Although there has been a paucity of research on what effective secondary school principals do, two recent studies offer some clues. A 1983 report by William Firestone and Bruce Wilson asserts that a high school principal may best be able to influence the school through bureaucratic and cultural linkages. Bureaucratic linkages are formal enduring…

This paper reviews the literature on school effects and school improvement. The literature reveals that some schools are much more effective than others at optimizing achievement and other student outcomes, and that schools judged successful by these criteria tend to have in common certain leadership, goal commitment, and school atmosphere factors…

The dominant model of schooling is a technical-rational management model based on behavioral, positivistic, quasi-scientific language, which has shifted attention from the art and craft of teaching to the "science and technology" of teaching. However, this model and the language which it uses limit educational thinking. Emphasis on…

Research for Better Schools and a Maryland county school district developed a school improvement program to examine the relationship between the program and subsequent improvement. The program involved a self-assessment survey, choosing goals for the following year, assigning a committee of practitioners to lead the program, executing the plan…

Program evaluation from a K-12 perspective is increasing in importance. Unit school teachers expressed a necessity to objectively observe their schools. In 1980, the Board of Directors of the National Study of School Evaluation perceived the need for a K-12 self-study instrument. Consequently, the executive director of the board and a national…

This paper reports on the development and refinement of the Connecticut School Effectiveness Questionnaire (CSEQ) and the Connecticut School Effectiveness Interview (CSEI), the primary data collection tools used in the Connecticut State Department of Education School Effectiveness Project. The primary purpose of both the CSEI and the CSEQ is to…

Recent national reports on the quality of education are open to criticism because of their lack of broad-based, hard data. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop some clear data referents for the debate on the quality of school systems across the nation. Its focus was on a national sample of parents of school children, and the…

Although many large districts have centrally organized their Chapter 1 (Education Consolidation and Improvement Act) compensatory programs at the district and project levels, elementary school improvement efforts are strongly tied to local school autonomy and principal leadership. This paper analyzes the Tucson (Arizona) Unified School District's…

This survey assesses the local impact and issues presented in the National Commission on Excellence in Education's report, entitled "A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform." Macomb County, Michigan, residents no longer view unemployment as their number one problem. Although unemployment remains a major concern, almost…

This study compares perceptions of elementary teachers and principals concerning eight research-based categories of statements pertinent to evaluating elementary principals' job performance. From separate lists of elementary teachers and principals employed in all 20 Texas school districts during 1987-88, 23 teachers and 23 principals per district…

The first 2 of the 12 publications reviewed in this annotated bibliography describe what principals actually do as instructional leaders. The first document reports on habits and values evinced by eight schools whose principals were viewed as proficient instructional leaders. Although several distinct leadership styles emerged, the ethic of…

For most high school teachers, it appears that the work group they most closely identify with is the department (or the discipline). There are some common bonds: a common language, similar educational backgrounds, a common respect for the subject, and a shared world view shaped by the discipline itself which predisposes the members of the group to…

This paper describes the School Assessment Survey (SAS) and three models for the use of data to enrich the local decision-making process about school improvement and to provide school leaders with new perspectives on their organizations. The SAS measures teachers' perceptions on nine organizational dimensions and combines the results to produce an…

Several educational philosopers address concepts of educational adequacy that extend far beyond objective measurements of achievement or competencies. The author of this essay contrasts the European concept of education as an initiation into a world of understanding and imagination with the American tradition of education as serving social and…

The primary goal of the Southern Coalition for Educational Equity's New Orleans Effective Schools Project is to improve academic achievement at one middle school, Martin Behrman, in ways that can be replicated by schools facing similar problems. The Project is based on research findings about school improvement from the school effectiveness…