This article addresses implications of cooperative learning for students with mild disabilities in regular classrooms. These include the importance of a collaborative ethic among special and regular educators, the efficacy of cooperative learning with this population, cooperative learning's relationship to social integration of these students, and…

Advocates universal cultural inclusion as a part of school restructuring, especially for African Americans. Recommends methods and curricula responsive to the home culture and supportive of a positive identity. Includes excerpts from interviews with African American students in a mostly White urban school district. (DM)

Staff ownership can be achieved only in a climate where synergism is understood and promoted. The principal must truly believe that the cooperative action of staff members working together is greater than the sum of their efforts taken independently and in isolation. Intimidating principal-teacher relationships must be eliminated. (eight…

Poses questions that school board members and administrators must address in planning school facilities to educate all students. Lists 24 questions that address the changing demographics within the community and demonstrate that school facilities of tomorrow will need to meet the diverse learning needs of all children. (MLF)

Reviews four lessons for parents and teachers using research to advocate for change: (1) research that changes schools does not belong to academics alone; (2) action research can raise important new issues; (3) advocacy supported by research is empowering; and (4) action research requires persistent activity over time. (SLD)

The oppressive mechanisms of racism suppress the development of children of color. Teachers must critically analyze school structures; conventional notions of ideology and identity; and cultural artifacts such as ideas, ideals, language, and routines to reveal how they reproduce the racism of the larger society. (SK)

A typology of school climate that reflects aspects of a school's restructuring agenda was developed by exploring the participation of 637 teachers in 32 schools in decision making using Q-technique factor analysis. Three decision climates emerge: (1) curriculum focused; (2) school management focused; and (3) classroom management focused. (SLD)

Uses interviews with approximately 200 middle school students to describe the instructional differences they face each day and the effects of these differences on what they learn. These observations suggest that reform efforts will be more successful if they take advantage of staff within the system ("scaling within") to create…

Teachers have not figured prominently in school restructuring, but exercise important pedagogical leadership through shaping, enacting, and living their schools' vision and culture. An Australian school's experience illustrates how teachers can create "radical spaces" for debate whereby the "entitlement to speak" against…

The restructuring process helps convert principals from instructional to transformational leaders who can identify and articulate a vision; foster acceptance of group goals; convey high performance expectations; provide appropriate models, intellectual stimulation, and individual support; and promote a strong school culture. Collaborative and…

Outlines three 1990s reforms in Hong Kong affecting curriculum and management: the School Management Initiative, the target-oriented curriculum, and an education commission report on quality education. Reviews reforms' effects and discusses the need to reorient the current school-based management system and recognize Hong Kong's societal culture.…

Explosive changes in social, demographic, economic, and ideological factors in America require public education to respond with its own changes to assure competent citizens for the 21st century. School psychologists play an active role in school reform. Too frequently, school psychologists have been limited to testing to the exclusion of other…

Why do good ideas created and promulgated by bright, dedicated people have no significant, lasting effects on teaching? The answer: reformers meddle in trained teachers' everyday practice--educating students. Few professions take kindly to laypersons forcing reforms in their practices. Any school-restructuring initiative must include teachers in…

Educational policy in England has passed through four main stages during the past three decades. The Social-democratic, resource-constrained, and market phases all contain inherently weak elements of New Labour's Excellence Movement. Less linear, more collaborative forms of school leadership are recommended. Contains 65 references. (MLH)

Describes Hong Kong's Target-Oriented Curriculum (TOC), a major curriculum renewal initiative designed to improve the quality of learning in local primary schools. Discusses the context in which it was introduced and factors that proved problematic in managing change. Focuses on five elements in the change process: practicality, ownership, teacher…