The author of "The Fifth Discipline" says most schools are not learning organizations. Educators are too isolated and rule-bound to experience collective learning and engage students. Deep learning is learner-driven. Learning communities enhance people's collective capacity to create and pursue overall visions. Schools must exchange stratification…

Certain cultural norms (high professional standards, collegiality, and questioning/experimenting attitudes) are common to self-renewing schools. To avoid the pitfalls of contrived collegiality, schools should adopt core or shared values, a common view of professional behavior, and a focus on the client. Two exemplary elementary schools in the…

Describes how a Seattle principal confronted familiar urban school challenges and brought parents, teachers, and students together to focus on children' needs. The school's strategic plan included goals for behavior improvement, a quest for equity, an emphasis on parent involvement, and an ever-evolving child-centeredness. (MLH)

An Illinois high school modified its practice of sorting students into five ability areas (honors, accelerated, regular, modified, or basic) based on eighth-grade achievement test results and artificial caps and quotas. The school now bases placement on demonstrated proficiencies and offers services to help students advance to higher levels. (MLH)

Seniors enrolled in a humanities course at an exemplary New Jersey high school were surveyed about critical issues, needed changes, and factors affecting student failure. Critical issues included racism, problem kids from other schools, boring teachers, inconsistent discipline, crowded halls and classes, and violence. Students' reasons for student…

In "Making Connections--Teaching and the Human Brain," the authors outline a new learning theory based on current research in the neurosciences. This theory has been applied to several schools, including a Rio Linda, CA, elementary school serving economically disadvantaged children. Schools as apprentice communities allow children to test many…

Principals help teachers become more reflective practitioners by providing a supportive environment, using specific facilitative behaviors (asking questions, informally critiquing, and questioning program irregularities), and enabling program implementation. Principals create a supportive environment by encouraging justification of practice,…

School renewal means moving away from innovations intended to solve specific problems toward a fluid inquiry into everyday improvement possibilities. Faculty can begin by exploring promising hypotheses concerning restructured job assignments, democratic reorganization possibilities, learning environment study data, the professional knowledge base,…

In Hollywood movies, straight shooters often expose scoundrels' folly. School-based straight shooters seeking to clarify their positions and hear colleagues' views are hampered by lack of agreement about needed changes, an overly polite work environment, and contrived evaluation sessions. Recent Essential Schools initiatives show that…

The League of Professional Schools is a practitioner-driven, school-initiated reform effort founded on the belief that those closest to students have the capacity to improve schools. The league now has 62 member schools working on action plans. The league's three guiding premises are shared governance, action research, and instructional focus.…

The key to renewal is emphasis on results and the conditions favoring them. Short-term results are pivotal to improvement efforts, particularly for automobile plants and schools striving to apply Deming's TQM principles. Success depends on regular collaboration focused on well-defined, measurable student performance goals and frequent monitoring…

The psychological fallout of school restructuring can paralyze central office staff. Superintendents need effective incentives to keep people engaged in organization-building. They must create a trusting, risk-taking environment, develop a shared mission, empower staff to make decisions, provide learning opportunities, afford professional…

According to Herrnstein and Murray's "The Bell Curve" (1994), public education cannot alter the economic, social, or political stratification of American society. Intelligence is supposedly being combined and concentrated, and there is no inexpensive, reliable method to raise IQ. Actually, the book justifies the economic status quo and a…

Despite its failings, Herrnstein and Murray's "The Bell Curve" is valuable for emphasizing cognition as significantly affecting human performance and social achievement; acknowledging human differences; and offering a frightening depiction of contemporary American society. The authors err in reducing intelligence to a stable, immutable IQ score.…

"The Bell Curve"'s racist overtones have caused a furor, but the book's real (equally controversial) thesis is intellectual segregation's economic and political consequences. The authors bemoan this elitist segregation, yet favor industry's use of IQ tests to select workers. By using IQ to measure a person's ultimate worth, they encourage this…