Describes a principal's efforts to help staff restructure an Arizona junior high school's entire curriculum while struggling to achieve a successful transition to middle school status. The most traumatic change for staff involved a radical scheduling change from one-hour classes to two-hour time blocks with alternating subjects from quarter to…

School performance is as closely tied to competent administration, effective supervision, and dynamic management as it is to aggressive leadership. Transformational leadership arises when leaders are more concerned about gaining staff cooperation and energetic participation than accomplishing particular tasks. (MLH)

As schools are typically organized, children work under the guidance of female teachers employed by a male principal (the boss) empowered to interrupt their classes at will and mete out discipline. The principal serves as district stationmaster but not necessarily as educator. Two hypothetical examples show how teachers and secretaries can…

Although both professionalism and leadership are prescribed as cures for school problems, the two concepts are antithetical. The more professionalism is emphasized, the less leadership is needed. Teachers become more committed and self-managing when schools become true communities, freeing principals from the burden of trying to control people.…

Professionalism and leadership are contradictory concepts. Because Maslow and Herzberg studied mostly males, they espoused motivational theories stressing achievement and competitiveness, not caring and nurturing relationships. Although women are underrepresented in principalships, they are overrepresented in successful ones. Professionalism,…

As middle managers in the educational enterprise, principals are pressured by groups with goals at odds with their own. After attempting to resolve three thorny ethical dilemmas, one female principal realized that conflicts are more often caused by superiors and government agencies than by students, parents, and teachers. The question arises: is…

In Brookline, Massachusetts, two classroom teachers learned that restructuring the teaching profession had to begin with restructuring the school. Discouraged by disappearing colleagues and dissatisfied students, these teachers began a team teaching and internship project called the Learning/Teaching Collaborative and sought ways to further…

Bringing a shared onsite management structure to UCLA's laboratory elementary school was possible because the school enjoys relative autonomy. At this newly restructured school, teachers now share ownership of decisions at every operating level. Success depends on advocacy groups, a formal decision-making body, and annual retreats for staff unity.…

Administrative women generally possess more expert information than men because they have had more classroom experience. In an age focused on the teaching process, women in leadership will prove a valuable asset. Through networking and struggling to overcome persistent stereotypes (the pink earring syndrome), women will advance in education and…

The Institute for Executive Leadership at Lewis and Clark College (Portland, Oregon) prepares superintendents to become managers of culture, rather than technicians adept at applying behavioral skills. Clinical knowledge is holistic, created from practice, and embodies a cycle of experience, feedback, reflection, and conceptualization. The…

Instead of merely certifying administrators, the University of Northern Colorado is transforming its preparation focus from managerial skills to leadership development. The new knowledge base for future administrators stresses understanding self, using inquiry, shaping organizations, and understanding people and environmental influences.…

To address the social challenges facing schools, administrators must revitalize the work culture. Borrowing from successful business practices, the School Management Institute has implemented a 25-day Managing Productive Schools leadership training program in Florida, Minnesota, and Virginia. The program is based on the cultural conditions,…

Although there are many gaps between schools and the workplace, encouraging changes include erosion of the walls separating academic and vocational programs; better information about necessary skills, knowledge, and habits of mind; and emerging systemic plans to address the school-to-work transition issue. Helping all students learn work-related…

To compete more effectively in the global economy, the U.S. must reorganize the way people work in stores, factories, and elsewhere. Two factors hinder production of a highly educated work force: lack of a clear standard of achievement and insufficient student motivation. A new educational performance standard (Certificate of Initial Mastery) is…

If the labor market rewarded learning in school, high school students would respond by studying harder, and local voters would willingly pay higher taxes to finance better local schools. Instead of using rank in class or relative measurement standards, educators should measure student competency by external absolute standards, the way Scout merit…