Following a "dear colleagues" letter from John R. McKernan, Jr., Governor of Maine and 1991-92 chairman of the Education Commission of the States, a strategy is outlined that will help educational reformers to approach restructuring from varying perspectives and improve its chances for success. Several fundamental principles underlie…

Promising research evidence linking achievement, empowerment, and parent participation are dwarfed by troubling indications of negative, infrequent interactions between families and schools. Middle-income parents seem to participate in school-based and home-learning exercises at higher rates than lower-class parents. The study summarized in this…

A study examined the influence of differences in school district organization on internal school organizational processes that are central to reform strategies, such as teacher cooperation and instructional leadership. Data were obtained from interviews conducted with the principals of 98 Tennessee elementary schools that participated in the…

The potential exists in schools nationwide to create a high quality system of education. But schools are not operating as a coherent system. While most educators and citizens are ready to act and to improve education, decisionmakers do not realize the need for a new paradigm in education. Many successful schools serve as examples of the benefits…

Findings from a study that examined the attitudes of California school district superintendents toward school restructuring are presented in this paper. Interviews were conducted with a total of 30 superintendents and senior staff members in 22 California school districts to explore their orientations toward school restructuring in general and…

The accumulated evidence argues that a school contemplating curricular innovation will heighten its chances of success if it first gives staff members practice in new norms and skills for the collaboration that will be necessary to the innovation's success. (Author/AM)

Presents a description of some of the needs in the 60's which generated the efforts to create the training materials and support training of trainers, the issues that seemed to need answers, a number of actions which have been taken, answers found for some of the issues, and suggestions of work yet to be done. (Author/AM)

The study examined change in the role of Director of University Services and Auxiliary Enterprises (USAE) at the College of William and Mary (Virginia) as a result of reorganization of the Business Affairs Office. A review of the literature on organizational development and higher education leadership was conducted. A questionnaire was then…

Higher order thinking can be defined as interpreting, analyzing, and manipulating information to solve a challenging problem. This definition does not restrict higher order thinking to any level of cognitive ability or any class of people; it includes thinking involving both nonacademic and academic topics; and it is not limited to any particular…

Theories concerning the organizational dynamics underlying the dispersion of institutional research activities within colleges are proposed. Two theoretical arguments concern whether or not a centralized, monopolistic institutional research office will be found on a given campus: the informational legitimacy argument and the limited attention…

A report is given on the second phase of a 3-year study on change in American high schools. Data are presented from 17 schools for two of the study questions: What types of changes are occurring and what are the key units of change? Information was collected through approximately 28 hours of interviews in each school with students, faculty, and…

This paper applies the strategic planning process to the task of school renewal and improvement. After outlining the basic elements of stratgic planning (planning-to-plan phase, research, writing a mission statement, forecasting, contingency planning, and development of the strategic plan), the paper focuses on using this model to restructure…

This paper describes a structure for assessing the school evaluation use process developed from a longitudinal case study of districtwide and school level evaluation procedures in a large urban school district. Two fundamental questions guided the study: (1) Why isn't the evaluation process more useful to decision-makers and practitioners? and (2)…

A centralized marketing and promotion office may or may not be a panacea for a continuing education program. Five major advantages to centralization of the marketing and promotion function are minimization of costs, a school-wide marketing strategy, maximization of the school image, enhanced quality control, and building of technical expertise of…

Besides setting the tone for accomplishing student learning goals and effecting improvement, school climate serves as a determinant of teacher attitudes toward personal and professional growth and development. Bureaucratization of schools decreases teacher effectiveness through rules, controls, and reduced autonomy and authority. The formal…