The purpose of this study is to identify different types of school leadership as perceived by teachers and to test the extent that these types predict teacher retention. School leadership varies by perception, context, and may influence a teacher's decision to leave their current school or the profession. Four statistically different types of…

In this multi-method case study, the authors explore the success of school reform in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), whose school reform combines a portfolio strategy and a managed instruction approach. Portfolio strategy is a term used to describe an approach that decentralizes resources and decision-making to school sites--increasingly in…

This article reports the results of a longitudinal study of 35 Swedish comprehensive schools involving interviews with teachers, school leaders, students, and parents carried out in 1980, 1982, 1985, and 2001. During the 35-year period covered by the study, the schools experienced significant reforms. The most important of these reforms involved a…

The idea of collective decision making in schools has been a popular democratic educational reform model. One of its claims is that participation in school decision making empowers teachers and improves teaching. This research investigates this claim by exploring seven teachers' experiences with a unique democratic school reform in Porto Alegre,…

Explores the assumption that teachers want to participate in schoolwide decision making by constructing a typology of teachers. Characterizes four types of teachers: empowered, disenfranchised, involved (those that do not want to participate, but do), and disengaged. Analysis of teachers' differences and similarities on demographic and attitudinal…

The attitudes of six principals serving in shared decision-making (SDM) high schools toward SDM were studied. Although three supported SDM as a vehicle for improving education, the others supported it for its own sake, to democratize schools. Problems in instituting the reforms in these schools are discussed. (SLD)

Describes a multiyear formative evaluation of six Florida schools involved in the Shared Decision Making and Restructuring Project, highlighting one school's successful efforts. Ethnographic and interview data were used to examine work histories, verify achievements, and identify stumbling blocks. The successful school had a well-defined core…

Proponents of school restructuring often promote the purported benefits of professional forms of management that call for staff cooperation and collegiality, teachers' participation in school decision making, and supportive leadership by school principals. A theoretical perspective on organizations known as contingency theory refers to such…

Leader authenticity, which affects principals' willingness to share leadership roles, has been associated with more open school climates. This article summarizes a study examining the relationship between principal authenticity and faculty empowerment in 30 high schools. One aspect of teacher empowerment (expanding teacher knowledge) was…

The headteacher's role in school improvement and the changing nature of the role suggest the need to investigate how new school leaders learn their jobs, that is, their socialization to the leader role. This study has two purposes: (1) to identify the content and methods used in the professional and organizational socialization experiences of new…

Evaluations of school restructuring, particularly school-based management (SBM) and shared decision making (SDM), have tended to focus on problems of implementation and on its consequent failure to fulfill its promises. Inadequate resources, unclear responsibilities, inhibiting regulations, and institutional resistance have all been cited as…

A study examined decision making within one large urban high school's restructuring efforts, using an emergent qualitative case-study design. Data, collected over a 2-year period, included formal and informal interviews, participant and nonparticipant observations, surveys, and documents. Results of data analysis supported matching the…

Findings of a study that examined the effect of school restructuring, particularly increased teacher participative decision-making, on classroom teaching practices are presented in this paper. Data were derived from: (1) classroom observations of 33 elementary and senior high schools, which matched pilot with nonpilot schools, and (2) a…

Decentralization has been one of the centerpieces of education reform in the United States over the past decade, yet the results so far are not encouraging. This booklet presents findings of a study that explored the hypothesis that decentralization efforts have failed to relax external constraints on schools or to enable school staffs to make…

This paper describes the recurring behavior patterns exhibited by first-year schools in the Louisiana Accelerated Schools Network during the evaluation process conducted during the years 1992 and 1993. These patterns are viewed through the lens of one of the three guiding principles of the accelerated schools process--empowerment coupled with…