Contends that replacing administrators by teacher committees will not solve management problems and will give teacher unions too much power in the management of schools. (Author/TE)

The introduction of Total Quality Management into the classroom is often driven by corporate, rather than student, interests. Corporations'"raison d'etre" is to maximize profit for their investors. If educators look at students and see only future employees, they distort learning by reducing it to fiscal terms and ignore what children…

According to the strategic management approach, the curriculum of a school system is a strategic statement of the system that determines how it selects activities, organizes its resources, and determines how well the system has performed its function within the overall policies it was constructed to implement. (Author/JM)

The top businesses are discovering that, to get high organizational performance, they must assign frontline workers duties and responsibilities that typically have been given only to management and senior professional personnel. To help schools catch up with a changing world economy, students should achieve a certain mastery level by age 16…

"A Nation at Risk" emphasizes the importance of quality education to the nation's well-being, insisting that, although our current educational system is mediocre, we can do better. The book makes recommendations in such areas as curriculum and time management, standards and expectations, teacher status, excellence and equity, and…

The importance of spiritual leadership that enables educators to build inner strength for effective management is discussed. Even though developing a spiritual approach may not eliminate all the stress, it can help educators to stay focused on the aim of improving education for students.

Quotations about excellence in business, selected from the book "In Search of Excellence" and applicable to education, are grouped into seven categories: respect and meaning, innovation, fun and excitement, bigness vs. smallness, communication, the role of management, listening to consumers, and the importance of values. (TE)

George Wilkinson, who has managed planning for United Way of America since 1980, observes that local planners using strategic planning raise more money and solve more community problems than those without such a process. Marketing is identical to strategic planning; both involve looking at an organization, doing and analysis, examining the future,…

In a letter to a Japanese university president, a French-Canadian educational administration student ponders the fundamental contradictions between the authoritarian, hierarchical Japanese education system and the Total Quality Management principles driving Japanese industry. The university president's reply explains how de-individualization,…

If educators endorse Alfie Kohn's surface message about Total Quality Management, they may miss opportunity to professionalize education. Deming's system of profound knowledge (interaction of theories of systems, knowledge, psychology, and variation) is a model for educated people grappling with life's complexities. Moreover, gaining community…

Superintendents who introduce team management into school districts are compared to King Arthur and the Round Table and advised that team management will not endure, at least in its original form. (MLF)

In 1997, former Edmonton (Alberta) school superintendent Michael Strembitsky instituted school-based management in seven schools. Although the district retained policymaking responsibility, schools could decide matters such as class organization, number of teachers, and budgeting for learning resources and equipment. Giving schools control over…

To manage effective grading reform, education leaders must engage teachers, parents, communities, and policymakers in a rational discussion about grading. Doug Reeves suggests that leaders start the conversation with a discussion of the principles on which all stakeholders can agree; make clear what will not change under the new grading policy; be…

The team management approach can work in educational administration if school personnel share a common philosophical commitment. (MLF)

Describes a human resources development program for school administrators, including training in management functions, leader behavior skills, instructional leadership skills, and more traditional topics. (Author/JM)