This guide, which was developed from a list of work restructuring best practice guidelines that was constructed by nationally recognized work restructuring professionals, businesspersons, and union representatives, is designed to help determine whether a work restructuring consultant has the substantive, process, and interpersonal skills required…

Research has shown that change imposed from above by a bureaucracy will usually engender resistance. The education system under the new democractic South Africa recently underwent change. This paper presents findings of a study that examined whether principals in South Africa perceived any internal or external resistance-to-change factors in their…

A study examined the effects on elementary school climate that result from a change of principal. Data were collected over a 12-month period at 12 schools in an urban school division. Six of the schools were scheduled to have principal changes in fall 1994 and six were not. Teachers completed Hoy, Tarter, and Kottkamp's (1991) OCDQ-RE survey in…

Can Total Quality Management (TQM) improve the performance of school systems in meaningful ways? This paper evaluates the soundness of TQM as an improvement program for education by comparing its philosophy and prescriptions with the mounting theoretical and empirical wisdom on introducing and sustaining large-scale organizational change and more…

This report seeks to build a case for the potential value of arts-centered cross-disciplinary approaches as a possible way to integrate an often-fragmented high school curriculum. Stressing that there is no universal panacea for the complex and multi-layered issues of school reform and change, the report suggests a possible vision that could lead…

Austin Community College (ACC) is undergoing reorganization in an attempt to create a "single college" organizational structure to replace its current "campus with five competing colleges" model. By doing so, ACC hopes to create an atmosphere in which short and long range planning efforts are aimed at the overall good of the…

At a time when school leaders are trying to move from educational fads to transforming schools into effective learning communities, strategies to accomplish this end continue to elude many administrators even though they may be familiar with the desired results. School transformations, which are long-lasting and fad resistant, require all…

Two reports on institutional change and its effect on the education of limited-English-proficient (LEP) students are presented. The Task 12 report addresses the content and processes of change through which federal efforts can best benefit LEP students. It gives an overview of the review, discusses that nature of educational and institutional…

Decentralization has been one of the centerpieces of education reform in the United States over the past decade, yet the results so far are not encouraging. This booklet presents findings of a study that explored the hypothesis that decentralization efforts have failed to relax external constraints on schools or to enable school staffs to make…

This paper examines elements that support the creation of a Motivational Learning Environment. Is it possible to motivate students or should educators focus their energy on creating a motivational learning environment in which students become self-directed and self-motivated learners? The paper focuses on the topics of paradigms, purpose, people,…

Many small and midsized businesses seeking to change by purchasing new technology, restructuring their work processes, and/or upgrading their employees' skills require outside assistance from educational institutions (including community colleges, universities, and state literacy and training programs), nonprofit organizations, and private…

Sweden has recently introduced a new curriculum and grading system in its school system. Earlier change strategies based on information dissemination failed because teachers did not view the reforms as being based on reality. This paper presents a research design to identify the internal and external factors that influence change in Swedish…

This guidebook describes how successful change happens and how change agents can organize their work to make it happen. It is designed to help change agents in various organizational settings understand the dimensions of the problem and the social situation; organize a plan for change; know what to look for and what to avoid in one's self, team,…

State legislative policies for educational restructuring are examined in this handbook, with a focus on restructuring from the perspective of state elected officials. Following an executive summary and introduction, the second and third parts explain the need for restructuring and features of the restructuring movement. Problems and obstacles are…

Findings of a study that examined school organizational change associated with the implementation of open enrollment in Minnesota are presented in this paper. Data were derived from mailed surveys completed by 126 principals at the end of the 1989-90 school year. A three-way multivariate research design with seven dependent variables was used to…