Research-Practice Partnerships (RPP) can enable and support an evidence-based school culture for decision-making in districts across the nation. Based on our experiences in a large urban district, a key element for a successful RPP is to understand that school districts have their own research needs/agenda typically articulated in strategic plans.…

This paper presents an array of structural configurations that invite new consideration of the necessary conditions for developing systemic school reform; first by reviewing the current literature, and then by examining thirty-six existing partnerships as structural configurations, an exploratory typology for the analysis of successful…

Urban school leaders have challenges in continually improving student achievement and making change as quickly as needed. To address this problem 37 non-Title I principals completed an on-line survey, Principal's Actions Survey (PAS), based on the seven responsibilities for second order change identified by Marzano, Waters, and McNulty (2005).…

The methodology, assumptions, and values viewed here are emergent factors that can provide the framework for a thriving new discipline. That the limits of the rational-man theory are beginning to be recognized is evidenced by considerable methodological flexibility and increased interests in personal, self-actualizing aspects of organizations.…

The concept of synergistics is presented as a model for organizational behavior. The writer contends that, within a systems approach to education, utilizing the idea of synergistics, which capitalizes on human resources as an input to the system, dramatic changes in education can take place. (Author/DN)

Outlines the facts being presented in the literature about mathematical models, their related components, and their practical and theoretical uses. (Author)

Asserts that programs to prepare educational administrators need upgrading if they are to maintain credibility and survive. A systemic model is proposed as a guide to the revision of such programs, and its application at the University of Kansas is discussed. (WM)

The advantages of utilizing the conceptual model and mathematical programing for the determination of the allocation of functions within a State school system. (Author)

New organizational arrangements are required to solve the problems confronting a rapidly changing society. A dynamic, ongoing organization responsive to the requirements of this new era can be designed from a systems approach in terms of inputs, conversion process, and outputs. (Author/DN)

Deals with four major skill areas: (1) the analytics of categorization, (2) the analytics of priority assessment, (3) the analytics of time and transition, and (4) the analytics of decision strategy. (Author)

Presents a possible process model for education based on a problem solving referent, and suggests some alternatives for identifying and possibly integrating current thrusts toward the systematic and valid improvement of education. (JF)

During periods of organizational stress such as the implementation of major organizational change, the tendency for group formation may be increased and the effects of informal relations relatively more pronounced than in times of routine and regularity. (Author)

Force field analysis combines the advantages of the basic organization, objectivity, and science of systems theory and systems methods, with a simplicity and clarity that allows its mastery by policy-makers and administrators who are not specialists in engineering, data processing, or programming. (Author/IRT)

Systematically identifies the stages in the development of legislative proposals affecting schools. Gives special recognition to alternative sources of power in state government in contrast to the "formal institution-association" concept of power. (Author/IRT)