Recent school tragedies in Wisconsin, Colorado, and Pennsylvania challenge school planning and management leaders to face a crucial decision: will such events be permitted to inspire educational fortresses based on the divisiveness of fear or will we rise to the higher mission of creating learning environments that welcome, unify and inspire…

De-departmentalizing the high school into smaller integrated quads would make possible the necessary frequent review and revision of the curriculum and facilitate change with greater ease. Inflexibility could give way to creativity and provide a humanistic environment to meet the needs of adolescents. (Author)

The American Federation of Teachers' (AFT) annual meeting stressed school restructuring, schools within schools, in which groups of teachers work within the system to change the system. The delegates passed a number of resolutions that called for extending current services or initiating new ones. (MLF)

School buildings of earlier eras represented a variety of views on organization for instruction. Presently only 42 percent of the nations's schools are considered to be in good condition. More needs to be done in relating educational needs to structure. (14 references) (MLF)

At their annual meeting, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) proposed that school reform begin with schools within schools. The arrangement would involve groups of teachers who plan and set up experimental schools within existing schools. (MLF)

Principal Charles E. Mingo is working to revolutionize Du Sable High School in Chicago located near the nation's largest public housing development. Mingo and his staff have reduced truancy, doubled the percentage of graduates, and started an alternative school for dropouts. (MLF)

Although there is controversy as to whether middle-level education should be more comparable to high school or to elementary school, this paper argues that the school within a school (SWAS) concept effectively makes large schools seem small so that they have more in common with a typical K-5 school than with a grade-10-through-12 high school. The…

The emerging global and societal conditions demand more than the rhetoric of restructuring, reform, change, and innovation. Educators must adopt the spirit of astronauts to confront the issues directly, create a desirable future for learning, and overcome the inertia of the existing school system. The proposal for the Minnesota Experimental City…

One of the most enduring challenges facing the public school system is decreasing the dropout rate. The highest rate of growth population in the future will be among the groups who are at greatest risk of dropping out of school. This paper outlines what school officials can do to decrease the dropout rate. The suggestions for dropout prevention…

Big school districts promised to hold down costs by centralizing functions under one roof and delivering a greater selection of academic offerings and activities, thus improving education. But they have not delivered. Up to a certain size, consolidation can save costs, but above that size, districts experience "diseconomies of scale,"…

Since 1970, essentially all research favors the creation of small high schools. Four forces that have contributed to the growing obsolescence of large, comprehensive high schools are the onset of the information age, the emergence of an adolescent culture, the students' rights movement, and changing attitudes about the proper functioning of…

School design must reflect deep-seated changes in educational practices such as using outcome-based education, reorganizing traditional grade structures, grouping students in "houses," and mainstreaming handicapped children. Describes designs for five school buildings that are intended to enhance and undergird what goes on in classrooms.…

This overview examines recent research and thinking about school size and bases discussion on two key assumptions: good schools can differ widely in size, and there is no such thing as "optimal" school size. Rather, the "right" size for a school depends on local conditions and contexts. School size means more than total student enrollment. Grade…

Downsizing schools--creating small schools, schools-within-schools, and small learning communities--has been a highly favored school reform strategy of recent years, one that is supported by considerable research. Yet for many of these schools, the going has not been easy, bedeviled by bureaucratic resistance, public misunderstanding, and…

Research shows that small schools and schools within schools can yield positive outcomes for students and improved satisfaction and effectiveness among school staff. Small schools can be less costly than larger ones if judged by expenditure per graduate instead of cost per pupil enrolled. Examination of the policy environments of urban schools in…