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Foreign Countries; School Districts; School Schedules; Barriers; School Organization; Program Implementation; Guidelines; Cost Effectiveness; Rural Schools; Educational Policy; Educational Practices; Program Effectiveness; Educational Resources; Web Sites; Annotated Bibliographies; Educational Research

Abstract:
Can four-day school weeks help districts save money? How do districts overcome the barriers of moving to a four-day week? What is the effect of a four-day week on students, staff and the community? This paper enumerates the benefits for students and teachers of four-day school weeks. Recommendations for implementation of a four-day week are also presented. (Contains 7 online resources.)

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Educational Philosophy; Democracy; Community Schools; Participative Decision Making; Elementary Schools; High Schools; Special Needs Students; Public Schools; School Culture; School Organization; Politics; School Activities; Educational Environment; Residential Schools; Meetings; Behavior Disorders; Emotional Disturbances; Antisocial Behavior; Social Behavior; Severe Disabilities; Student Participation

Abstract:
Serious re-examination of participatory traditions of democracy is long overdue. Iconically central to such traditions of democratic education is the practice of whole School Meetings. More usually associated with radical work within the private sector, School Meetings are here explored in detail through two examples from publicly funded education, (1) Epping House School, a mixed residential primary/elementary school for students with severe emotional, social and behavioural difficulties and (2) secondary/high schools within the Just Community School movement in the USA. In addition to providing richly textured accounts of the multiple realities and challenges of pioneering overtly democratic practices such as School Meetings within the publicly funded sector of education substantial attention is paid to analytic engagement with the kind of organisational structures, practices and cultures that seem to play an important role in their successful operation and development. The different phenomenological and theoretical strands weaving their way through the texture of Meeting practices also raise a number of key issues within the fields of social and political philosophy, in particular, whether School Meetings are best understood as predominantly political or communal phenomena. In gesturing towards the philosophical groundwork of a satisfactory answer I argue for the importance of the undeservedly neglected notion of democratic fellowship within the lexicon of democratic polity and aspiration. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Educational Policy; School Organization; School Administration; Politics of Education; Group Dynamics; Educational Theories; Maps; Policy Analysis

Abstract:
In this essay, P. Taylor Webb and Kalervo N. Gulson argue that educational policy is a spatial process and that implementation processes in particular produce crucial emergent geographies for policy research. Webb and Gulson describe how emergent geographies are produced when policy "folds" actors through senses and enactments of policy. The idea that policy is sensed and enacted is developed into the concept of a "policy intension" that extends approaches to spatial and, in particular, micropolitical analyses in policy research. Webb and Gulson conclude by discussing cartographical methods that better map the geographies of subjectivity produced through policy intensions. (Contains 89 footnotes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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School Organization; Individual Characteristics; Social Capital; Elementary Schools; Social Networks; Teacher Characteristics; Mathematics; Educational Change; Professional Development; School Districts; English Instruction; Language Arts; English Curriculum

Abstract:
Few studies identify those factors that might account for the development of social capital. Understanding those factors associated with the existence of a social tie among actors in schools is important because absent social ties, individuals do not have access to social resources. We investigate social tie formation in schools focusing on advice and information providing and receiving in the two core elementary school subjects. Using a multilevel p[subscript 2] model, we examine the role of both formal organizational structure and individual characteristics in shaping advice and information providing and receiving about instruction. Our findings suggest that while the individual characteristics of race and gender are significantly associated with the formation of a tie, aspects of the formal school organization--grade-level assignment, having a formally designated leadership position, and teaching a single grade--are also significant and have larger estimated effects than individual characteristics. Formal organizational factors trump individual characteristics in the formation of a social tie, a necessary if insufficient condition for social capital development. (Contains 5 tables and 16 footnotes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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School Restructuring; Change Strategies; Educational Change; Effective Schools Research; School Turnaround; Alignment (Education); School Culture; School Organization; STEM Education; Organizational Theories; High Schools; Public Schools; Position Papers; Observation; Transcripts (Written Records); Moral Values; Moral Development

Abstract:
A framework for urban public high school reform is presented for managing site-based change through re-envisioning, reculturation, restructuring, and remoralization. The four Rs for reform framework is elucidated through a qualitative study of a low-performing urban public high school that was transformed into a new more successful school. The article concludes with a discussion of how all four pieces of the reform framework must fit and work together before notable change can occur. (Contains 1 table and 2 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Student Characteristics; Smoking; School Organization; Foreign Countries; International Schools; Social Networks; Socioeconomic Background; School Surveys; Adolescents; Social Behavior; Surveys; Predictor Variables; Track System (Education); Educational Environment; Role; Parent Background

