Too many students still experience the factory model evident in most U.S. high schools, which were designed to put young people on a conveyor belt and move them from one overloaded teacher to the next, in 45-minute increments, to be stamped with separate, disconnected lessons 7 or 8 times a day. While these factory-model designs may have worked…

During the past two decades, Taiwan's Ministry of Education has responded to globalization by restructuring school curricular, instructional, and decision making practices along western lines in an attempt to attain legitimacy on the world stage. As a result, Taiwanese principals, once kings within their schools, now must share power with other…

After 1987, Gorbachev's initiatives provoked strong educator discord over the extent of desirable national education policy change and the rewriting of the nation's history. Classroom teachers and low-level administrators pushed for greater decision-making authority at lower levels. By 1989, these differences had settled into a pattern of ongoing,…

In the spirit of educational reform efforts, this digest examines the concept of teacher-as-researcher, a concept rooted in action research. Action research is designed, conducted, and implemented by teachers themselves to improve teaching in the classroom. The research is often a collaborative activity promoting reflective teaching, critical…

Reviews focus groups as a way of determining community opinions and explains how to use them. Designing a focus group series, conducting the group, and reporting the results are described, and examples are given of focus groups in educational change. (SLD)

Describes restructuring in a Western Australian school district. Provides background information and summarizes findings of a case study exploring what primary teachers thought about the restructuring of their work. The 60 teachers interviewed generally thought the restructuring process negatively influenced their curriculum work. Teachers felt…

Interviews were conducted with teachers who chaired the steering committees for 3 of the 25 National Education Association Mastery in Learning (MIL) Project schools with the purpose of eliciting their viewpoints on teacher empowerment and leadership. The schools (Orchards Elementary School in Lewiston, Idaho; Willow Creek Junior High in Rochester,…

The National Institute for Educational Research (NIER), Tokyo (Japan) and the Asia-Pacific Centre of Educational Innovation for Development (APEID) of the United Nations Scientific, Cultural, and Educational Organization (UNESCO) organized a regional seminar to explore issues related to secondary education in Asia and the Pacific and to formulate…

This paper summarizes an ethnohistorical study of the way in which a medium-sized suburban school district's implementation of site-based, shared decision making interacted with attitudes and procedures created by earlier district reforms. A second focus is on how the adoption of a new curriculum framework, based on a whole-language philosophy and…

This book was designed to help school, parent, and community leaders acquire the skills necessary for the successful restructuring of middle-level schools. Chapter 1 defines middle-level education and describes the forces that shaped and continue to shape middle-level education, the evolution of middle-level schools, and current middle-level…

Since the 1960s, a dizzying array of educational reforms have been introduced in school districts across the United States. This book describes a study that focused on how successive waves of reform interacted within a single school district. The study follows the suburban Cottonwood School District from its beginnings in the early 1950s through…

Asserts that teachers are already significant decision makers regarding curriculum and instruction. Argues that teachers and students cannot be empowered by others. Suggests four conditions to enhance teacher growth and informed engagement: systematic study of self; subject matter, pedagogy, and learners; society; and utilization of contingency…

The Chicago (Illinois) School Reform Act was signed into law in 1988 and the Reform School Board of Trustees was appointed in July 1995. There have been several reports of teachers' opinions about the Reform Act, but the opinions of teachers about the Reform School Board have not been studied. Almost half of teachers have reported at least some…

Although the "what" of schooling has become clearer through a convergence of research findings, educators still do not understand the "hows" of effectively using that knowledge to make necessary changes. This paper's objectives are to argue the necessity of fundamental changes in the patterns of schooling (the "whys") and to present a conceptual…

This document presents findings of a nationwide study that examined the extent to which American high schools are implementing various restructuring activities. A survey mailed to principals in all of the nation's 10,365 regionally accredited public and private high schools elicited a 33 percent response rate. Seven indicators of major school…