Presidents and top-level administrators often need to hear more than the obvious reasons to maintain a commitment to retention programs, equal access, and equal opportunity. The most potent arguments center on appeals based on the costs of not having a well-managed program of equal educational opportunity, (e.g., litigation costs, tarnished image,…

This study is based on an external assessment of the School Self-Renewal Program in New York City. The program represents the largest and longest running Organization Development (OD) program in the country. Twelve of 24 high schools participating in the program in 1977 were sampled. The renewal model employed for school based change was found to…

This paper focuses upon the question of how a cross sectional research team might prepare to provide research results to an urban school system in such a way as to maximize their usefulness in the development or redevelopment of school district policy. The aim of this team is to provide for the acceptance of positive change over time, within the…

This paper describes a follow-up study that was made to assess the accuracy of Delphi forecasts produced as part of a 1970 study on changes in the organizational structure of large school districts. The 1970 study examined the organizational models of 82 of the largest U.S. school districts, based on data gathered from superintendents of the…

In a specially designed forum, 30 teachers and administrators joined a group of researchers to interpret some recent research findings. Discussion groups focused on four issues: teacher and principal morale, specialists and conflict, teacher teams, and "loose coupling" between the district and school. A dynamic exchange of ideas resulted, with…

Discusses future problems and changes coming for higher education. Considers lessening financial support, decreasing enrollments, open admissions and changing patterns in college attendance plus the new learner, federal intervention, unionization, affirmative action, and women's new roles. (Author/EJT)

Examines the plight of two troubled bookstores, both state system stores with state charters as nonprofit corporations, probing some of their weaknesses, failures, and resultant difficulties and the positive action, including structural change and new management, involved in recovery and restoration of adequate operating funds. (JT)

Development in the study of organizations and needs for additional research are addressed. It is suggested that when goals are not achieved, an organization searches for new alternatives and new information. When aspirations are achieved, the search for new alternatives is assumed to be modest, slack accumulates, and aspirations rise. It has been…

Research on the use of knowledge resources in school improvement efforts explores the ways in which new ideas, programs, practices, materials, and technologies become incorporated into the operations of the nation's elementary and secondary schools, and examines the changes these organizations undergo in the process. Attempts at disseminating…

The high priority placed on staff development by business and industry has not been shared by the community college which has tended to seek talents outside the institution rather than to develop those within. Community college staff development programs are usually designed to improve job performance rather than to enhance employee growth and…

Providing comprehensive services for the elderly in local communities presents planners and potential users with a complex set of problems. The development of new or expanded service to the elderly was examined within an ecologically informed resource dependency model to assess the effect on service expansion of organizational maintenance factors…

Student transfers from school to school at the elementary and secondary levels have been increasing for many decades. A proposed typology of major school transfer flows distinguishes between "systemic" transfers, caused by changes in school structures, and "individualistic" transfers, caused by family or individual changes. Within this typology,…

Research suggests that effective organizational change must be led by line personnel rather than by outside consultants. The Performance Management Program (PMP) implemented in two Bell Telephone companies is a line-led, self-help program in which managers participate in problem-solving activities within their own jobs. Marketing and sales…

The process by which managers come and go in large organizations is thought to have significant effects on organizational performance. To investigate the effects of managerial succession on organizational performance, measures of organizational performance were collected from 60 Army battalions and analyzed according to how closely each…

Increasing school violence and vandalism, in Philadelphia and nationwide, require discussion of the likely causes and of new solutions. Crime in schools is extensive, according to the national Safe School Study. Philadelphia data show that school crime there increased from 1975 to 1980 in seven out of ten categories. The authors of the Safe School…