In fiscal year 1983-84 the budget of the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) included funds for a study of viable methods to increase professionalism among the teaching force. After careful and well documented research, the DCPS administration and the School Board chose to establish a teacher incentives program. In 1985 the Intern-Mentor…

The organizational and human productivity knowledge-base expansion of the past 5 years indicates that educational leaders and support staff must assume responsibility for schooling together to change student achievement patterns. The sociological management challenge is one of empowering groups to address educational productivity. The…

Excessive centralized control begets uniformity, which denies local need and school uniqueness. Further, control, order, and supervision create impassivity and work against autonomy. The decentralization of authority to lower echelons more familar with local needs may provide a more relevant administration that encourages local initiatives; school…

During the 1987 World Health Organization's Regional Assembly, the Ministers of Health of the African States launched the Bamako Initiative, an effort aimed at reorganizing the health system to ensure universal, permanent accessibility of maternal and child health services. Three conditions were initially seen as necessary for success: improvement…

This collection of essays offers a picture of rural education in the American South in 1930. It opens with demographic data describing child-labor practices as a barrier to education. The following topics are discussed: (1) the achievements of Southern educators in the areas of school consolidation, funding, literacy, and black education; (2) ways…

The relationship between teacher effectiveness, as measured by residualized student grades, and teacher evaluations by secondary principals is analyzed in this study. The two-step methodology involved baseline data collection and an effectiveness development phase. In the first phase, demographic variables were obtained from personnel files of 145…

This book offers the critical perspectives of 20 educators on some of the issues associated with facilitating instructional leadership, emphasizing the complex interplay between the character of schools as work settings, the orientations of principals and teachers toward their work, and the challenges of leading and improving schools at the end of…

The first section of the document consists of a questionnaire/survey instrument completed by 43 supervisors or coordinators of preschool handicapped programs as part of a study designed to evaluate the quality and efficiency of early education programs serving handicapped children (ages 3-5) in Louisiana during 1985-86. Frequency distribution of…

This learning unit on easy statistics is one in the Choice Series, a self-learning development program for supervisors. Purpose stated for the approximately eight-hour-long unit is to enable the supervisor to use statistics to improve his/her decision-making ability, interpret statistics and form judgments on the interpretations other people make,…

The process of performance evaluation of teachers and other school personnel should be conducted with their full knowledge and involvement. Due process procedures require that a teacher be fully informed of any negative appraisals by a superior, have an opportunity to discuss the problems, and receive guidance toward solutions. The following steps…

Does homework increase academic achievement? The best answer, in 1986, is that large-scale correlational studies at the secondary level suggest a strong, positive relationship between amount of homework and academic achievement. Results are less clear at the elementary level, but the weight of evidence is positive. At both elementary and secondary…

This handbook provides practical suggestions to principals on using teacher evaluation to develop a school's most important resource--its teachers. After briefly delineating the basic steps in teacher evaluation, the handbook provides advice in each of the following areas: formulating the approach; establishing an affirmative atmosphere;…

Evaluation for any internship experience, whether in the form of a complete internship "audit" or an appraisal of individual components of the experience, is a three-stage task for the academic supervisor: (1) finding out what happened and comparing actual results with predetermined goals; (2) finding out what specific factors in the…

This report presents the findings of a survey designed to determine the perceived role of the K-12 science supervisor. Surveys were administered to samplings obtained at three 1978 National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) area conventions (Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Milwaukee) and from individuals in selected states to ensure a valid,…

Relevant theory and research are brought to bear on the questions of what administrators can do that makes a difference to student learning, of exactly what principals manage in their role as education leader, and of what knowledge they must have to increase learning in their schools. Conclusions are that principals can improve student achievement…