The California Community College system is the largest system of higher education in the world, with 114 colleges organized into 72 districts, serving over 2 million students. The colleges are publicly supported and locally oriented institutions that offer associate degrees, transfer education, and workforce development programs. They are part of…

Today's challenging higher education environment demands a new way of making decisions. Changing business models and methodologies for delivering academic programs present new opportunities (as well as risks) and call for innovative responses. This publication aims to "reboot" dialogues among boards, presidents, and faculties. It creates…

This guide for state policymakers examines teacher involvement in charter school governance. Teacher involvement is defined to include the gamut of decision-making roles not typically afforded teachers in traditional public schools, including founding schools, serving on governing boards, and engaging in site-based collective bargaining. Different…

Although decision making by consensus takes time, cooperation, and practice, the results at the secondary school level are not only good decisions but also a sense of ownership and satisfaction among faculty members involved in the process. This article offers a few essential guidelines. (Author/PGD)

This document is intended to provide school districts with information and ideas to help them develop districtwide philosophies concerning congruent planning, organize for efficient program management, create time for teachers to plan collaboratively for instruction, and develop documentation to monitor student progress. To enlist teacher support…

The trend toward teacher participation in policy making is the result of good practice and research over many years. Classic, bureaucratic approaches to making decisions are being replaced by collaborative efforts. There are rules to determine appropriate circumstances for encouraging teacher participation. Determining how and when to involve…

Guidelines for avoiding negative side effects of committee work include reasons for forming or not forming a committee, advantages and disadvantages of committees, and questions to help establish a committee in which members understand their role, task, and relationship to the administrator. (MJL)

Teachers participating in a school's budget development understand better why resources are allocated as they are. Participative budgeting involves submission of prioritized requests by each department's teachers, review of the requests by the principal, and revision of the requests by department heads in response to each other's demonstrated…

Shared governance is an elusive concept for schools to grasp and put into action. For schools to move forward with shared governance implementation, they need to gain a clear, precise understanding of who is involved, what processes ensure that those targeted will actually be involved, what those individuals' efforts should focus on, and what…

Chapter 6 in a volume on school leadership, this chapter makes a case for the use of participative decision-making (PDM) at the school-site level, outlines guidelines for its implementation, and describes the experiences of some schools with PDM systems. It begins by citing research indicating the advantages of PDM, including better decisions,…

School-based decision-making helps create a professional environment for principals and teachers and improves the quality of decisions. This publication provides 11 examples of school and statewide initiatives aimed at school improvement through the use of shared decision-making. The projects detailed are under way in the states of Alaska,…

Stressing that in order for quality circles to work, members must believe that their participation makes a difference, the author outlines procedures for setting up quality circles within schools and school districts and describes their successful operation. (MJL)

By giving teachers control over improving the curriculum, an Idaho school system has created a systemwide syllabus that guides each teacher in each subject and grade. (MLF)

In a previous book entitled "Zapp! The Lightening of Empowerment", a new system for motivating employees and improving productivity in a corporate setting was presented. This book adapts that empowerment guide to the classroom with workable, hands-on suggestions to help educators motivate their students and themselves. Empowerment in…

This monograph presents the results of an exploration of the effectiveness of the School Based In-Service Training (SBIT) program for primary teachers. The program operates on the premise that the school is the largest and most appropriate unit for educational change, and that teachers not only have the capability to develop their personal and…