Public school principals encounter a sizable gap between the autonomy they believe they need to be effective and the autonomy that they actually have in practice, especially when it comes to hiring, firing, and transferring teachers. That is a key finding of this report from the Fordham Institute and the American Institutes for Research, which is…

The Governor's Educator Excellence Grant (GEEG) program was federally- and state-funded and provided three-year grants to schools to design and implement performance pay plans from the 2005-06 to 2007-08 school years. GEEG was implemented in 99 high poverty, high performing Texas public schools. This report builds on the previous GEEG evaluation…

This book is designed to help educators recognize and, if necessary, change a school's culture. It guides principals, other administrators, and teachers in the process of shaping the culture of their schools. For those who have already begun the process, the book provides insights, examples, and reassurance that their efforts are headed in the…

Successful implementation of school-based management (SBM) begins with effective principal leadership. This paper describes findings of a study that examined the principal's role in implementing school-based decision making. Ethnographic data were collected over a 3-year period in 4 elementary schools that implemented SBM. Methods included…

The real world of schools is a political world of power and influence, bargaining and negotiation. Teacher development must therefore take place within the micropolitical realities of schooling. This book describes how the micropolitics of educational leadership affect the working world of teachers and develops four approaches to leadership. Part…

This monograph explores the notion of viewing leadership as a single, interconnecting system at work in the internal and external school environment, rather than as a collection of individual roles. The document explores what the new leadership paradigm--a decentralized, collaborative model--means to schools. Leadership is viewed as an…

The uncertain context of educational practice caused by reform proposals has created a dilemma for architects of educational-administration programs. If program designers do not respond positively to reform movements, they may fail to equip beginning administrators with the necessary knowledge and skills. On the other hand, if the preparation…

Central to restructuring efforts in Australia was the establishment of school decision-making groups (SDMGs), which gave school staff and community representatives more autonomy over decisions concerning educational policy and school development. This paper presents findings of a study that examined the responses of three secondary schools to the…

A cultural profile of the French-Canadian business community of Quebec is presented, focusing on seven aspects of business communication: language; environment and technology; social organization; degree of contextual understanding; authority conception; nonverbal behavior; and temporal conception. The history of French and English language use in…

Teachers in "good" schools often provide considerable input into curriculum decisions and other types of school policies. They are considered to be "empowered." This paper argues that the apparent empowerment of teachers in these situations is actually the opposite: In good schools superordinates do not empower teachers; instead, teachers empower…

This paper describes the various types of school-business partnerships that exist in rural America. Data were derived from an extensive review of literature and limited field observations and interviews. Findings indicate that little formal research has been conducted on reform-model, school-business partnerships. Two strands of thought regarding…

A study investigated the perceptions of the work environment among 4,981 permanent non-instructional staff at a midwestern research university, to determine whether union and non-union workers have significantly different perceptions. The survey instrument consisted of 190 items representing 13 categories of quality work environment, and two…

Research demonstrates that along with the usual filters for skills and competence, aspiring administrators also encounter the profession's gender filters. Gender filters appear as deeply shared understandings among female and male professional school administrators. Gender filters maintain the privilege of the dominant white male culture by…

Early in this century, John Dewey wondered how educators could justify believing in democracy if they did not practice it in schools. This paper presents findings of a study that located the underlying values that support the social construction of democratic praxis in schools. It explored how school leaders in democratic school communities viewed…

Scarce resources have facilitated increasing interdependence among organizations. This paper describes the group dynamics of the cooperation and collaboration models and examines which one is most suitable for maintaining effective group involvement. The cooperation model is comprised of two organizations that reach a mutual agreement; however,…