Decentralizing the budget process not only empowers teachers to make decisions about instructional goals and fiscal planning but also involves other stakeholders, including parents, students, administrators, and business people. This article describes a three-phase system that enables secondary teachers to address issues relevant to their…

Discusses the implementation of Total Quality Leadership (TQL) at Fox Valley Technical College (FVTC) in Wisconsin. Identifies 12 quality components of FVTC's everyday operations and management. Highlights improvements in placement rates, student retention, employee satisfaction, accountability, and costs attributable to TQL. Underscores the…

Examined the reported nature and consequences of teachers' joint work on the implementation of school priorities, educational innovation, and curriculum policy in three exemplary Canadian elementary schools. Found that instrumental use of knowledge and support for teacher decision making tended to be limited to information exchange, joint…

A healthy work environment for the business-office team requires a balance among the components of organizational leadership, collective continuous improvement, and individual caring. (MLF)

Examines 20 systematic SBM studies for insights about authority delegation, fiscal inputs, objectives, and student outcomes. SBM's effects on achievement were mixed. Nine studies gave no results; three asserted positive results but gave no achievement data; one asserted negative results but gave no achievement data; two with achievement data…

State and federal governments have appropriated increasingly greater portions of decision-making policy from local school boards. This chapter discusses the politics and governance of local school districts, summarizing three major theoretical perspectives (decision-output, competition-participation, and dissatisfaction theories) and relevant…

Investigated the power strategies used to resolve conflict by two groups of black South African children. Showed that the use of power strategies was highly influenced by the children's sociometric status: popular children chose more bilateral strategies, while rejected children favored unilateral power strategies. Gender is an important predictor…

Total Quality Management for camps involves establishing ongoing assessment of campers' and parents' needs, marketing the capabilities of the organization, applying input of key staff members, and constantly making program improvements. This approach calls for discretionary decision making at all levels, and empowers staff to enter into the…

Shifting the budgetary decision-making authority to individual schools provides principals, teachers, and parents greater control over the allocation of resources. (MLF)

Describes the views of A. S. Neill on democracy in school administration. Explains the reasoning behind Neill's arrangement of community-based decision making. Questions how democratic England's Summerhill School was in view of Neill's authority. Suggests giving children the right to participate in community government as an educationally…

Presents a sampling of the citations in the ERIC database dealing with democratic participation. Includes works on citizenship, teaching about democracy, citizens' roles, civic education in the schools, sources for materials, and the proper role of schools in preparing students for active citizenship. (DK)

Argues that the key to success with at-risk students is to expand the scope and the extent of actual, active student participation in planning, implementing, and evaluating courses of study. Describes how one teacher does so in her literature classes at an innercity school for high-risk students. (SR)

Discusses expanding the "evaluate solutions" step of problem-solving strategy to develop a guidance plan to solve children's troublesome behaviors. Parents and teacher determine the goals for the child, the child's relevant individual characteristics, the needs of the people involved, and the feelings of those involved as a guide to…

Findings from a survey of rural school administrators in Oregon include profiles of three superintendent-principals that practice democratic leadership. Findings contrast with a national study that painted a discouraging picture of rural schooling in which few superintendents had a vision of working with people in collaborative ways. (LP)

Describes the two-year systematic process by which the Saskatoon Catholic Board of Education formulated a mission statement. This grassroots policy development, based on principles of naturalistic inquiry and consensus building, comprised four stages: consultations with 70 small discussion groups representing all stakeholders, interpretation of…