A major premise of the Peer-Assisted Leadership (PAL) program is that administrators, especially school principals, can become more reflective about their practice through peer coaching. First, participants learn shadowing (an observational strategy) and reflective interviewing; then they practice these strategies with a partner. Various phases…

Schools must do more than implement programs constructed by universities; they must become aware of their capacity for generating knowledge. By encouraging scholarly inquiry and reflection within schools, practicing educators can add to the professional knowledge base and construct their own programs. Includes six references. (MLH)

Peer coaching and teacher empowerment will realize their true potential only when we expose, examine, and exorcise the collective misconceptions that teachers and administrators have traditionally held about each other. Myths about snoopervisors, terminators, harassers, loafers, and artful dodgers must be dispelled before genuine school…

Describes a project to help teachers and administrators identify challenging goals for professional development. Activities that help to heighten awareness include breaking routine, changing perspective, examining assumptions, and reading challenging material. Two important ingredients for the professional development process are time and…

Offers some practical advice for central office administrators desiring greater campus visibility, such as informing teachers before visiting classrooms. Central office "ivory tower" people cannot monitor schools and give them appropriate feedback without knowing what specific support is needed. (MLH)

School improvement involves long-range, visionary planning. Each school in one Buffalo (New York) school district has several planning teams that include parents, students, community members, and support staff, as well as teachers and administrators. The teams are not merely problem solvers, but visionary collaborators in promoting their final…

The skills acquired in a Job-Alike Workshop can go a long way toward reducing the "I don't get no respect" syndrome compounded by high student/supervisor ratios. When support personnel learn student management strategies, their daily tasks are easier, and the positive effects are noticeable throughout the entire school. (MLH)

Already a business management classic, "Thriving on Chaos," by Tom Peters, has momentous theoretical and practical implications for educators. Peters's organizational solutions to the challenge of the declining U.S. economy are also prescriptions for school survival. Today's organizations need fewer structural layers and must be innovative and…

Reviews Tracy Kidder's latest bestseller, an engaging account of the daily experiences of one fifth grade teacher and her students in a deteriorating neighborhood in a rustbelt community. Teacher Chris Zajac is a pragmatist with little time for esoteric learning theory. Although Chris is warm, caring, and skillful, her school is not meeting…

Although grade retention is widely practiced, it does not help children catch up or prevent school dropouts. In one study, children rated the prospect of flunking a grade as more stressful than wetting in class or being caught stealing. Remediation and other within-grade instructional efforts have a more positive success rate. Includes 16…

Challenges common conceptions about disadvantaged learners, curriculum challenge and sequence, teacher role, the relationship of classroom management to academic work, and ability grouping arrangements. By striking a balance between teacher direction and learner responsibility, students' capacity for self-regulated learning increases over time.…

Current Chapter 1 remedial and compensatory education programs may not be worth the substantial funds being poured into them. To address shortcomings, such programs should be upgraded, reconceptualized as educational (not funding) programs, and fully integrated into the total school program. Includes 14 references. (MLH)

The Reading Recovery intervention program includes procedures for teaching children, recommended materials, a staff development program led by a teacher leader, and a set of interdependent administrative systems. The process involves familiar rereading, a running record analysis, writing a message, putting together a cut-up sentence, and reading a…

School abandonment is a systemic failure that affects poor and affluent students alike and threatens our country's well-being. Such "educational suicide" is primarily a motivational problem. It is time for educators to replace coercive, constraint-laden techniques with autonomy-supportive techniques and to supplant error-proof lessons with…

Teachers successful at reaching low-achieving students combine a high sense of their own efficacy with high, realistic expectations for student achievement. "Helpless" students may be assisted by "links" to success such as proximal goals, appropriate learning strategies, successful experience, and attribution of success to personal efforts.…