Describes the role of the country educational homes (private schools) within the West German educational system. These schools offer students alternatives to the public school system in educational philosophy, environment, and teaching methods. (AM)

Presents a model relating the adequacy of an organization's problem-solving to its resources and to the appropriateness of its structures. Describes a test of the model, on 25 public elementary and secondary schools in southeastern Michigan, which found that different organizational structures use money differently and produce different outputs.…

A model is presented for analyzing the cost benefits of a school reorganization in which ninth graders are moved to senior high schools and sixth graders to junior high schools. Data from a Maryland school district show the reorganization will save money through increased capacity utilization and economies of scale. (Author/RW)

Analyzes an urban alternative school program to determine the extent to which the social relations underlying educational encounters were transformed. Found that students and teachers were both reproducing previously learned social definitions of roles and behaviors and altering the fundamental character of the social relations underlying…

Examines the concept of school as a "just community" being developed by Scharf, Kohlberg, and others, noting lack of consensus as to whether democratic education should be an end in itself or a means to moral development. Asserts that its viability as an organization model promoting substantive learning needs verification. (SJL)

The contents of two recently published documents on school science education in the UK are summarized and discussed from a university biologist's viewpoint. The documents discussed are "Alternatives for Science Education" and "Science and the Organization of Schools in England--Implications for the Needs of Talented Children."…

Reports on a study that examined teacher attitudes and behaviors in the community the classroom, and the school. Concludes that teachers, although active in their communities, are reluctant to assume a critical stance in relation to school authorities and tend to pass this lesson in conformity on to their students. (Author/GC)

The functions of a coordinator in an inner-city high school renewal project are described and their effectiveness evaluated. (JD)

Describes the decision-making structure of the Cambridge Alternative Public School. The structure includes participation by teachers and parents. (IRT)

Another in a series of articles summarizing results of a study sponsored by the National Science Foundation, discusses the minimal impact of curriculum revision due to the extraordinary social complexity of schools and systems. (Author/MLF)

This paper argues that there are at least two decision-making systems in the school: (1) the first reflects mainly school-wide affairs and lends itself to rational, centrally controlled procedures that restrict behaviors to conform with well-programmed events; and (2) the second reflects mainly classroom affairs and requires flexibility and…

This review of four schools compares organizational properties to demonstrate that, while methods of control and instruction do vary, pupils are generally fitted to the tempo of the school rather than their own learning speed. (MB)

All the people at Rhodes are optimistic that the humanistic approach of the house concept organization can offer students in large inner city schools the sense of family needed before any educational program can work. (For availability, see EA 507 405.) (Author/IRT)

Zaire has one of the highest attrition rates in Africa--about 90 percent of the students who begin seventh grade never receive twelfth grade diplomas. This study demonstrates that administration policy and social environment of schools, as well as student ability and performance, may account for high failure rate. (RW)

School district reorganization will continue because there are still districts with enrollments below 1,200 pupils, and because of court-ordered measures to achieve desegregation or prevent segregation of schools. (Author/MLF)