The purpose of this publication is to help school district leaders improve the use of technology in schools through the design and implementation of a planning process. Three levels of the process are noted, including strategic planning of overall direction for program improvement, program planning of objectives and management, and curriculum…

Although vast numbers of educational innovations have been introduced into the nation's schools over the past 20 years, few have succeeded in effecting affective, behavioral, and cognitive student gains. Many recent studies have focused, therefore, on school change processes and the formulation of strategies for successful innovation…

This case study of the acquisition and utilization of microcomputers for administrative purposes at Chipola Junior College, Florida focuses on the reactions of faculty and staff. After a brief review of the college's prior microcomputing activities from 1981 to 1985, the report is divided into four major sections: (1) how administrators involved…

Past research has correlated differential curriculum implementation outcomes at the classroom level with the actions of the key change facilitator at the school level: the principal. Accordingly, this paper reports the results of a study of three change facilitator styles among principals: responders, managers, and initiators. Working definitions…

Researchers are becoming increasingly aware of context variables in interpreting research findings. The Procedures for Adopting Educational Innovations (PAEI) Project at the Texas Research and Development Center for Teacher Education has been attempting to identify and conceptualize important research-based and clinical-based context variables. An…

Microcomputers need to be introduced and effectively managed in academic organizations, where compatibility becomes an important issue as users wish to communicate with other users via computer. The need to standardize hardware and software thus becomes an important issue. The first step in selecting a microcomputer standard is the selection of a…

Project SHAL in St. Louis (Missouri) involved an attempt to reproduce effective schooling elements, as identified by research, in four inner-city schools, including one middle school (Stowe) and three K-5 schools (Hempstead, Arlington, and Laclede). The pilot project required the development of a replication model to track project implementation,…

The National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA) recommends a nine-item agenda for reform of the preparation of educational administrators. The agenda addresses reform issues in the areas of people, programs, and assessment. In addition to describing the agenda, this document: (1) depicts the problems to which the agenda is…

A comparison is made between two broad strategies for instituting reform in secondary schools: the bottom-up, process-oriented approach typified by the California School Improvement Program and the top-down content-oriented approach typified by the more recent reform effort in California, the School Reform approach. The comparison was made in…

This paper provides school district administrators with a structured method for developing school programs aimed at reducing the risk of adolescent dropout. The methodology encompasses problem definition, fact finding, mission management, overcoming inertia, cohering programs tied to theory, feasible goal-setting, and normative personnel…

Channel management, a concept developed in marketing to refer to the process by which a product is moved from production to consumption, uses a channel of distribution operating at several levels, each responsible for one or more of the activities of moving the product forward to the consumer. The function of channel management is to select the…

Seven papers in Part III of "Studies in Curriculum Decision Making" bring forward views on improving curriculum decision making. The first paper outlines actions that may be taken to strengthen Ministry of Education guidelines. In the second paper, the teacher's role in curriculum planning is examined. The teacher as a user of research,…

Over a 15-year period the use of computer technology in the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools increased dramatically, expanding from a small operation supporting the finance department to a full system with applications in all aspects of administration at the central office and local school levels as well as in instruction. Four of the…

Researchers using a combination of principal logs, on-site observation, face-to-face interviews, and regularly scheduled telephone interviews documented how principals intervene in the management of school change on both a day-to-day and a year-long basis. The data are from the Principal-Teacher Interaction Study conducted at the Austin campus of…

A progress report is presented on the planning and implementation processes involved in improving the teacher education program at Bloomsburg University (Pennsylvania). Based upon a survey and analysis of faculty opinion, a review was made of all aspects of the programs in teacher education. The process of planning for change was divided into 7…