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In my current job doing research, I am responsible for running several projects. I make all of the day-to-day decisions about the experiments I run--how to troubleshoot problems, and how [...]

Recently, a senior at a selective liberal arts college mentioned that he was not looking forward to his last year because of the mandatory senior project, and he knew his [...]

INTRODUCTION Jamaica's education system currently caters to approximately 700,000 students in public and private institutions at the early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Some 25, 329 teachers, 20% of [...]

This study argues for a new theory in school management based on the notion of positive containment which benefited from the integration of the main two patterns of leadership, i.e., the democratic and the authoritarian. In this theory, the school principal has to deal with one external and five internal circles of positive containments. The principal has to deal with his school staff in an open friendly democratic spirit. However, he has to practice the role of the good tyrant who depends on implicit bargaining with his school staff. In other words, When they perform his orders as stated, they will be rewarded. However, when they do not follow the orders, they will be held accountable. The study concludes with several expected outcomes as a result of theory implementation, including: the theory supports the principle of human relations in school work and works on involving everyone in school tasks no matter how small their job titles are., Introduction to Theory: A Historical Perspective of the Evolution of the Management Theory: Basically, it can be said that the primary function of management in any organization including school as [...]

Identifying what commonalities exist in high schools where students consistently outperform other demographically similar students is of particular interest to administrators and practitioners looking to increase graduation rates among all [...]

Studies on school change indicate that schools successful in sustaining school improvement build capacity for leadership within the organization (Harris & Lambert, 2003). Reliance on the leadership of the principal alone is no longer viable if schools are to improve and sustain improvement. Leadership capacity is about creating conditions within the school for growth, self-renewal, and the development and distribution of leadership throughout the school organization. Studies indicate that school leaders and teachers must commit, participate, and have leadership capacity for a school to sustain meaningful change. To explore the discussion on leadership capacity, the author will address a series of the questions based on a leadership capacity survey that was administered to a group of teachers in the school administration program and another group of candidates completing the principal internship in Washington State public schools. To discuss the issue of leadership capacity, the author started with the following question., What is broad-based, skillful leadership in schools? As already mentioned, leadership in schools is the key to success for the entire learning community. Leadership is defined by Webster's dictionary as, [...]

Although teaching and learning are considered critical activities in schools, they are largely driven by financial realities. Thus, schools must undertake the delicate task of balancing anticipated revenue sources with planned expenditures. In the wake of static or declining revenues, schools are compelled to cut costs. A less painful way to do this would be to improve operational efficiency by eliminating waste using lean techniques. The individual and organizational learning that takes place is then disseminated throughout the organization., INTRODUCTION Most educators view teaching and learning as the most critical activities in schools. However, these activities are largely driven by financial realities and budgetary considerations. Educational programs cost money. [...]

For over 20 years, educators and administrators across North America have heatedly debated the value of large-scale student assessment. Throughout the history of schooling in British Columbia, large-scale student assessment [...]

First Nations people have both a Constitutional and a Treaty right to education; however, the Crown's jurisdictional obligations to provide educational services have not lead to similar educational opportunities and [...]

Economic and social inequalities are ever-growing in the society, and schools are the essential vehicles for tackling the citizenship gap, the hopefulness gap, the kid/adult gap, and essentially, they provide the groundwork for tackling the staggering divide between the haves and have-nots. Articles and legislation on education reiterate that nation's future depends on schools, yet there is no educational system devoted to nurturing democracy.

School/Community-Based Management (SCBM) advocates insisted that changing the bureaucratic structure of governance, moving from top-down decision making to a shared decision making at the local level, would revolutionize schools and result in higher student achievement. Many schools have struggled with shared decision-making processes. This article examines one high school's attempt to implement a dress code using consensus-based decision-making. Organizations that strive to make decisions by consensus should be aware of the pitfalls that may occur and work to address them if they arise., Introduction Countless debates occur at schools every day. Increasingly, educators have included voices beyond the school in their discussions. Instead of the school administrator or principal making decisions unilaterally, teachers, [...]

If school leadership is the key to school improvement, then school principals are the people who know where the key ring hangs. In an era of accountability, of charter schooling [...]

