This paper reports on how teachers and principals in Maine schools perceive current and desired involvement of parents, community members, and students in school decision making. A survey assessed decision making in four basic areas: (1) mission, goals, and objectives; (2) curriculum, from specific learning outcomes to development of curriculum…

As Texas public schools undertake their third year of implementing site-based decision making (SBDM), it becomes increasingly important to examine the extent to which SBDM has achieved its purported goals. This paper examined how Texas public school districts might effect mandated governance changes through the political phenomenon known as…

This book presents a wide array of sophisticated problem-solving tools and shows how to use them in a humanizing way that involves all stakeholders in the process. Chapter 1 develops the rationale for educational stakeholders to consider quality tools. Chapter 2 highlights three quality group-process tools--brainstorming, the nominal group…

Parents who are having difficulty coping with their child's behavior need to understand the reasons for their child's behavior and to feel confident in their way of handling the situation. This book explains how to make, maintain, repair and strengthen relationships with teenagers. It encourages parents to take control of the parenting situation…

During the spring of 1993, a needs assessment was conducted in rural Kansas communities to determine existing services and community strengths available to special needs children. Interviews were conducted with a cross section of the community regarding community resources, collaboration, parent and family involvement, planning processes, and…

The joint UNESCO-UNICEF Monitoring Education-for-All Goals Project was launched in September 1992. The first phase of the project was implemented in five pilot countries (China, Jordan, Mali, Mauritius, and Morocco) with the express aim of providing national decision makers with practical tools for monitoring basic education in their countries and…

A survey of French research by CEREQ ("A French research centre for analysis of occupations and of vocational education and training") shows that firms have undertaken a number of experiments, most of them large scale, to retrain their work force. These initiatives are situated within a general context of change. Training programs based…

State programs offer greatest promise for practical strategic actions to enhance the quality of the nation's adult work force. Three steps in the recursive process that create a model of state action are as follows: (1) documentation of the platform for action, which consists of current adult work force attributes and current institutional…

A longitudinal study investigated developmental changes in moral and ethical decision-making among college students at three Christian, evangelical, liberal arts colleges. The three colleges had an "ethics across the curriculum" emphasis in place during the period of the study. The study began in 1987 with 99 freshmen from a total incoming class…

This paper reports on a study of the perceptions of 10 teachers as they sought to gain acceptance for curriculum practices considered to be child-responsive. The teachers worked with 5- and 6-year-old children in schools where some perceived their child-responsive practices as innovative, introducing practices which differed from those already…

This paper presents six chapters that describe how statewide reading assessment is currently being performed and how the data are being used. The validity of statewide reading assessment instruments and the appropriate uses of statewide reading assessment data are explored. Several chapters discuss new ways in which some states conduct reading…

At Washington State University's College of Business and Economics (CBE) a strategic planning program was introduced using a focus on the student as the product and the potential employers as the customers of the product. Using this approach the focus of planning is redirected with future employers the most heavily weighted source of feedback on…

The purpose of this study was to describe and interpret teacher decision-making with ethnically diverse students. A new paradigmatic theoretical framework formed through the confluence of constructivism, multiculturalism, the teacher-as-decision-maker, and semiology guided the research. The research site was a suburban middle school located in the…

This curriculum guide for grades 4 through 9 uses the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to teach conflict resolution and to explore the philosophy of non-violence for daily life. To enable students to learn and apply non-violence, it must be modeled in a classroom environment that builds trust and a sense of community. Each of the…

The PRISE (Positive Resiliency in Special Education) Curriculum was designed to prevent alcohol and other drug use among the special education population in kindergarten through high school, by involving students in classroom activities that will increase their personal resiliency while encouraging them to make healthy, informed decisions. The…