The editor of this issue provides a thematic summary that lists the basic themes of the essays included. The goal of the issue is to evaluate the potential of the educational reform movement for creating social change. (TE)

Data from a sample comprising 46 superintendents and 95 principals in 83 New York State school districts indicate that, for each role, different factors hindering task completion (including bureaucracy, supervision, decision-making power, work demands, and district and individual characteristics) will predict administrator dissatisfaction with…

For this special issue of the quarterly, the guest editors introduce the six articles and discuss the issue's purpose of promoting interaction between organizational theorists and educational administrators in the "middle range" of the continuum between theory and practice. (Author/RW)

Concurrent case studies of consensus formation and maintenance in school district governance in six New York districts yielded eight critical variables, including environmental constraints, community interest group mobilization, school board and administrator unity, administrative expertise, superintendents' leadership abilities, teacher…

A central challenge in education is involving teachers more fully in decision-making processes. This article explores the conceptual advantages of examining teacher participation in decision making using a multidomain, evaluative approach. Findings suggest that this approach offers the greatest overall utility for both practitioners and…

Develops a framework for analyzing the politics of school organizations, affirming a Weberian perspective as most appropriate. Develops "logic of action" (the implicit relationship between means and goals) as the focal point of organizational politics. Underlines the importance of analyzing interest groups and their strategies. Political analyses…

Using Hirschman's conception of exit (turnover) and voice (militancy) as employee responses to objectionable working conditions, this article examines the degree to which teacher job satisfaction and stress symptomology and two hypothesized antecedents (role conflict and ambiguity) are likely to have the same effect on voicing and exiting…