Most communicators are not giving up print or other traditional media. But they recognize that social media has quickly become an important channel for the audiences they want to reach. Social media adds texture and complexity to the marketing mix. To take advantage of social media, it pays to be nimble. Independent schools' communicators…

Realists recognize reorganizations for what they are: opportunities to do things better--to change business as usual to reflect best practices, new tools and technologies, and current challenges in the marketplace. At educational institutions, perhaps no area is as sensitive to those shifts as communications and marketing offices. The advances in…

Furman Brown has spent over a decade figuring out how to design a better school. As a first-year teacher in South Central Los Angeles in the early 1990s, he got a taste of what was wrong with the traditional public school model: It was not designed to serve students "or" teachers well. Convinced there was a better way to organize and…

When Worcester Massachusetts opened the Worcester Trade School--one of the first vocational high schools in the country--in the early 1900s, it marked an important change in public education. The old Worcester Trade School opened with 50 students, and became overcrowded in just five years. Local industrialists, knowing the value of such training,…

RACIAL AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF THE BIG NORTHERN CITIES WILL INCREASINGLY SPREAD TO THE SUBURBS. EDUCATORS MUST BE PREPARED TO DEAL EFFECTIVELY WITH THEM. THE WRITER'S EXPERIENCES WITH THE ENGLEWOOD BOARD OF EDUCATION IN NEW JERSEY ARE PRESENTED. THE SCHOOL DISTRICT WAS REORGANIZED (98 PERCENT NEGRO GRAMMAR SCHOOL WAS CLOSED AND ITS PUPILS…

DESCRIBED IS THE REORGANIZATION OF A FLORIDA HIGH SCHOOL FROM A GRADED TO A NONGRADED PHASED CURRICULUM DEVELOPED AROUND STUDENTS' ACHIEVEMENT LEVELS, RATHER THAN THEIR CHRONOLOGICAL AGES. CLASSROOM WORK ACCOMPANYING VARIOUS ACHIEVEMENT PHASES IS DESCRIBED. REMEDIAL WORK IS EMPHASIZED IN THE FIRST PHASE, BASIC SKILLS IN THE SECOND, AVERAGE LEVELS…

Purpose: Teacher hiring decisions have far-reaching consequences for a school, its students, and faculty. This article examines how new teachers in four states are hired and explores whether the process leads to good matches between these individuals and their schools. The authors conceive of hiring as a two-way process and examine the extent to…

The Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 introduced sweeping changes for public education. The planned changes are programmatic as well as fiscal: organizational modifications were introduced; administrator roles and responsibilities were redefined; particular student populations were targeted for additional academic support; and the method…

The Carnegie structure, involving seven-period days and nine different locations daily, is an ineffective system. The Copernican plan changes school scheduling by lengthening instructional periods for fewer and smaller classes. The system should improve teacher-student relationships, lighten workloads, and introduce innovative evaluation and…

Impressed with the vital importance of an effective public education system to the future of the Commonwealth, a group of involved business activists formed the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (MBAE) in 1988. The purpose of the MBAE was to help bring about systematic improvement of Massachusetts' elementary and secondary education…

The focus of this report is on the functions of the curriculum coordinator in the Chelmsford Public Schools. The role of coordinator came into being as a response to a particular set of needs. An analysis of the changing nature of those needs provided a basis for deciding whether the coordinator role should be continued in its present form;…

Since 1960 black enrollment in independent schools has increased from token numbers to almost five percent the total enrollment of these schools. The purpose of the study was to determine if there was any empirical evidence to support hypothesized relationships between black students' perceptions of their school environments and selected school…

The research discussed here had two primary purposes: (1) to replicate a study done by George Weber in which eight factors were hypothesized to make successful schools successful: strong leadership, high expectations, good atmosphere, strong emphasis on reading, additional reading personnel, individualization, use of phonics, and careful…

THE PROGRAM OFFERS EXPERIENCED SCHOOL PERSONNEL A CHANCE FOR SUPERVISED INQUIRY AND EXPERIENCE IN THE FIELDS OF INSTRUCTION, SUPERVISION, ADMINISTRATION, AND GUIDANCE, WITH EMPHASIS ON THE SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF URBAN SCHOOLS. THE PROGRAM HOPES TO EXAMINE VARIOUS PROBLEMS OF CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT, TEACHING PROCEDURE, SCHOOL AND STAFF ORGANIZATION,…

The conference program included four alternative schools which are really unique in that each of the four schools operates with the expressed approval of the board of education or school committee in its particular community and each receives some portion of its support, both financial and moral, from the same board of education or school…