Attrition rates among school leaders have risen in recent years, and scholars cite a lack of meaningful connections and responsive professional learning as leading reasons why they are leaving the field. School leaders are called to navigate unfamiliar and complex challenges, often working in isolation with limited opportunities for collaboration…

This 3-year case study examined middle grades principal leadership in a takeover charter school. The researcher analyzed principal and teacher interviews, field notes, and documents in relationship to a middle grades model of principal leadership. Results suggest the principals' limited experience, organizational factors unique to takeover charter…

To be more effective instructional leaders, principals must be granted four conditions: sufficient autonomy, responsibility for operating their buildings, authority commensurate with their responsibility, and central office and board support. This path will pay dividends in school climate, staff morale, student achievement, and community…

Textbooks cannot define curriculum. In a curriculum vacuum, textbooks have made content coverage an end in itself, made didactic treatment of fact-level information the standard teaching method, and overwhelmed learners with too much information. Textbook content is indifferent to educational goals, is unselective, ignores instructional pace,…

Summarizes the Carnegie Foundation president's September 1987 speech concerning this generations's most urgent task--rebuilding the nation's schools. Warns that today's teachers may have gained in competency and responsibility, but not in empowerment to shape curricula, plan inservice programs, or shape student retention and special education…

Principals' goals of a highly motivated faculty and and effective school are not mutually exclusive. Evidence from an organizational study indicates that adherence to agreed-upon values accompanied by encouragement of individual autonomy promotes high morale among employees. (14 references) (CJH)

Describes a Kansas public school district's efforts to develop a synergistic curriculum plan combining the most positive elements of a standardized curriculum with those of a school-based curriculum. Encouraging staff commitment demands mutuality of expectations, dependence, trust, respect, communication, and vision. (MLH)

Uses the Job Characteristics Model and Job Diagnostic Survey instrument to study the effects of 73 San Diego teachers' motivation and satisfaction on participatory management. Teachers are generally dissatisfied by the absence of feedback, autonomy, and task-related interaction. Participatory management opportunities must be differentiated…

Raising professional standards and improving teacher preparation programs will have little effect unless teaching becomes a more attractive career. Local administrators should involve faculty members effectively and satisfactorily in the decision-making and management process so that teachers don't need to enlist collective bargaining to force…

To discover who is in charge and ascertain principals' perceptions of their own decision-making autonomy, a short questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 2,559 elementary and secondary school principals in the 11 southeastern states. Respondents believed they have enough autonomy over instructional personnel, subject matter, and instructional…

Although teachers have little voice in textbook selection or standardized test content, they still retain most powerful influence on students' learning and can serve as curriculum leaders. Past approachers have defined curriculum development as authoritarian administrative process and have regarded teachers as implementors. Teachers can prevail by…

Generally, amount of stress generated by difficult situations is inversely proportional to one's perceived control over them. Stressed-out principals are advised to work on their attitude, create new personal focus (a hobby or exercise program), initiate new professional focus, be good to themselves, rely on well-established support systems, and…

Drawing on hypotheses inferred from survey findings concerning principals' attitudes toward community involvement in the schools, the author suggests using principals' support of teacher autonomy and principals' encouragement of community involvement as the two dimensions of a model of school-community relations. (PGD)

The present confrontational labor/management negotiations model mitigates against the development of a higher form of teacher professionalism. Current union and school management models are highly centralized governance systems. Collaborative planning must be instituted in a collegial manner to be successful. (MLH)

Survey of 91 Washington school districts found 153 teachers were placed on probation during 1984-87; of these, 40% were first-year teachers, 69% dismissed, retired, or resigned. Evaluated behaviors that proved hardest for teachers to remedy were handling of student discipline, classroom management. Deficiency in one of eight areas could lead to…