Education and business, as professional disciplines, seem, at first glance, to be linked. Both are social enterprises involving relationships and processes derived to accomplish a particular set of tasks. However the track record of injecting business methodology into school communities has been poor. Historically the introduction of management…

Across the United States, there are schools whose students are significantly outperforming and out-improving those from nearby schools. In almost any geographic location in America, within a 30-minute drive there exist schools where classrooms are alive with stimulating learning, day in and day out. Not too far away from these schools are schools…

This study explores the strategic thinking and strategic planning efforts in a department, college and university in the Southeastern United States. The goal of the study was to identify elements of strategic planning processes that meet the unique organizational features and complexities of a higher education institution. The study employed a…

Gives an overview of systems-based theories and their application in education. Suggests that teachers and administrators recognize that change is inherent in all systems, effecting further change. Recommends holistic planning that accounts for interactions among all system components. (Contains 19 references.) (SK)

As the sophistication of technology has increased, so has public demand for quality. This expectation of quality has occurred across a broad range of products and systems, including education. To meet the demand for quality, many products and systems (including educational ones) have become increasingly complex. Within education there are also…

The increasing magnitude of the enterprise of education, the rapid growth of knowledge, the changing educational administrative requirements and challenges, and the development of new educational programs to match the range of students' diverse interests and capacities--all these challenges call for rapid upgrading of the quality and technique of…

Makes informal analyses of the method by which decisions in higher education are now made and of how that method compares to the systematic planning procedures so often proposed. Suggests how the systems approach can be applied in higher education and indicates what processes would be involved. Concludes with a discussion of a few of the problems…

Provides a basic definition of the systems approach and explains the school as an open social-technical system composed of five subsystems--goals and values, technical, psychosocial, structural, and managerial. Contrasts the systems approach with earlier management theories that emphasized particular subsystems and ignored others. (JHZ)

This four-chapter report explores the possible contributions of a systems approach to institutional planning. After introductory comments, Chapter I reviews the management theory of Henry Fayol, which emphasizes management tasks, such as planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling, which are "universal" regardless of the level…

This publication brings together seven papers exemplifying the systems approach to educational decision making. The first discusses the need for inclusion of constituent values in educational decision making strategies to properly apply systems theory concepts. In the second, which addresses systems design for problem solving in schools,…

This volume contains five state-of-the-knowledge papers commissioned by ERIC/CEA (now ERIC/CEM) and presented at a conference sponsored by ERIC/CEA and CASEA. The authors and the titles of the papers are: Willis W. Harman, "Nature of Our Changing Society: Implications for Schools"; Richard C. Williams, "Teacher Militancy: Implications for the…

Out of an enrollment challenge faced by Thomas More College has emerged a system that could help other small institutions. (Author)

Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Los Angeles, California, February 5-8, 1969. Contrasts strategic and extrapolative approaches to planning, emphasizing the former's superiority in planning adaptive organizational change to meet changing conditions. (JM)

Three major presentations made at an October 1968 conference at Hartland, Michigan, for public school administrators and university professors are "The Systems Movement and Educational Administration," by Glenn L. Immegart; "Cost-Utility Analysis and Educational Decision-Making," by Austin D. Swanson; and "Educational…

This review surveys documents, previously announced in RIE, that are concerned with the (1) development of planning-programing-budgeting systems (PPBS) for educational planning, (2) models of PPBS implementation, (3) specific applications suitable for libraries, and (4) bibliographies available on the topic. PPBS decisionmaking models enable…