Literature is reviewed supporting the contention that teacher expectations are a crucial element of the educational climate that can influence students' motivation, measured ability, and achievement. (MJL)

The leadership behavior of 10 principals successful in implementing change is analyzed using a model with the key component of self-actualization and commitment and additional factors of adaptability, interaction, strategies for interaction, and motivation. (MJL)

A supervisory model identifying profile, action, response, and analysis as sequential steps is outlined. Principal and teacher develop a profile of skills the teacher wants to improve and an action plan for realizing the profile. Students and principal provide feedback, and teacher and principal evaluate growth. (MJL)

Literature is presented maintaining that principals can promote educational change by diagnosing and remedying the organizational health of their schools. A guide for examining levels of organizational health is given and an inservice training model discussed. (MJL)

This synthesis of behavioral science research analyzes the meeting as an important organizational tool for principals and discusses the structure and functions of meetings, the role of the leader, and group dynamics. A checklist to guide meeting planning is included. (MJL)

This checklist of interview questions is offered as a resource from which to draw a common base for evaluating applicants for teaching positions. (MJL)

A survey of 173 secondary school principals reveals that 85 percent regularly read professional journals and that 81 percent prefer practical literature to research (10 percent) or theoretical (3 percent) articles. Curriculum, legal issues, and supervision were chosen as the most useful subjects of articles. (MJL)

Two recent cases in which federal courts held plaintiffs liable for defendants' attorney fees illustrate the courts' impatience with students and parents lodging suits judged frivolous. The conclusion is that, while school authorities must remain sensitive to students' constitutional rights, caution is urged in taking complaints to federal court.…

Principals are offered suggestions for building a positive reputation among students and parents, including eating lunch and participating in sports with students, developing activities to reward successes, being visible, involving students in helping at school, encouraging student visits for positive reasons, learning their names, and getting…

Major elements of a public relations program for enlisting community support for the school are discussed. Administrators are advised to develop a nose for news, improve their journalistic writing, and get to know the local press. (MJL)

A successful inschool suspension program is described that brings together a professional staffer knowledgeable in counseling and a variety of subject areas, an unpleasant image among students, and a reasonable length of the student's day. Guidelines and rules are listed. (MJL)

Procedures successful for one school in establishing good attendance include phone calls on all unexplained absences, discipline for unexcused absences, incentives for good attendance, charting attendance patterns, and staff coordination for monitoring attendance. Increased state aid, a more positive school climate, and greater student achievement…

Introduces the five articles that follow it as being addressed to principals who need to interpret recent reseach into and issues subsumed under school effectiveness. (JW)

An overview of research on school effectiveness shows that the prescriptive messages from the research (usually in the areas of norms, tasks, and relationships in schooling) can be clarified and mitigated by administrators' precautionary messages that point out the measurement and methodological problems of such research. (JW)

Many educators have been too quick to use traditional statistical data as measures of school effectiveness. Instead, educators should develop means of understanding and communicating to the public measures of social variables that operate in effective schools. (JW)