Unlike traditional school management, Toyota of America recognizes thinking employees and emphasizes problems and measurable approaches to improvement. Instead of meeting to discuss short-term goals, specific problems, and concrete successes, school leaders often alienate staff by leading year-end discussions of standardized test score data.…

Describes a principal's efforts to help staff restructure an Arizona junior high school's entire curriculum while struggling to achieve a successful transition to middle school status. The most traumatic change for staff involved a radical scheduling change from one-hour classes to two-hour time blocks with alternating subjects from quarter to…

Examines the principal's role in school restructuring using essential school precepts. Based on qualitative data from a 2.5-year longitudinal study, results indicate that principals must assume a more inclusive, prominent role in restructuring efforts. The Coalition of Essential Schools' metaphor "student as worker, teacher as coach"…

The article examines reasons for the decline in use of quality circles in higher education. A 1988 survey of eight universities and colleges using circles in 1986 found that because quality circle principles were violated, similar problems (such as inadequate training, problematic group membership, and exclusion of supervisors) were encountered at…

Describes a team as a group of people energized by their ability to work together, fully committed to high-level output, and concerned with each others' feelings. Examines barriers to team building, contrasts teams with committees, and describes the characteristics and functions of effective team builders. (DMM)

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…

The problems attending democratic freedom and responsibility have not been solved since De Toqueville's day; improving democracy is each generation's legacy. Site-based administration is education's response to business/industry "downsizing" and a shift from assembly-line manufacturing to caseload service. Strategies to help SBM…

Defining community politically (as a flexible arena for debating perspectives and achieving purpose) provides different ways to consider diversity. Diversity becomes not an anomaly but an integral part of the community process; conflict is legitimized as appropriate and inevitable in achieving school purposes. Administrators must mediate conflict,…

Establishment of a professional development school by Arizona State University and Tempe (Arizona) Elementary School District has provided opportunities for teachers to make curriculum decisions, shape school procedures and policies, engage in collaborative activities with school and university faculty, and develop greater autonomy. (IAH)

Advocates of participatory leadership, site-based management, and decentralization often assume that changing decision-making group composition will automatically improve the quality of decisions being made. Stakeholder satisfaction does not guarantee quality results. This article offers a framework for moving the decision-making discussion from…

Explores the implementation of total quality management in the maintenance and operations department of an upstate New York school district. Four figures illustrate the problem-solving process. (MLF)

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)

Focuses on an attempt to teach a graduate social studies seminar democratically. Discusses two key themes, voice and choice, highlighting issues that emerge through efforts to share power and decision making with students. Presents observations and points to implications for democratic teaching methods. (DSK)

Drawing on video, interview, survey, and observational data, analyzes four major actions by teacher leadership teams to explore the team's role-defining efforts. Using event mapping, open systems, and role theory, highlights complex interactions as teachers and principals implemented reforms challenging hierarchical patterns. Systems thinking is…

Examines relationships among Ohio superintendents' leadership styles, style adaptability, and certain district characteristics identified as change oriented. Survey data from 611 superintendents showed that only district expenditure per student was significantly and positively related to leadership-style adaptability. Years of administrative…