Abstract:
This article empirically examines the effect of social background, education, and school organization on adolescent tobacco use in the Netherlands. We test theories of norm enforcing and horizon expanding social networks and distinction by examining the relationship between daily smoking behavior and school organization. Using the 2007 Dutch National School Survey on Substance Use, we find that individual student characteristics are more important predictors than school characteristics. Importantly, social background effects are clearly mediated by school tracks, suggesting that tracking helps us to explain social gradients in substance use. However, school context plays almost no role in adolescent smoking behavior. One exception concerns students in the general track, for whom we find that smoking is further reduced when they are placed in the same school organization as students of the vocational track. This is in line with the theory that tracking differences are magnified in a context where interaction between students from different tracks is promoted. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure, and 2 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Foreign Countries; Higher Education; Leadership; Individual Characteristics; Values; Trust (Psychology); Semi Structured Interviews; Economic Climate; Leadership Role; Adjustment (to Environment); Educational Change; School Culture; School Organization; Expertise; Futures (of Society); Public Policy

Abstract:
The complex leadership attribute of "negative capability" in managing uncertainty and engendering trust may be amongst the qualities enabling institutions to cope with multiple recent government policy challenges affecting English higher education, including significant increases in student fees. Research findings are reported on changes in leadership values, trust and organisational cultures in higher education during the current "age of austerity". Data from university experts, managers and academics in semi-structured interviews were informed by questionnaires (n = 16), online surveys (n = 121) and a focus group (n = 6). Findings indicated that values-based leadership characterised by skilful "negative capability" is now needed in English higher education. "Negative capability" is defined as the ability to resist the "false necessity" of deterministic solutions in building staff trust to cope proactively with ambiguity and change. This capability is needed for academic leaders to maintain their role in shaping the enduring purposes of higher education during a recession, both in England and in the wider international environment. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Structural Equation Models; Academic Achievement; School Effectiveness; School Organization; Foreign Countries; Instructional Leadership; Influences; Principals; Secondary Schools; Student Promotion; Classroom Techniques; Teaching Methods; Administrator Role; Leadership Responsibility; Leadership Styles; Secondary School Students; Secondary School Teachers; School Culture; Learner Engagement

Abstract:
Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the means by which principals achieve an impact on student achievement. Research Design: Through the application of structural equation modeling, a mediated-effects model for school leadership was tested, using data from 97 secondary schools in the Netherlands. Findings: The results showed a small positive effect of school leadership on the mean promotion rate in schools, mediated by a development-oriented school organization and favorable classroom practices. The promotion rate may be considered as a measure of efficiency. No indications of direct positive effects of school leader activities on student achievement were found. This might be the result of the relatively small differences in overall student achievement and school leader behavior between the schools studied. Conclusions: The results underline the important role school leaders play in school effectiveness and offer valuable insight in how school leaders actually can make a difference. School leaders were found to have a strong influence on development orientation in schools, which shows similarities with the idea of the "learning organization." This study points to the importance of school context. The results show that contextual variables have considerable effects on several variables in the model. (Contains 3 notes, 3 figures, and 3 tables.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Instructional Leadership; Transformational Leadership; Leadership Effectiveness; Meta Analysis; Synthesis; Educational Research; Leadership Role; School Culture; Context Effect; Research Design; Models; Academic Achievement; School Organization

Abstract:
Background: Using meta-analytic review techniques, this study synthesized the results of 79 unpublished studies about the nature of transformational school leadership (TSL) and its impact on the school organization, teachers, and students. This corpus of research associates TSL with 11 specific leadership practices. These practices, as a whole, have moderate positive effects on a wide range of consequential school conditions. They also have moderately strong and positive effects on individual teachers' internal states, followed by their influence on teacher behaviors and collective teachers' internal states. TSL has small but significant positive effects on student achievement. Research Design: This synthesis of unpublished research results is accomplished by a systematic series of meta-correlations and is compared with the results of earlier systematic reviews of published TSL research. Findings: Among the conclusions arising from the study is that several of the most widely advocated models of effective educational leadership actually include many of the same practices. Conclusions: More attention by researchers, practitioners, and researchers needs to be devoted to the impact of specific leadership practices and less to leadership models. (Contains 6 tables and 10 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Foreign Countries; Secondary Schools; Collegiality; School Organization; Administrator Responsibility; Teacher Leadership; Middle Management; Teacher Role; Department Heads; Power Structure

Abstract:
Collegiality is often advocated as the best way in which to run a successful school subject department. This article explores this proposition in the light of power relationships within hierarchical organizations. Rather than viewing collegiality merely as a management model, it looks at the power relationships which condition the working lives of subject leaders to pose the question, is collegiality a deliberate strategy by, or an unavoidable necessity for, subject leaders? Fieldwork is considered in reaching the conclusion that collegiality can be seen not as a philosophical choice but as a straitjacket imposed by the severely circumscribed power resources of the subject leader. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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