We argue the negative relationship between school bureaucracy and school performance that is commonly reported in the bureaucracy and educational policy literature is theoretically and empirically incomplete. Like most public agencies operating in complex task environments, we suggest that schools have to make trade-offs between the multiple outputs they are expected to produce. Bureaucracy plays an important role in determining the nature of these trade-offs: one that is more multidimensional than it is portrayed in the existing literature. We find bureaucracy's relationship with school performance depends on how performance is measured. It is negatively associated with test scores but positively associated with other performance measures such as attendance and dropout rates. This is consistent with an economies-of-scope perspective of bureaucracy, which emphasizes bureaucracy's role in managing the trade-offs inherent in pursuing multiple goals.

The paper deals with a school redistricting problem in which blocks of a city must be assigned to schools according to diverse criteria. Previous approaches are reviewed and some desired properties of a good school districting plan are established. An optimization model together with a geographic information system environment are then proposed for finding a solution that satisfies these properties. A prototype of the system is described, some implementation issues are discussed, and two real-life examples from the city of Philadelphia are studied, one corresponding to a relatively easy to solve problem, and the other to a much harder one. The trade-offs in the solutions are analysed and feasibility questions are discussed. The results of the study strongly suggest that ill-defined spatial problems, such as school redistricting, can be addressed effectively by an interaction between objective analysis and subjective judgement. Published online 21 April 2004 Keywords: school districting; mathematical programming; integer programming; application; geographic information systems

EARLY 20TH CENTURY PROGRESSIVE REFORMERS established elected school boards as a means of shielding public school systems from the politics and patronage of corrupt city governments. Citizens, rather than political [...]

An analysis exploiting the exogenous variation in school created by the random assortment of Ethiopian immigrant children into schools upon their arrival after Operation Solomon is presented. Results suggest that elementary schools that are strong in mathematics have a significant impact on a student's chances of dropping out of high school and on the probability of passing the matriculation exams, which are necessary to enter colleges.

Byline: Frank Pignatelli (1) Keywords: educational leadership; ethics; Foucault; progressive; surveillance Abstract: Educators find themselves in the midst of arising tide of urban school reform marked byevermore centrally designed and monitoredsystems of accountability. In response to thislooming high-stakes gaze of surveillance, thisessay offers an ethics of educationalleadership predicated upon taking up thechallenge of creatively and courageouslyauthoring one's ethical self. It seeks tocontribute to mapping an ethical terrain whichcan support the production of pedagogicalpractices, initiatives, and agendas asdistinctive, bold responses to theproliferation of one-dimensional,technicist-driven efforts which narrowlycalculate and assess student learning, teacherwork, school effectiveness, and which offeranemic, foreclosed readings of a possiblefuture. My claim is that a consideration ofFoucault's ethics draws us closer torecognizing what such a project would mean andask of the educator as leader. Author Affiliation: (1) Graduate School, Educational Leadership Department, Bank Street College of Education, 610 West 112th Street, New York, NY, 10025, USA Article History: Registration Date: 18/10/2004

Byline: Harbans S. Bhola (1) Keywords: educational systems; epistemic triangle; globalization; ideology-epistemology filters; practical epistemology; systemic approaches; U.N. social summits; UNESCO conferences Abstract: Epistemology mirrors reality but notperfectly, and in the process molds reality butnot exactly as intended or anticipated. Horizontal interconnections also exist betweenand among epistemology, ideology, theory andpraxiology. However, these relations areneither deductive nor deterministic in naturebut are merely resonant, and then unclear,ambiguous and confounded. In this paper, thepoint is made that we need a grand reflectionon both our paradigms of reality and ourpredicaments of life as lived, to deal with thediscontent of humanity at this moment of thehistory of our civilization, and to engage inpraxis ``to act on our world and to reconstructit'' to make it moral, just and more humane. Toundertake such a grand reflection, we need apractical philosophy of knowledge -- that is, apractical epistemology -- to bridge across themultiple epistemological approaches nowcrowding our discussions. An epistemictriangle formed by systems thinking,constructivist thinking, and dialecticalthinking is offered to serve as the startingpoint of crystallization for building a commonground for epistemologies. It is shown how suchan epistemological diagram could be first usedto develop a minimum ideological consensus andthen to bring orderliness to the chaos ofcontemporary themes of our civilization andissues of education and culture within andacross nations. Finally, an agenda foreducational leadership for educational practiceis offered to fit the needs of the globalcommunity of nations as we enter thetwenty-first century. Author Affiliation: (1) School of Education, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA Article History: Registration Date: 18/10/2004

