The broader social issues (poverty, illiteracy, health care, single parent families) of school reform in urban settings are explored in a paper divided into four parts. The first examines the impact of urbanization on the conditions of schools in the inner city. Part two analyzes the value assumptions embedded in both the first and second waves of…

When autonomous adults are faced with challenging tasks within a nonstressful, collegial environment, they may have an optimal opportunity to learn. This paper asserts that educators should therefore consider strategies for infusing games with academic concepts. Guidelines are offered for conducting three games to stimulate thinking, active…

This document is the product of meetings of the Prime Study Group of the Institute on Rehabilitation Issues, whose mission was to: examine consumer choice and decision making in rehabilitation; review the legislation and consumer movements leading to greater consumer choice; identify the roles and responsibilities of the consumer, the counselor,…

This paper presents findings of an ethnographic study of a school district's Staff Development, Supervision, and Evaluation Program (SDSEP). Data were gathered through interviews, observations, participant observation, analysis of kinesics and proxemics, semiotic analysis of discourse, unobtrusive measures, and analysis of official documents. The…

This paper examines ongoing changes related to appropriate methods and practices in Aboriginal educational research, including community control of research based on the principle of self-determination. This assertion of control includes the redefinition of relationships in the research process; appropriate initiation of research projects;…

This practicum is designed to assist central office personnel in evaluating the work environment for better coordination to accomplish work, plan for a change effort, and implement a participatory change initiative. The work setting involved a K-12 urban school district (193 schools) containing 431 central-office administrators and more than…

As an increasing number of schools undertake restructuring efforts, an instrument to measure teacher empowerment would be a useful took for researchers and evaluators. Such an instrument was used in a census survey of 10,544 teachers in 307 Venture Capital Schools in Ohio to obtain baseline measures of classroom teachers' participation in school…

This booklet proposes four actions that school leaders, particularly school district superintendents, can take to promote simultaneous improvement of educator education and public schools. The proposed actions are that school leaders: (1) make preservice education a true priority; (2) cooperate in establishing partner schools that serve as…

This paper describes how an elementary school included parents in participative decision making to develop successful student-affairs programming. Including parents in the development of school activities mollifies complainers, creates opportunities for parent input, and facilitates innovation. Student-affairs programming offers an excellent…

The Chicago (Illinois) School Reform Act was signed into law in 1988 and the Reform School Board of Trustees was appointed in July 1995. There have been several reports of teachers' opinions about the Reform Act, but the opinions of teachers about the Reform School Board have not been studied. Almost half of teachers have reported at least some…

This report presents an examination of the use of a participative model in the strategic planning process at a publicly-supported, comprehensive institution in the middle Atlantic region of the United States. Specific attention is given to the process of developing the vision statement, an undertaking of approximately 15 months preceding Board of…

The 14 points of the Total Quality Management (TQM) model can be distilled into the following 5 main guiding principles: establish a moral purpose for the institution, use cooperative efforts instead of individual efforts, stop the use of inspection (testing) to improve students and teachers, continuously improve the system and its products, and…

Principals play a unique role in school and student outcomes. This paper presents findings of a study that explored how principals' leadership behaviors influenced teachers' sense of efficacy. Specifically, the paper describes how principals in three middle schools influenced teachers' sense of efficacy and affected instructional and school…

Educational literature is replete with calls for changes in preparation programs for school administrators. This paper contrasts traditional administrator-preparation programs with one designed around the Quality Schools paradigm. The program emphasizes administrator candidate selection, human needs, the empowerment of others, effective…

A concise overview is provided of the history of evaluation, focusing on educational evaluation, followed by some observations on program evaluation in Spain and possible future developments. Evaluation was a new concept in Spain at the end of the Franco era, at a time when its development was beginning to gain momentum in the United States. The…