A teacher action research study, undertaken as part of the larger Schools Reaching Out (SRO) project, sponsored by the Institute for Responsive Education, is described in this report. The project is based on the concept of the urban school, family, and community partnership as a means to improve all children's academic achievement and social…

The purpose of this paper is to consider different kinds of actions learners may take during computer assisted instruction (CAI), and to examine the kind of information they need in order to exercise control over the instruction, i.e., information about their performance level, the organization of the content, the choices available to them and the…

This issue of Forum, a journal designed to permit California community college faculty to share ideas, contains six articles focusing on issues related to the enactment of Assembly Bill 1725 (AB 1725). The first article, "Your Father's Oldsmobile: The Uses of Tradition in Core Programs," by John McFarland, analyzes the development of…

Site-based decisionmaking is the concept of collaboration between school faculty and administration in planning, problem solving, and decision making in school policies and practices. One reason to implement this type of management is that school reform requires the involvement of all stakeholders in the educational process to be effective. During…

The study described in this summary explores school and community factors that encourage parent participation in decisions that affect the quality of children's schooling. Its primary objective was to identify and compare factors that foster parent networks around school issues in suburban and urban areas. Five groups mobilized by middle class…

The effectiveness, behavior, and role of the consultant as policy advisor is examined in light of three operating assumptions: (1) that educational organiztions are subject to politicization; (2) that the consultant's primary role is to assist in nonroutine, potentially controversial policy decisions; and (3) that the consultant must therefore…

THE FOLLOWING IS THE FULL TEXT OF THIS DOCUMENT: Something good is happening in Indiana that may be a model for the nation. The Indiana Congress on Education, which convened for the first time last June, could be an unconventional but effective way to change public policy. Throughout the fall, we've been treated to demonstrations of the…

To provide potential dropouts with increased opportunities for academic and social success and ensure school and community involvement, the Clinton County School District (Kentucky) has developed a comprehensive dropout prevention program emphasizing the assessment of student needs. This paper describes the program's purpose, target groups,…

Adversarial collective bargaining often leads to lingering resentments. Collaborative bargaining, conversely, is a problem-solving approach to contract negotiations based on common interests and mutual respect. Recognizing the interrelationship between trust at schools and trust at the bargaining table, a growing number of school districts are…

Formal worker participation schemes, such as the quality circles and related employee involvement schemes that have been introduced in 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies, are likely to have a lasting impact on the way many organizations work. In a majority of empirical studies, direct participation is associated with at least a short-run…

This study of available evidence on cooperative union-management efforts to solve employment problems indicates that roughly one-half of the larger unionized manufacturing facilities have embarked on cooperative efforts. Thus, larger firms have already made the decision to cooperate or not, and targeting government money to them to encourage…

Although parents and citizens in each community should be encouraged to participate in the educational policy-making process, it has been shown that public access to school board meetings is thwarted in many subtle ways. To gain information that would help to balance the interests of privacy and public access in every school district, the State…

School administrative decisions must be based on a broad range of input; the power of group thinking is required to ensure that the best decisions are made. The necessary transition from the old, closed autocratic administrative decisionmaking system to a new, open democratic organization requires not a radical leap, but a gradual transition. The…

Collaborative learning, such as student-team learning or work-group learning, has become the focus of inservice workshops for teachers, a theme in professional journals, and the daily routine in an increasing number of classrooms. The women's study clubs in late 19th-century United States used a similar pedagogy. By the early 1900s, perhaps as…

In one year, with no prior experience, the Chair of the Art Department at a large community college raised over $100,000 to help the department expand its programs and to build relationships within the school and community. The motivation behind the $100,000 fund-raising goal came from the chairperson's desire to develop her leadership skills. The…