Explores outcome-based education, tracing its historical basis in competency-based education and mastery learning. Discusses the results of an ongoing dialogue between the authors (a classroom teacher and a university researcher). Although OBE offers some powerful ideas, it is not radical enough. OBE is based on behavioral objectives determined by…

Urges educators to beware adopting new programs during the coming academic year. A better approach is to adapt worthy innovations without throwing out last year's innovations. The history of American educational practice supports this approach, emphasizing the value of familiar continuity sprinkled with modest and occasionally some significant…

Describes the difficulties involved with bringing about substantive change in schools. Claims that ancillary programs often fail to change much within schools. Advocates the critical examination of any program proposal, and lists the most valuable questions administrators must ask about proposed change. (HB)

Four conditions are necessary for a union and school district to move toward professional unionism: understanding change's inevitability, keeping politics at bay, moving beyond anger, and believing in teacher professionalism. Professional unionism cannot grow in permanently contested terrain or amid standardized, centralized work rules. Many…

Recent survey of time usage in restructuring schools disclosed five time-management strategies, including freed-up time (temporary interventions freeing teachers from scheduling constraints), restructured or rescheduled time, common time (for teacher planning and preparation), better-used time (to replace faculty meetings and professional…

Reviews frame theory and clinical use of therapeutic reframing. Explores constructivist ideas on "reality," and suggests that teaching clients to reframe situations positively for themselves is an important mental-health-counseling goal. (EMK)

Examines the prospects for change in the financing of American higher education in the next decade, looking at current patterns of financing along three dimensions (total resources, cost per unit, apportionment of costs) that may or may not change profoundly and how they may do so. Considers the likelihood that such shifts will be evolutionary or…

Examines how the way in which compositionists have figured their past affects what they have become, are becoming, and will become, as a discipline. Considers how graduate students' narratives (publications in this journal in particular) are surprisingly unchanging over time and unaffected by "reforms" in the profession. Hopes to…

A recent study identified continuing barriers to employment of women educational administration graduates as secondary school principals, and UCEA universities' strategies to address them. Societal and school changes, the school councils' role, and anticipated personnel shortages offer teachable moments for addressing gender inequalities in the…

Observes that there are numerous imperatives for changes in U.S. mathematics teaching and learning, but, in many schools, classroom practice remains conventional. Examines the reforms enacted in a midsized, urban school district. Reports that the resources available for mathematics education restricted possibilities for reform. (DSK)

Outdated and cumbersome administrative processes and technology at the University of Missouri prompted use of business process reengineering (BPR) techniques to bring about change. BPR helped quantify staff resources and costs associated with major administrative processes, know where those processes were occurring, and understand opportunities…

A survey was mailed to all 66 Louisiana public school district superintendents and to 50 state department of education superintendents on school district policy regarding student dress code and student/faculty uniform use. States reported no statute or mandate for student uniforms. Uniform policy was optional and popular in 36 Louisiana districts.…

Some superintendents successfully exploit competitive intentions of the charter-school movement to improve district schools. A 1997 study of randomly selected districts found that half had experienced little financial effects from charters. Districts often lose certain ethnic groups and disgruntled parents. Ripple effects and policy…

The director of a new professional-development center describes living and surviving a year of rapid change in Quebec. Four important management strategies are identifying and understanding reform goals to communicate them effectively, translating reform goals into specific institutional objectives and an action plan to mobilize staff, inviting…

Describes how Rice University (Texas) simultaneously developed a streamlined client-responsive set of student services while replacing an antiquated information system. Emphasis is on how proper management and careful staging of major changes can result in extremely positive, cost-effective results. (Author/DB)