Discusses planning and designing schools that serve fifth and sixth graders. This combination of grade levels is seen by many to be the school's greatest strength: fifth graders have the opportunity to transition from the elementary environment, while sixth graders are removed from the adolescent peer pressure of seventh and eighth graders. (EV)

Examines school reform efforts through a "reculturing," rather than a restructuring, lens, based on a sample of schools engaged with five reform models (Accelerated Schools, Coalition of Essential Schools, Comer's School Development Program, Effective Schools, and Success for All). A newly developed instrument enhances understanding of…

The paper raises theoretical insights against central premises underlying the policy of parental choice and educational market from the standpoint of the institutional theory of organization. It discusses how the institutional theory may explain the barriers to diversity, responsiveness, and improvement, all of which are assumed to be driven by…

The advent of large-scale matched data sets, linking pupils' attainment across key stages, gives new opportunities to explore the effects of school organisational factors on pupil performance. Combined with currently available sophisticated and efficient software for multilevel analysis, it offers educational researchers the chance to develop…

In 1999, on the eve of rationalisation of South African higher education, J. M. Coetzee published a book entitled "Disgrace". In this publication he narrates the tale of a Classics and Modern Languages professor transformed into an adjunct professor of Communications, a marketable identity, as a consequence of rationalisation. Coetzee,…

As a follow-up to an earlier effort to distinguish schools by stages of development along the context of organizational learning (OL), this paper further targets the OL processes and outcomes to generate a more dynamic and functional framework for sustaining and refining the earlier version of the typology. It is hoped that through such a…

This chapter discusses issues that are common across the literatures and makes connections across the different levels of inquiry to develop a conceptual model of peer influences on learning. Based on the premise that compositional effects operate through a nested series of hierarchical layers, the chapter proposes a multi-layered model with…

This report reveals that about 100 Chicago schools suffer from chronically high rates of teacher turnover, losing a quarter or more of their teaching staff every year, and many of these schools serve predominantly low-income African American children. In the typical Chicago elementary school, 51 percent of the teachers working in 2002 had left…

This book is a survival guide as well as a valuable tool for making our schools more effective and appropriate places for students to learn and achieve. Exploring the often complex, multifaceted, and co-occurring problems in the education system, the book addresses specific problems, discusses the real reasons they developed and persist, describes…

This article shares findings from an exploratory case study about an advanced school leadership development program designed specifically for practicing principals and administrator-trained teachers. The program was designed to help a high-need rural district transform its principalship from school management into learner-center leadership while…

Over the past few years, as part of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) reform on the one hand, and the increased demands for school accountability on the other, more and more schools have launched a school website aimed at enhancing educational activities, supporting student-teacher communication, contributing to school marketing…

Teachers are facing an increasing number of changes in their job context, many of which significantly affect their work lives. This study offers a theoretical understanding of the changes in teachers' working conditions, starting from the intensification thesis. The case study of a Flemish (Belgian) elementary school shows the existence of various…

Nested in a complex environment of expectations, regulations, professional standards, and historical traditions, schools are the object of many influences. The main question of this paper is: To what extent and under what conditions do external agents help schools develop intellectual quality and strong professional communities? The paper examines…

The education reform movement that began in the 1980s has produced disappointing and unsatisfactory results. This book asserts that the reform movement must be reformulated, and that this information is possible and even likely for a new and vigorous effort to save the children and the schools. It argues that the reform movement is rooted in a…

School-based management (SBM), sometimes called site-based management, is fast becoming the hottest restructuring item in the arsenal of reformers, teachers' unions, governors, and legislators who want to change the traditional ways in which schools and school districts do business. This document comprises three main sections with contributions…