The adoption of a school-based management/shared decision-making administrative process (SBM/SDM) was recommended for the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) school district in June 1990. Findings of a study that determined the attitudes of three non-Chapter 1 elementary school communities in Philadelphia toward the adoption of SBM/SDM are presented in…

This lecture recounts personal experiences and discusses environmental issues that invoked a desire to teach about the things threatening the earth. Human population growth is cited as the first and foremost environmental challenge in the 20th century. A J-shaped curve is used to illustrate an increase in human population. The relationship between…

Ways in which restructuring approaches to school improvement are likely to promote advances in educational equity are discussed in this paper. The first sections briefly define restructuring and equity and examine three ethics that drive efforts to make schools more equitable: competitive/utilitarian, social justice, and caring ethics. A…

Findings of a study that examined the relationship between principals' behaviors and faculty commitment to collaborative action research are presented in this paper. Methodology focused on the actions of six elementary, middle, and high school principals who participated in Project LEARN, a collaborative action outreach service of Washington State…

Findings of a study that examined change in four elementary schools (members of large urban public school systems located in the south and southwest sections of the United States) from a conventional to a participatory model of school organization are presented in this paper. To compare teacher roles before and after implementation of the…

A year-long project was undertaken at Solano Community College, in California, to establish a well organized and planned program to recruit and retain underrepresented faculty and staff, utilizing funds from a Faculty and Staff Diversity grant from the California Community Colleges' Office of the Chancellor. The first step was the formation of a…

This article suggests that a critical postmodern organizational perspective offers significant ways to assess an institution of higher education's effectiveness. The first part of the article outlines what is meant by "critical postmodernism" and then delineates a definition of multiculturalism in higher education based on the work of…

This document contains a series of materials that were developed to help adult educators involve all stakeholders (adult learners, funders, administrators, legislators) in assessing internal and external cultures (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) of an adult education organization (AEO) and then using the information gained to…

This paper describes school restructuring efforts undertaken since 1991 in the Virginia Beach Public Schools (Virginia). These efforts are based on a resolution adopted by the school board in December 1991, which supported the implementation of school-based management and shared decision making. Several common restructuring themes were shared by…

The impact of action research on student academic and social performance is examined in this paper. Project LEARN (League of Educational Action Researchers in the Northwest), a cooperative initiative with school districts to train teams of educators in collaborative action research, was evaluated in five participating schools--two elementary, one…

This study investigated the relationship between soldiers' satisfaction with the environment for families in the Army and satisfaction with the military way of life. The report is based on a secondary analysis of the responses of a stratified random sample of 9,198 Army personnel, a sample that participated in the 1985 Department of Defense…

Educational institutions are expected to serve people by developing their knowledge, skills, and personality, including their values and attitudes. They are expected to influence the environment through the people they develop and through the models they set up in terms of the values and behaviors of the people who work in these institutions.…

This digest summarizes in a question and answer format a full length report of the same title. It addresses trends in college student enrollment patterns with an emphasis on behavior underlying student choice of college. Demographic changes and cuts in important sources of student financial aid brought significant enrollment declines to higher…

A review of the literature indicates that while organizational climate has received much attention in the field of organizational communication, it has been studied largely as a worker's perception of his or her work environment as assessed by self-report measures. Reliance upon those perceptual measures has created controversy as to whether (1)…

If U.S. foreign policy is to be prudent and effective, it must cease relying on the doctrinaire images and cold war rhetoric of the past and take into account five intactable problems, none of them specifically military, that the Soviet Union faces. These problems are: (1) unabating deficiencies in its economy; (2) a precarious battle with…