In February 1995, Arkansas' Mid-South Community College was granted initial candidacy status for accreditation with the North Central Association (NCA). Following the evaluation visit, college personnel realized that they had been overly concerned about achieving immediate satisfaction of the NCA's General Institutional Requirements and Criteria…

Total Quality Management (TQM) is being adopted by many governmental entities, including public school districts. A basic tenet of quality improvement is that the customer, not the organization, defines quality. Other tenets are that the organization must satisfy the customer in order to best the competition; and that the organization must change…

Since most private and public sources of external funding generally expect increased effort and accountability, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) at two-year colleges must inform faculty and staff that if they do not expend extra effort their college will not receive significant grants. The CEO must also work with the college's professional…

For 2 decades, schools in the United Kingdom and in western economies in general have experienced rapid change. Many schools, however, look less like learning organizations today than they did before the introduction of the Education Reform Act in 1988. This paper reports on an ongoing series of case studies of school improvement that developed…

This book was written for teachers and principals who wish to exercise leadership in the ongoing work of school renewal. The book presents a new theory of educational leadership, examines the essential elements of leadership, and provides an indepth look at what "vision" means for educational leaders. Chapter 1 describes the roles of the principal…

This paper examines qualities of effective school leadership that are critical to successful educational change. The first part explores various definitions of leadership, discusses the concept of leadership versus management, and describes the challenges that school leaders face. The paper then draws on data collected from interviews with four…

An expanded vision of evaluation is offered that accommodates the use of both descriptive information and evaluative information, and which connects evaluation in the naturalistic paradigm with evaluation in the rationalistic paradigm for making informed decisions within programs of education and development. The model of "Information Development…

This book is aimed at managers, chief executives, personnel directors, and all those who want to know what action learning can do for their organizations. Part 1 (Chapters 1-3) provides a general introduction to action learning. It describes the underlying theory and principles of action learning and the benefits that organizations can expect to…

This paper offers a new conceptual framework for thinking about school restructuring by examining the meaning and implications of restructuring as a school improvement strategy. Conceptualization efforts are organized around a set of fundamental questions: (1) What is the meaning of restructuring? (2) What makes restructuring necessary? (3) What…

This report examines the usefulness of leadership teams in higher education based on study results involving 15 institutions of higher education located throughout the United States. In chapters 1 and 2 the concept of the "leadership team" is introduced by means of: (1) a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of teamwork; and (2) a…

A common problem in an "experiential class" is the lack of attention devoted to group closure at the end of the course. Toward the end of the semester, students working in small groups in organizational behavior classes often experience anxiety over losing the support and identity that they enjoyed as members of a small learning group. A final…

This report describes how staff at the school, cluster, and central offices have responded to the Philadelphia district's new student support ethos. This report does not present student outcome data or measure the quantity or quality of services because the evaluation teams believed it was too early in the implementation of the initiative to…

This study attempted to identify the continuous quality improvement (CQI) practices that leaders implement in the process of changing cultures at institutions of higher education. Emphasis was on meeting the challenge of balancing a respect for the institution's existing culture while working to create a new culture. First, a survey was…

The Synergistic Model of Organizational Career Development is an attempt to combine best practice principles from two domains: organizational development and individual career planning. The model assumes three levels of intervention within an organization: philosophical, strategic, and practical. Interventions at any of the levels may be directed…

This handbook provides suggestions for building a private-independent school trustee-board relationship. An effective relationship requires individual education about today's trusteeship and appropriate board organization. Chapter 1 describes the role of the trusteeship, and chapter 2 offers guidelines for developing a school philosophy and…