Whereas the laissez-faire approach merely tells each teacher to do what he or she thinks best, the principal moving toward empowerment charges a group of teachers with devising the best decision for all. A Maryland elementary school used the Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement staff development plan as a big step toward preparing teachers…

Within an individual building, the School Improvement Process (SIP) provides a focus for staff development and an evaluation of results that are linked to student outcomes. SIP emphasizes a building level, bottom-up planning and decision-making process. This article presents a case study of an individual school's use of SIP. (IAH)

The Advisory Model of Staff Development, developed in the Jackson (Mississippi) Public School System, consists of three primary components, each interacting with the others. The System-Wide Staff Development plan is prepared by a committee composed of teachers, administrators, school-board members and laypersons. This insures equity of staff…

The goals of greater involvement of teachers in their own staff development mirror those of quality adult education. If the further development of teachers as self-directed learners is facilitated by giving them both the time to make the transition to such methods and a chance to plan and implement professional-development projects, both teachers…

The process of implementing change is extremely complicated, particularly when multiple innovations are being introduced simultaneously. Conflicting views exist regarding provincial versus local priorities, and available resources are declining. This report is a summary of a Master's thesis that analyzed the implementation process employed in 13…

Describes the system of shared decision making used by the Bay Shore (New York) Union Free School District. Discusses the following major elements: (1) long-range planning; (2) staff development; and (3) commitment. (FMW)

A study of professional development intervention programs in which schools choose their own issues and action plans is presented in this report. "Intervention" refers to university introduction of new professional development models into the school. A 3-year program involving five schools in collaboration with university staff members and…

One of the tasks of school principals in some districts is to provide for an appropriate staff development program. From his own experiences the author argues that adopting commercial marketing techniques is not necessary when convincing the staff of the need for staff development. Instead, making the identification of staff needs and the…

A description is given of a client-based approach to staff development that emphasizes ongoing professional growth and learning for teachers. The underlying assumptions of the program are that teachers possess important clinical expertise, and that professional learning is an adaptive, heuristic process that is long-term and nonlinear. The program…

The Baltimore County Public School system implemented the use of quality circles in its school improvement programs to facilitate change through increased involvement of faculty in decision making. The program increased the productivity and the motivation of the staff in their efforts to strive toward excellence. This paper describes the program…

Teachers prefer that staff development be continuous, relevant, and integral to their jobs. A systems approach to staff development contains three basic components: planning, implementation, and evaluation. The proposed model emphasizes how interdependence of these components can be achieved through the use of feedback which facilitates system…

This monograph concentrates on the components of collaborative cultures and how schools develop such collaborative cultures. Urban schools face unique challenges in the frequent lack of resources and the special needs of their often disadvantaged populations. The school culture is a unique quality of the school that is a complex web of norms,…

In collaborative schools, regular and special education teachers meet regularly to analyze and make decisions about instructional practices and services to meet the needs of all students. This paper explores the effectiveness of a school development model in helping small rural schools adopt three characteristics of collaborative schools: (1) a…

Teacher empowerment and participation is essential for successful reform of education. This paper considers basic school/university partnership needs, including off-campus study opportunities, university experience in such partnerships, decision making and implementation procedures, faculty attitudes toward teachers, and needs assessment…

An interactive research and development (IR&D) project brings together teachers, university researchers, and staff development specialists as a team to identify, research, and disseminate findings from questions of interest to teachers. Six major features of an interactive IR&D project are: (1) teams having at least one teacher, one researcher,…