Michael Maccoby, in a study of 250 top management personnel, has identified four species of managers. Some educational leaders may be like the corporation executives Maccoby calls "gamesmen." They are team players, love to win--and lack compassion. (Author/MLF)

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)

Emotion is an innate, powerful, and principally unconscious process that is perceptible in body language, responds vigorously to high-contrast information concerning dangers and opportunities, and often biases the direction of our problem- solving responses. Curricular challenges involving the arts, play, and classroom management are discussed.…

A Deming expert explains that his 14 principles are no recipe but must be combined with the theory of profound knowledge, which poses essential questions and recognizes the importance of human variation, intrinsic motivation, and external rewards. She also debunks grading, formal teacher evaluation, tracking, and decentralized management. (MLH)

School buildings ideally would have few exterior access points, no isolated hallways, and sunlit classrooms. A safety checklist recommends locating offices near main doors, monitoring hallway traffic, enhancing communications, updating crisis-management plans, teaching coping skills, standardizing dismissal policies, and ensuring legal compliance…

Moving toward site-based management, Greece (New York) Central School District administrators and the teachers' organization established a representative steering committee to coordinate and facilitate the decentralization process and develop a master plan. Benefits include increased faculty understanding, improved school climate, and increased…

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.…

After training in the Total Quality Management concept, a suburban Ohio school district created a Deming Users' Group to link agencies, individuals, and ideas. The group has facilitated ongoing school/business collaboration, networking among individuals from diverse school systems, mentoring and cooperative learning activities, and resource…

Describes a comprehensive staff development program for secondary teachers incorporating workshop sessions, peer observation, post-observation conferences, and classroom experimentation. Discusses the selection of classroom management, instructional activity sequencing, and teacher expectations as training topics and comments on training process…

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.…

A professor of educational psychology describes the goals of research in progress on the personal characteristics of expert teachers, compares classroom management techniques of expert teachers with those of beginning and student teachers, and criticizes existing teacher evaluation systems for their lack of uniform standards and experienced…

The decisions principals make about the uses of technology are critical to the improvement of schools. But school effectiveness won't just happen because technology is used. Technology is a tool that can lead to school improvement if it is effectively combined with productive leadership and management. (MD)

To enhance effectiveness, teachers should analyze memories of successful learning experiences and teachers, share enthusiasm about their subject with students, blend plans for professional and personal growth, choose appropriate teaching and classroom-management styles, develop portfolios charting progress, participate in support groups, and build…

Question/Answer session with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, D.J. and C.S. Davidson Professor of Psychology at the Drucker School of Management, Claremont Graduate University, and author of "Becoming Adult: How Teenagers Prepare for the World of Work." Covers such topics such as student engagement, challenge, and flow experience. (PKP)

Describes three networks of British schools that are successfully banding together to assist one another with restructuring, school-based management, curriculum changes, staff development, and record keeping. Networks varied in size and scope, but all three were committed to dialog, cooperation, and solidarity in the interest of improving…