Reviews research on the effectiveness of supportive leadership, teacher participation in decision making, and staff collaboration. Investigates conditions that promote or impede the implementation of these practices by using a multilevel statistical model. Finds significant variance between public and Catholic schools, as well as within-school…

Investigates indirect instructional leadership as demonstrated by a secondary high school principal. Uses data from a qualitative study of high school principals to present organizational factors that enhance the principal's ability to exert an indirect influence on instruction. Considers also the potential importance of indirect leadership…

Superintendents and key executives from 22 California districts were asked to interpret and evaluate 8 restructuring approaches. Viewpoints expressed offer contrasting assessments shaped by the issue's salience and explicitness, interest in performance improvement versus public confidence development, and concern for accountability versus…

Engaging the curriculum means creating conditions demanding that teachers be excited and inquisitive about learning. Restructured schools succeed by altering behaviors and beliefs, restoring professional pride, sharing decision-making responsibility, providing visionary leadership, developing clear institutional goals, valuing students, stressing…

Compares the school decentralization process and political background in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami. Finds that successful programs are characterized by local-level policymaking, strong alliances between district management and teachers, an atmosphere conducive to change and risk, and a willingness to allow schools independence in…

Considers three levels of school change: renewal, making more effective what is already done; reform, altering existing procedures to adapt to new circumstances; and restructuring, changing fundamental assumptions, practices, and relationships to improve student learning and profoundly affect educational practices. Summarizes alternative…

Four secondary teachers, long accustomed to working in isolation, joined forces to provide an interdisciplinary program with flexible scheduling and common planning periods. This article describes their school-within-a-school program, its acceptance by the Coalition of Essential Schools, and the program's benefits. A sidebar provides restructuring…

Transitional outcome-based education lies in the twilight zone between traditional subject matter curriculum structures and planning processes and the future-role priorities inherent in transformational OBE. Districts go through incorporation, integration, and redefinition stages in implementing transitional OBE. Transformational OBE's guiding…

Reviews past attempts to restructure U.S. education, effects of competency-based education, and the role of teacher certification. Considers the impact of federal legislation concerning certification. (SK)

Argues, in contrast to David Hargreaves, that libertarianism implies a mild presumption against school choice, and that notions of common good are significant to educational decision making only when deciding between sets of institutions that perform equally well at delivering their obligations. Links these issues to questions about school choice.…

School psychologists who are savvy about state and federal policies benefit in that they have enhanced their potential to participate in school reform and are better able to facilitate the inclusion of special-needs students in their programs. Presents an overview of state and federal reform legislation, organization, and activities, and ties…

An Ohio urban secondary school used two innovations to promote renewal of school culture and structure. Teacher-student teaming grouped 4 core subject teachers with 80 students until graduation. School-to-work combined career exploration, job shadowing, internships, and academics. (SK)

Summarizes a report published by the NASSP Study of the Restructuring of the American High School. Outlines nine educational goals and recommendations on renewal priorities for curriculum, instructional strategies, school environment, technology, organization and time, assessment and accountability, professional development, diversity, governance,…

Outlines critical elements of restructuring: three focal properties (curriculum standards, performance assessment, interdisciplinary teaching) and four facilitating properties (block schedules, technology, self-directed teacher teams, and parental involvement). (SK)

Examines what shapes current practices in secondary-level social-studies classrooms in New York City, especially in those institutions characterized as "restructured." An important influence on social-studies curriculum and teaching has to do with the differences between traditional and restructured secondary schools. Study seeks answers…