This pamphlet provides an overview of current research on home-school collaboration and strategies that schools can use to develop partnerships with their students' parents or guardians. An introduction lists the benefits of increasing parent involvement (higher grades and test scores, long-term academic achievement, positive attitudes and…

This paper examines the role of Colorado's community-based child protection teams in the investigation and treatment of child abuse and neglect. The first section contains data from a survey of all Colorado counties as reported by team coordinators and members. It includes information on team composition, structure and operation, and training. The…

The practicum was designed to improve the multidisciplinary team (MDT) process for identifying seriously emotionally disturbed (SED) students within five elementary schools, with the primary goal of implementing a decision facilitation model in order to provide a more systematic approach to SED identification. Initially, inservice training was…

The University of Nevada at Las Vegas College of Education has responded to numerous calls for educational reform with the establishment of the Committee to Review Teacher Education (CRTE). CRTE is composed of school district administrators, elementary and secondary school principals and master teachers, a State Department of Education…

The Minnesota Extension Service sought to have adult learners provide local leadership for establishing educational priorities as well as to have them become actively involved in the organizational change and program-planning process. Because it was found that many citizens are unprepared for such leadership roles, the extension service developed…

Because professional involvement in curriculum development is now commonplace in U.S. schools, it is imperative to consider the participants, their curriculum planning views, and the relationship of these views to the planning process. This paper describes a three-year study to determine whether the initial predispositions of participating…

The Baltimore County Public School system implemented the use of quality circles in its school improvement programs to facilitate change through increased involvement of faculty in decision making. The program increased the productivity and the motivation of the staff in their efforts to strive toward excellence. This paper describes the program…

In response to national calls for educational reform, Maine's legislature established a career ladder certification system with three steps: provisional, professional, and master teacher. The goal was to tie teacher advancement to evidence of improved teaching and classroom management. The 1984 plan required that teacher committees develop…

Transformational leadership, an innovative learning model, grows out of the recognition that the learner's coordinate system is influenced by a variety of time, place, and person variables. The concept of a tetradigm, which graphically illustrates this model, is symbolized by an equilateral triangle within a larger equilateral triangle with the…

Quality circles, small groups of employees working voluntarily toward performance improvement, have become a popular business strategy in the past decade. When effective, the quality circle may be linked directly to the increased productivity of the work group. The quality circle process may be divided into four components: identification and…

This booklet reviews decision-making, an important part of administrative processes, from the perspective of school teachers and other educators. The two most commonly used processes are the rational decision-making process (identify the problem, evaluate the problem, collect information, identify alternative solutions, select and implement…

The concept of the quality circle (QC) is outlined and a brief history given of its use in Japan and eventual migration to the United States in 1974. The leaders and participants in QC's are trained in communication and problem-solving skills. The essential techniques used in the QC are brainstorming, consensus, cause and effect analysis, data…

Besides the question of the maximal effectiveness of various degrees and varieties of participation, predicting the success of participative decision making (PDM) approaches also involves an understanding of sources of variance (individual employees' characteristics, the cultural milieu, and the job context and level) for planning and instituting…

Questionnaires concerning secondary teachers' involvement in decision-making and their perceived levels of job satisfaction were completed by 266 teachers from 23 Wisconsin middle and junior high schools. Urban, suburban, and rural schools enrolling from 350 to 1,150 students were represented. The teachers' responses to a four-point Likert scale…

As part of a study of programs offering alternative educational choices in public school systems, the Rand Corporation assessed teacher reactions to programs in four districts: Alum Rock (California); Eugene (Oregon); Minneapolis (Minnesota); and Cincinnati (Ohio). It was found that teachers tend to evaluate a program on the basis of its…