The last decade and a half was dominated by the view that schools do not matter, that schooling makes no difference, and that schools are powerless to change their students' destinies. Current research throws new light on these issues and prompts a questioning of these values. Recent studies present evidence that school experiences can indeed have…

Conditions that influence a school's readiness for change are analyzed in this monograph for the purpose of providing practitioners, especially those who provide assistance to schools, with specific guides for diagnosing readiness for change. The publication is a tool to help school personnel and others make wise and deliberate decisions about…

ALTHOUGH THE DROPOUT PROBLEM IS ONE OF GREAT CONCERN AT BOTH LOCAL AND NATIONAL LEVELS, IT IS READILY APPARENT THAT THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE SAME EVERYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY. DROPOUT RATES VARY CONSIDERABLY FROM ONE COMMUNITY TO ANOTHER, AND EVEN DIFFER BETWEEN HIGH SCHOOLS IN THE SAME SCHOOL SYSTEM. LIMITATIONS IN PREVIOUS STUDIES OF THE PROBLEM HAVE…

SEVERAL CASES OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT ARE EXAMINED FOR COMMON STRATEGIES APPLIED IN A SELECTED GROUP OF CASES. STUDIES SELECTED MET THE CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT AND PROVIDED SUFFICIENT INFORMATION TO INDICATE CASE OUTCOME. AFTER SELECTING THE STUDIES, THE STRATEGY AND ISSUES OF EACH WERE IDENTIFIED, AND COMPARISONS WERE MADE OF…

A PLANNED APPROACH TO EDUCATIONAL CHANGE FOCUSES UPON THE INTERNAL FUNCTIONING OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM. RESEARCH GENERALIZATIONS INDICATING CONDITIONS WHICH INFLUENCE LEARNING ARE CITED AS A BASIS FOR A CONCEPTUAL MODEL. FROM THIS MODEL, SOME ORGANIZATIONAL FUNCTIONS WHICH NEED TO BE DEVELOPED WITHIN THE SCHOOL SYSTEM ARE DERIVED. FIVE LEVELS OF…

This project collected data on the current status of middle schools in the United States. After the compilation of a list of schools meeting the survey definition of middle schools from State departments of education and other sources, a survey instrument was used to secure the following detailed data from a 10 percent random sample (110 schools)…

Early in its deliberations, the Advisory Task Force on Declining Enrollment divided into six subcommittees, each charged with investigating and making recommendations on one phase of the declining enrollment problem. Part 1 of this report is made up of digests of the efforts of these subcommittees. The six areas studied are operational costs per…

This study asserts that 2-year institutions, which of necessity establish a pragmatic philosophy of concern for the immediate, must examine their goals and direction. The study hopes to clarify the philosophical debate between the transfer and the career function of the 2-year institution. The fundamental question is whether a single-purpose…

To test the influence of principals, subject matter experts, and department chairmen upon teacher decisions, an experiment was conducted with secondary school social studies teachers, principals, and department chairmen as participants. While the results of the experiment were uniformly nonsignificant, respondents generally concurred that the…

This paper, prepared for the September 5, 1968, National Education Association (NEA) Staff Conference, presents the NEA position, program, and strategy with regard to preservice and inservice teacher education and professional standards. Introductory remarks include a list of seven priorities which form the "framework of context of the NEA…

In 1966, Powel Elementary School initiated an ungraded system to discover if this program would meet the needs of its students and community. In 1967-68, an evaluation of this ungraded program was made to determine if the reading and arithmetic performance levels of the students at Powel were higher than those of a matched graded school. An…

Analysis of the characteristics of the teaching task yields a series of four propositions about the organization and administration of public schools. First, the personal orientation of the learner is a central consideration in teaching activity. The task of aiding the learner in his development is transactional and requires privacy for both the…

Since educational organizations must constantly change to meet the demands of a changing society, educational administrators might look to the social sciences for help in managing change and innovation. This paper argues that an organizational approach to educational innovation is likely to be more successful than an individualistic approach.…

This yearbook discusses mathematics instruction in the following countries: Austria, Czechoslovakia, England, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Russia, the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, and the United States. Much of the information was collected as a followup to the first International Commission on the Teaching of…

This document provides basic information on the Polish system of higher education. Following background information on the elementary-secondary system, various facets of the higher education are discussed. Emphasis is placed on the higher education system, expenditures, the Ministry of Higher Education, and the higher school. The higher school is…