Byline: Fenwick W. English (1) Keywords: educational administration; epistemology; field conceptions; line of demarcation; paradigm; point of scientificity; research program Abstract: The point of scientificity, or pos,represents a place in history whereeducational administration was founded as ascience. A pos creates a field of memoryand a field of studies. A pos isepistemologically sustained in its claim forscientific status by a line of demarcation orlod. A lod is supported by truthclaims based on various forms ofcorrespondence. As these forms have beeninterrogated and abandoned, correspondence hasgiven way to coherentism and finally to testsof falsification. As falsification has shownto contain serious flaws when compared to theactual history of scientific discoveries, theentire project of a distinct and unitaryfield known as educational administration isseriously cast into doubt. Contemporaryexaminations in educational administrationdiscourse show that even when the lod hasbeen undermined by epistemological shifts, theinitial pos has remained to supportclaims regarding the project of a ``science ofleadership.'' The analysis contained in thisarticle show, however, that when claims of thelod are demonstrably unsustainable, theinitial pos must be similarly abandoned. With that collapse the concept of a fieldis likewise effaced. The epistemologicalalternative is to envision fields ofstudy which do not require a lod, excepton a longitudinal basis to ascertain whether aresearch program shaped and sustained by it isprogressive or regressive. In short, there areno aprori meta-criteria to separate sciencefrom non-science in educationaladministration. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Educational Leadership, School of Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 121E Peabody Hall, Campus Box 3500, Chapel Hill, NC, 21599 Article History: Registration Date: 18/10/2004

Byline: Gert J.J. Biesta (1), Louis F. Miron (2) Author Affiliation: (1) School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of Exeter, St Luke's Campus, Heavitree Road, Exeter, EX1 2LU, UK (2) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Educational Policy Studies, Champaign, IL, 61820, USA Article History: Registration Date: 18/10/2004

Byline: Frances K. Kochan (1) Keywords: Habermas; knowledge interests; modernity; philosophy and educational administration; postmodernity; reason Abstract: The emergence of postmodernism has stimulateddiscourse on the potential for using reason tocreate a just society. The discourse hascaused confusion and dissension in the field ofeducational administration as scholars seek tofind a means to blend concepts inherent in themodern and postmodern. The works of JurgenHabermas provide a means of dealing with thisdilemma and have some specific applications tothe practice of educational administration. Author Affiliation: (1) Auburn University, 3084 Haley Center, AL, 36849-5221, USA Article History: Registration Date: 18/10/2004

This article discusses the creation of the small public school called Central Park East Elementary School in New York, focusing on the high high school and college graduation rates of students who attended this school in the 1970s and 1980s. Topics include the difficulties of starting a school from the ground up, as well as the rewards of maintaining small class sizes and individualized instruction.

Issues discussed concern American's propensity towards large schools, focusing on how the history of US efficiency has led to the consolidation and expansion of public schools. Topics include how large schools manage curriculum, personalize their education, and design classrooms to promote a community environment.

This article examines the importance of smaller class sizes to student academic achievement, focusing on how teachers are better able to meet the needs of students in smaller schools with smaller classes. The author finds that many students learn at different levels, and smaller class sizes allow teachers more individual instruction time.

Inclusive education has emerged as a schoolwide improvement approach for educating students with diverse abilities in general education classes. Despite the key role of principals in school improvement initiatives, few empirical studies have been reported of the administrative climate and context of inclusive schools. Five elementary schools actively engaged in inclusive approaches were studied using survey, observation, and interview methods. Findings revealed (a) commonalities in leadership practices and core principles across this diverse sample of schools, (b) consistent patterns in measured climate indices, and (c) a range of administrative strategies used by principals to promote inclusive practices. Implications for future research and practice are discussed., Differences hold great opportunities for learning. Differences offer a free, abundant, and renewable resource. I would like to see our compulsion for eliminating differences replaced by an equally compelling focus [...]

