Teacher job satisfaction is important to retaining high-performing teachers. This study aims to investigate the effects of certain factors, such as age, gender, and years of experience, on overall job satisfaction. This study involved over 400 teachers from a West Tennessee school district, where the Job Satisfaction Survey was distributed. The…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how faculty, administrators, and staff perceived the climate for shared governance at 36 member institutions of the Appalachian College Association (ACA), based on standards for sound shared governance in higher education as outlined by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Numerous…

The mandates of the federal law "No Child Left Behind," enacted in 2002, have placed tremendous pressure on school principals in this current era of unprecedented accountability. Because of the increasing number of targeted schools, the rigid standards of federal legislation, and the punitive consequences imposed by accountability…

The University of Tennessee Libraries' Diversity Committee administered a climate assessment survey to determine the readiness of the libraries for a comprehensive diversity initiative. This article discusses the design and methodology of the survey and analyzes the results. The survey served as a valuable starting point in charting a successful…

This paper presents information to be used by school-leadership teams engaged in the development of school-improvement plans. It reviews recent literature on shared leadership and collaborative schools, school-improvement teams, school culture, and effective schools/positive learning environments. The paper also identifies school-level and…

In 1987, a school-university collaborative project, Positive Attitudes in Tennessee Schools (PATS), was established to improve school-learning environments. This paper presents findings of a study that investigated the effect of school participation in PATS on school climate. A secondary focus was to determine which school-climate variables could…

A study examined the influence of differences in school district organization on internal school organizational processes that are central to reform strategies, such as teacher cooperation and instructional leadership. Data were obtained from interviews conducted with the principals of 98 Tennessee elementary schools that participated in the…

A study examined the effects of organizational characteristics, including organizational climate and interorganizational coordination, on the quality and outcomes of 32 public children's service offices in Tennessee. Findings show that organizational climate is the primary predictor of positive service outcomes and a significant predictor of…

In 2001, the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee approved a consent decree to end the federal oversight of the Tennessee higher education integration plan. The consent decree required an examination of the work climates of higher education campuses, and a Web-based survey was developed to measure campus climate in Tennessee. Participation was…

Although the successful middle level school was designed to address both the affective and cognitive development of young adolescents (NMSA 2003), academic achievement is the outcome of paramount importance in the current political context of accountability, high-stakes testing, and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. In their efforts to reform,…

The Tennessee School Climate Inventory was developed as part of a learning-environment information system to be used in a school-restructuring effort known as Positive Attitudes in Tennessee Schools (PATS). Initiated in Tennessee during the 1989-90 school year, the project sought to improve school-learning environments through school-leadership…

Ways in which humor is used as an administrative technique are explored in this paper, with a focus on its impact on school culture. Case study methodology is based on interviews with two principals and five staff members at a Tennessee high school. Following a review of transcript excerpts, the principal's use of humor is viewed through four…

The flight of middle class families from the cities to the suburbs has left many cities hard pressed to continue services at former levels. Falling enrollments and revenues have led to mergers of city and county school districts or closures of city districts followed by county takeover. This report documents educators' experience of city-county…

Use of the School Climate and Context Inventory (SCCI) as a measure of school climate was investigated. The SCCI had previously been used as a measure of climate in a study of six rural high schools in Kentucky and Tennessee; in the current study, the SCCI was administered to 20 faculty members from each school. Split-half correlation and…

Focusing primarily on the role of educational leaders, this document analyzes what makes a difference in school learning. After a brief review of literature on the relationship between administrative leadership and student learning, aspects of the Far West Laboratory Instructional Leadership Model (the FWL model) used in the current analyses are…