changing to a trimester 3 X 5 schedule at Westfield (Indiana) High School made time for more focused academic activity, individual learning opportunities, and teacher development activities. Parents, students, teachers, and administrators find the schedule highly effective; academic achievement, attendance, and graduation rates have improved. (MLH)

Explores perceived stress and job satisfaction among 36 primary British headteachers. Around half reported high levels of occupational stress; half were satisfied with their work. Highest satisfaction levels came from personal and organizational factors. School organization was a source of stress and satisfaction. Social support was perceived as…

Several districts have taken a radical approach to middle/high school transitions, removing ninth-graders from the mix to give them the attention needed to succeed in high school. Three ninth-grade-only schools with 720 to 750 students in Virginia, Texas, and Pennsylvania are profiled. Students experience less social pressure from upper-classmen.…

For National Board certification to change teaching as a career, reformers must attend to accountability, monitoring, and quality-control concerns and demonstrate clearly how a staged career would attract and retain excellent teachers, revitalize pedagogy, strengthen instructional programs, and create more responsive schools. (Contains 44…

Analysis of 22 definitions of decentralization shows how they are encompassed in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's taxonomy. Data from 14 nations suggest that decentralization of instruction, planning, personnel management, and resource allocation and use has less effect on learning than do conditions in classrooms and…

Both the 1988 and 1999 editions of "Handbook of Research on Educational Administration" suggest that continuing dialogue about educational administration scholarship is warranted as conditions in schooling and society change. Handbook and "EAQ" editors asked several expert researchers to write articles about one or more…

This statewide study identified an association between the relative integration of instructional technology departments and information services departments with indicators of high technology performance in school districts. Discusses cultural integration between the two subcultures of information services and instructional technology, types of…

The shortage of school leaders, mainly caused by the growing complexity of the job is steadily growing in recent years. This study reports on the results of a comparative empirical study into the causes of premature departure for male and female principals in primary and secondary education. Principals who have experienced premature departure…

While almost any educator would agree that students deserve access to equal educational opportunities, many schools still sort students based on test scores or other criteria. There's a better way: one built on offering all students access to the best curriculum. In this first-ever practical book that shows how educators can make detracking work,…

Working in tandem with the powerful National Education Association's KEYS initiative (Keys to Excellence in Your Schools), this second edition focuses on how to change a school's organizational structure and culture to improve the quality of teaching and learning. Each chapter, revised and updated to address continuous improvement and narrowing…

As individuals contemplate a new worldview of leadership education, they must step back to reflect on what now shapes and constrains leaders in schools. Their understandings of traditional leadership are rooted in organizational theory that is focused on rationality, effectiveness, and efficiency of bureaucratic institutions, defining the…