Before youth can be accepted as important players in school decision making, the concept of student voice must gain acceptance among powerful stakeholders in the school. Using social movement theory as a lens, this article examines the consequences of positioning a student voice effort inside or outside of school walls. Positioning influences the…

The story of Bryon Elementary School's 10-year transformation is a story of school improvement. Moreover, it's a story of a cultural change that altered roles, responsibilities, and expectations and led to significant gains in student achievement. A principal, faculty, and staff who were driven by a common vision, who spoke a common language, and…

In the debate over school-management reforms, some policymakers have argued for greater accountability and centralized control, whereas others have supported greater decentralization through school-based-management approaches of various types. The 1990-91 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics…

The push toward decentralization raises questions about the composition and areas of responsibility of site-based decision-making bodies. This bulletin answers these questions by examining data available from the 1993-94 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). All states reported having…

This paper presents information useful to educational leaders considering a labor-management cooperation (LMC) process. LMC is a mechanism for changing attitudes and building an atmosphere of trust between two traditionally adversarial groups. The first section outlines categories and provides examples of LMC cooperative efforts, highlighting the…

The practical issues of financial, human, and political costs involved in the restructuring efforts undertaken by five Washington State secondary schools, each of which is a member of the Coalition of Essential Schools, are addressed in this paper. The crux of the restructuring problem is to develop ways to provide staff members with the needed…

This paper asserts that traditional leadership models are inappropriate for Catholic schools and offers a new paradigm based on transformational Christian leadership. Christian leadership is a function of the group that is not synonymous with position or authority. Everyone has the potential to be a leader. Such leadership is communal, generative…

This paper discusses barriers encountered by leaders when they attempt to implement change and redirect the collective focus in groups. It describes co-creative relationships that occur when leaders and followers work together in a reciprocally responsible relationship based on a common purpose. The process of covenanting toward a common purpose,…

This booklet contains the stories of six teachers who discuss, step by step, how they each handled a specific restructuring challenge in their schools. They describe what strategies worked and what did not, and provide diagrams and checklists to help other teachers. Chapter 1 describes the implementation of a collaborative school-based…

Evaluations of school restructuring, particularly school-based management (SBM) and shared decision making (SDM), have tended to focus on problems of implementation and on its consequent failure to fulfill its promises. Inadequate resources, unclear responsibilities, inhibiting regulations, and institutional resistance have all been cited as…

Many communities have replaced top-down, highly centralized educational structures with a decentralized model in which decisions are made at the school level. This concept relies on broad participation and support from the school personnel and the community. However, the effort to decentralize schools often faces opposition. This problem can be…

This booklet describes one of the earliest staff development models to support school-based improvement, the RPTIM model. The letters "RPTIM" represent the five stages of the school-based approach to staff development--readiness, planning, training, implementation, and maintenance. The model is based on the belief that the school is the primary…

A study examined decision making within one large urban high school's restructuring efforts, using an emergent qualitative case-study design. Data, collected over a 2-year period, included formal and informal interviews, participant and nonparticipant observations, surveys, and documents. Results of data analysis supported matching the…

As interest in school-based management grows and the number of efforts increases, the gap between the strategy's potential and its realization is being explored. Although school-based management may stimulate a redistribution of informal power or influence, there is little evidence that significant, long-lasting, or widespread changes are…

Findings from a study to determine the knowledge base among Kentucky superintendents about site-based management (SBM) are presented in this paper. Questionnaires mailed to all of the state's 177 public school superintendents yielded a 73 percent response rate. Findings indicate that while there was considerable interest in SBM, there was…