Byline: Pinka Chatterji (1), Christine M. Caffray (2), Alison Snow Jones (3), Marsha Lillie-Blanton (4), Lisa Werthamer (5) Keywords: drug prevention; school-based; economic evaluation; cost-analysis Abstract: In order to efficiently allocate scarce prevention resources, policymakers need information about the economic costs of school-based substance use prevention programs. The objective of this paper is to outline economic cost analysis methods and demonstrate their applicability to school-based prevention programs. As an example, the paper focuses on estimating the economic cost of ALPHA, an intensive school-based substance use prevention program. The cost of ALPHA is compared to the costs of 3 elementary school programs that were alternatives to ALPHA. We collected cost information for 3 years, using a cost questionnaire that was completed by program and school budget officers and school principals. The program costs obtained from these sources were modified to conform to well-established economic cost analysis principles. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York (2) Department of Psychology, Cognitive and Neural Science Division, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida (3) Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland (4) Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Washington, District of Columbia (5) Children's Mental Health Services Research Center, University of Tennessee at, Knoxville, Tennessee Article History: Registration Date: 10/10/2004

This article examines the data that suggests small schools help foster improvements in student behavior and achievement by creating stronger relationships between students, teachers and parents. Potential barriers to increasing the number of small schools include cultural expectations and traditional assumptions concerning the organization and design of schools.

This article examines the development of middle school management in Florida since the 1960s and 1970s. Topics addressed include curriculum changes, class scheduling, the introduction of technology into the classroom, managing diverse groups of students, and staff development.

Data for this paper was collected from the OFSTED database on Hampshire primary schools. The schools in Southampton and Porstmouth were used in order to assess the factors that influence their productive efficiency. The data set included 19 variables on 176 schools and was analysed by means of Data Envelopment Analysis. Contextual variables, not included in the efficiency analysis, were used to explain the sources of inefficiency. It was found that religious orientation, parental influence and level of exclusions all impacted on the ability of a school to deliver the best possible results in standard assessment tests. This study is set within local and national priorities in education.

This article presents guidelines on how to implement and sustain educational change.

This article examines the potential of comprehensive school reform to help failing schools to assure academic success for all students.

Historian Larry Cuban discusses school reforms which he views as being influenced by society which itself is faddish and subject to bursts of innovation.

The just-in-time learning approach to staff development is an effective way of introducing the learning organization concept to schools. It is also directly applicable to staff development designed to improve teaching and learning. Based on sound learning theory, the approach allows the development of a learning community which begins to form throughout the school. The facilitator of the just-in-time process needs to be credible with the learners.

Private companies are invading the education market through educational management organizations (EMOs), which provide curriculum and management for preschools through post-secondary schools. These EMOs are the result of the emergence of the three market forces of cost, quality and consumer confidence. Since most EMOs do not seek independent evaluations of their programs, it remains to be seen whether they can provide a high standard of instruction with the same financial outlay as public schools and still be financially sound.

The object of this Note is to caution against accepting, at least in the context of English schooling policy, conclusions drawn by a group of Canadian educational researchers from their [...]

Several studies have documented the ability of small schools to improve student achievement and enable educators to attain various school reform goals. Some of these goals include management and organization arrangements, personalization and individualization, and genuine instruction and engagement. Research has also validated that small schools are more likely to be violence-free than large ones. Moreover, successful education is context-specific and proponents are urged to consider and implement various components of successful schooling.

Studies have validated the importance of small class size in increasing student achievement and increase equity especially in primary grades. Small class sizes allow teachers to address schooling outcome concerns such as education quality and test-score gaps among various groups identifiable by race, gender, and socioeconomic status. However, critics of small class size associate the concept with costs and a sense of unfairness to primary-grade teachers.

A study presents a formulation of modeling lesson distribution and compactness constraints in school timetabling problems. Distribution requirements are modelled by using multiple mode concept with mode identity constraints while compactness constraints are modelled using converging framework of partially renewable resources. Results reveal a modeling method that can provide optimal solution to timetabling problems.

The continuous improvement framework developed by the staff and officials at Winder-Barrow High School, Barrow County, GA, is presented. A leadership team composed of dept heads, faculty members and administrators dealt with policy and system changes and reported information to and from departments. The teachers formed Teacher Collegial groups (TCGs) to help each other formulate and assess strategies to improve instruction. The team system facilitated the identification of problems, devising solutions, monitoring of new guidelines and the continuous improvement of the whole school system.