In recent years, schools have been moving away from centralized decision making, granting teachers the authority to determine course content. This book explores the concept of including students in curricular decision making. Chapter 1 explains why students at all grade levels should be involved in choosing topics of study. Educational research…

In November 1995, Sir Sandford Fleming College, in Ontario, Canada, developed a proposal to establish centers of specialization, or clusters of related curricula or programs that are unique in a region, and to suspend or curtail existing programs due to funding shortages. Feedback was requested from the college community, with college-wide staff…

Working with the Philadelphia-based Institute of Interactive Management, several teams at Jackson Community College (JCC), in Michigan, set out in 1994 to learn and apply an interactive design methodology to selected college subsystems. Interactive design begins with understanding problems faced by the system as a whole, which in the case of JCC…

Given the current social and economic changes, American education must change in order to connect students to the future. This book is comprised of a collection of essays on the topic of systemic change in education. The book focuses on reform for the future by bringing together systems theory with detailed examples of strategies and cases that…

School-based management (SBM) and its counterpart, shared decision making, raise traditional questions about power, representativeness, decentralization, and professionalism. This paper turns to history to provide a framework for untangling the issues that have come to the fore in current debates about power and shared school governance. In a…

Multiage education involves placing children of different ages, abilities, and emotional maturity in the same classroom. Research indicates that heterogeneous grouping promotes cognitive and social growth, reduces antisocial behavior, and facilitates the use of research-based, developmentally appropriate instructional practices. Because multiage…

Summaries are presented of papers from a symposium entitled "The Evaluation of Complex Programs Using Participatory Evaluation" that focused on a comprehensive school service program in a south Texas alternative high school. "Theoretical Framework and Objectives" explores the problems of evaluating such programs. Problems…

This study examined participants' beliefs and practices regarding power with personal demographic variables (gender, age, degree level, and years of experience) and school-related variables (level of school employed, type of school community, and overall citizenship) on power beliefs and practices. A principal component analysis of 668 survey…

Site-based management is a concept whose time has come. This book was designed to introduce the concept of teaming, elaborate the decision-making process, and describe the skills and processes needed for a variety of decision-making situations. Chapter 1 introduces the concept of teaming and discusses the decision-making process in depth. Chapters…

In September 1989, the Business Roundtable committed to a 10-year effort to work with state policy makers and educators to restructure state education systems and ensure that all students achieve at high levels. To guide this effort and achieve the 1990 National Educational Goals, the Roundtable adopted nine essential components of a successful…

This paper defines site-based budgeting as a tool for restructuring schools through meaningful participation. It also describes the legal dimensions of site-based budgeting, with an emphasis on Texas. The following legal principles are discussed: public oversight of public dollars, deregulation of governmental powers, equal protection,…

This book is about exceptionally effective school principals and how they meet the challenges for leadership in a new era of educational reform. It describes the major elements of successful facilitative leadership from the perspectives of teachers. Drawn from a study of highly successful principals affiliated with Carl Glickman's League of…

In this document, the Research for Better Schools (RBS) task force developed an overview of restructuring issues to help RBS staff prepare for a June 1989 staff development program on school restructuring. Two major sections focus on the dimensions of restructuring--student learning and organizational relationships. Each section presents a short…

This study explored the extent to which teachers' participation in leadership and decision making affects their teaching practices, particularly their planning and delivering of instruction. The study involved an open-ended survey of 25 teacher leaders in a school district in central Texas, which was a school-based management site that had…

Influenced by leadership developments in the private sector, educational researchers have increasingly focused their attention on "transformational" models of leadership that emphasize collaboration and empowerment. The facilitative leader's role is to foster the involvement of employees at all different levels. This digest summarizes…