School officials often fail to recognize the capabilities of organized labor as both an impediment to reform schools and as a force to assist reform. Suggests that teacher unions and a bargaining environment can be incorporated into school reform. Offers some considerations for integrating unionism into reform. (14 references) (MLF)

This discussion of the relationship of gifted education programs to broader school reform efforts focuses on negative effects of gifted programs on schools at large; issues in the reexamination of the gifted construct; and suggestions to avoid positioning school reform advocates, gifted education proponents, and full inclusion supporters in…

Three elementary schools with very different characteristics extended their school years to approximately 223 days, with concomitant changes in funding and salaries. All three demonstrated increases in academic achievement, parent and teacher satisfaction, and cost-effective use of facilities. Implications for reform and year-round schooling are…

Introduces three perspectives on the Hawthorne Elementary School (Houston, Texas) reform effort. The case studies indicate that successful restructuring of schools serving highly disadvantaged communities is possible. (GR)

Examines teachers' responses to reform efforts prescribed for them as appropriate for reformed schools, considering emerging difficulties when teaching and reform are conceptualized not as situated, but as universal and generalizable in form and intention. Teacher responses to such static reform often replicate power relations circulating in…

Staff developers are being called upon to operate in four dimensions as skilled school change facilitators (process leaders, skills trainers, resource consultants, and energy enhancers). For staff developers to adopt the role of school change facilitator, expertise in both change process and group process skills is crucial. (SM)

A study of restructuring in three urban elementary schools with ethnically diverse populations found that the schools did change, with new student grouping patterns, new ways of allocating time, increased teacher collaboration, and new ideas for professional development. Changing teacher practice was primarily a matter of learning rather than…

Based on middle-class, white values and assumptions, school restructuring proposed in "first wave reform" will increase inequity and stratification and hamper social mobility for minorities. School choice, outcomes-based education, and secondary track systems are critiqued. When race, culture, and ethnicity influence educational policy, students…

Describes practices, thoughts, and feelings of exemplary, shared-governance principals at nine schools affiliated with Glickman's League of Professional Schools in Georgia, using open-ended interviews. Findings showed that implementing shared governance incorporates five salient themes: meanings, involvement of others, redistribution of power,…

Elementary school principals who received a Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) award in January or August 2002 (n = 21) were invited to be interviewed in the late spring and summer of 2003. A total of 19 principals consented to audiotaped interviews. The interviews focused on several CSR dimensions, including principals' beliefs about the extent to…

Every month, "Leadership" features articles written in an informal, conversational style that provide practical information for school administrators. This issue of "Leadership" contains the following titles: (1) "A Big High School Made Smaller" (Sharon Levin); (2) "A Wake-Up Call from CSU" (David S.…

The history books will show that New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg seized control of the city's sprawling public school bureaucracy and its 1.1 million students on July 1, 2002. But it was 18 months later when New Yorkers got their first real taste of what mayoral control and accountability were supposed to be about: when reports of escalating…

This article provides an opportunity to extend the discussion about teacher communities as part of complex school reform models, specifically centered on those communities whose membership is drawn on a semi-voluntary basis. Through a sixteen-month long ethnography, I document the activities of an urban teacher professional community (TPC) at a…

This article describes the rise, diminution, and reorganization of East Texas Oilfield schools which was defined by the socio-economic conditions of the oil era, from the mid-nineteenth century until the third quarter of the twentieth century. Citizens of East Texas seized the opportunity at the time of oil discovery to provide superior school…

Parental involvement is an integral component in the educational environment. Student achievement and parental satisfaction requires ongoing well-planned series of activities involving parents in "home and school based activities" to assist teachers and school administrators in the accomplishment of learning objectives and goals. These…