This article provides an overview of several major themes in the reform movement and how changes brought about by school restructuring affect practicing teachers. Topics include teacher empowerment, site-based management, knowledge-work enterprise, school-university collaboration, professional development schools, whole-language instruction, and…

Describes a case study of 12 elementary schools (emphasizing 2 schools) affected by the Chicago School Reform Act, focusing on local contexts and features of school communities that advance or impede change. Results demonstrate the importance of neighborhood contexts and school leadership and the complexities of applying technical expertise. (SLD)

Discusses the nature of job satisfaction, its relationship to performance, and associated organizational factors, such as commitment, in research libraries. Symptoms of job dissatisfaction are outlined, and a framework for improving job satisfaction provides suggestions in the areas of hiring, professional development, job design, empowerment, and…

Summarizes a five-month study of a British secondary school governing body to determine whether the 1986 and 1988 education acts' goals were being achieved. One significant research issue was the emerging lay-professional relationship. At present, the school governing body is not fully exercising its powers but is responding to an externally…

Describes a long-term, critically oriented teacher-researcher group, noting troublesome issues and the group's attempts to expand teacher-researcher collaboration into daily education settings. The article includes personal narratives by the members, which stress the importance of a self-reflexive stance for collaborative research to accommodate…

St. Paul's Episcopal School in Oakland (California) addresses the needs of its multicultural community by promoting decision making by students. A commitment to diversity is really a commitment to respecting each individual, and real respect means respecting each student as a decision maker. (SLD)

An educator and an architect discuss school design considerations that include developing a strong learning plan, a strong concept of community, and architecture that supports both. Involving the community and students in planning instills a sense of ownership and pride that is more conducive to learning and school safety than tough standards and…

Children's rights, as described in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, are increasingly being taught in Canadian schools. Children's rights curricula yield positive results for teachers and students, including increased self-esteem, improved classroom environments, and improved student behavior, especially when democratic…

Describes a study at an Israeli high school that investigated changes in the principal's role as the result of the introduction of a school management information system (SMIS). Discusses information handling and flow, interrelations with teachers, accountability, instruction evaluation, supervision, feedback, frequency of meetings, and shared…

Educator violence against students (verbal and physical assaults and the undermining of students' constitutional rights) erodes rather than enhances school safety. Unnecessarily harsh disciplinary practices create a violence-prone climate mirroring U.S. society--the most retributive of Western nations. Democratic classroom practices can help…

Discusses 12 essential principles to help schools teach democratic values in a multicultural society. Derived from findings of the Multicultural Education Consensus Panel to review and synthesize research on diversity, principles are organized into five categories: Teacher learning; student learning; intergroup relations; school governance,…

Democracy within the school without participation of the students in planning and carrying out the program is just as lacking as it is within a state where the people who are governed are denied the privilege of determining the scope and processes of the government. There is no one who is more directly concerned with and affected by the…

Official involvement of parents in school education has been very limited until recently within the highly centralized educational administration and school management system in Korea. But, the educational reform in 1995 has brought fundamental changes in educational administration and school management system of Korea. The main approach of the…

Human resource development (HRD) uses a wide variety of theories from multiple disciplines and fields of study to create its own unique field of scholarly practice. As with any field, however, we tend to get comfortable with familiar theories and theorists and fail to explore other possible sources of wisdom. One scholar whose work is worthy of…

Success in today's K-12 environment often hinges on improved test scores. But success should be defined more broadly to recognize the overall learning environment that is created by students, teachers, staff members, administrators, and parents. As a middle level principal, the author has learned that to create long-lasting change and to foster a…