Attempts to understand educational quality have created an ever-increasing set of measures and approaches. Issues regarding assessment of student learning, teacher effectiveness, and school effectiveness are discussed. (MT)

Principals need sensitive measures of school climate to diagnose problems and monitor progress in overcoming them. This article discusses the Effective School Battery developed by Johns Hopkins University and used to describe individual schools in terms of 34 specific aspects of environmental, teacher, and student characteristics. Includes one…

Identifies three fallacies in the development of leadership training programs. Examines how principals learn and presents seven ideas for principal training academies to consider incorporating into their programs. Includes a list of references. (MD)

Principals of effective schools are catalysts who combine the elements of instruction, planning, and evaluation and bond them into a program that expects success through a businesslike learning climate. The principal evidences commitment to academics by providing continuous and visible support for student and teacher achievement. (MT)

Educational excellence will be achieved when we are able to offer quality to the most students, in the most productive and economical form, while utilizing both the substantive and procedural dimensions of democratic participation. (LHW)

Examines the nature of administrative control of school principals in 12 especially effective districts in California. Supervision and evaluation of site level administrators were rational and meaningful processes in these districts. The supervision and evaluation functions appeared to form important linkage mechanisms between schools and…

Presents reasons why parent involvement is of vital concern to school administrators. Provides an overview of this special issue which focuses on the role of the administrator in promoting educationally helpful forms of parent involvement. (Author/LHW)

The decline of America's schools risks the country's leadership in technology and production, economic well-being, military security, and social and civil order. The role that the educational system plays in this society is explored. (DF)

Shortcomings of recent educational reports, all of which indicate that American schools are failing and that fundamental change is necessary, are examined. For example, the reports ignore difficult and controversial questions, are simplistic, and avoid certain truths about American society that are deemed too dangerous to discuss. (RM)

Reviews methods used to determine effective schools, reports key findings in the literature, and presents a procedure by which school systems can analyze all their schools to determine which ones are effective or ineffective and why this has occurred. (Author/GC)

Presents findings from a study that applied selected school effectiveness factors to effective elementary schools of differing student socioeconomic status. Reports that most effectiveness factors are strongly influenced by the social context of the school: thus, practitioners should not treat the well-publicized effectiveness factors as…

Discusses Project RISE, a school effectiveness project begun in Milwaukee in 1979. Attributes improved levels of student achievement under the project to changes in school practices, classroom practices, and staff attitudes toward students and toward themselves. (GC)

Staff development is the key to middle school effectiveness, and this article lists characteristics of an effective staff development program, examples of activities and topics, and questions for program evaluation. (DCS)

Recent national assessments of education have been primarily negative. The positive approach of "In Search of Excellence" might be a better guide for reform. Principals could follow the example of successful businesses by supporting informal experimentation, seeking feedback from students and parents, and recognizing teachers' successes…

Highlights selected findings from the study, "Effective Catholic Schools: An Exploration," which combined field studies at 7 Catholic high schools and 20 elementary schools with statistical analyses of national survey data to explore factors associated with Catholic school excellence. (DMM)