This literature review highlights the large amount of research needed on the role of educators within school districts in planned educational change and knowledge utilization. After first defining knowledge utilization as the use of information (from research or practice) in educational products or ideas, the author identifies three factors…

Debunking popular reform efforts, this book argues that education reformers are fighting a fruitless uphill battle. Neither top-down regulation nor locally based reforms will transform schooling. The insurmountable problem is juxtaposing a continuous change theme with a continuous, conservative system that defies change. In partnership with all…

Efforts are needed in teacher and school development to reshape the professional culture of teaching. Knowledge of the change process is critical for both creating and sustaining radical reform. When teachers become moral-change agents, they can cultivate powerful cultures required to work with communities in making a difference in learning for…

The history of educational reform and innovation is replete with good ideas or policies that fail to get implemented or that are successful in one situation but not in another. A missing ingredient in most failed cases is appreciation and use of what is called change knowledge: understanding and insight about the process of change and the key…

The Learning Consortium, a multiyear partnership among four large school districts and two higher education institutions, has been working on a new design to integrate teacher development and school development in the service of continuous educational improvement. Since 1988, the Consortium has undertaken various initiatives and programs that are…

The role of education in social change increases as more emphasis is put on planned change. One major aspect of this emphasis is the role of education as a change agent. Using a sample of 2,500 Canadian industrial workers, this presentation examines the relationship between amount and type of education, and types of general or work-related…

This volume, the fourth of a five-volume series, contains three onsite case studies of organization development (OD) selected from a sample of 76 school districts. The purpose of the case studies was to analyze in detail different types of OD programs and their use. Each case study represents a different OD focus: case study A involves a survey…