Quality Middle Schools


Book Description

Building on 20 years of careful research and real-world testing, the authors show administrators how to assess their schools' health. The goal is to improve middle schools by making sure the "culture" is right for all groups - students, teachers, staff. The authors call their measurement tools the Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire Revised for Middle Schools (OCDQ-RM), for tapping the openness of a school's professional interactions, and the Organizational Health Inventory for Middle Schools (OHI-M), for capturing the health of interpersonal relationships in schools. The OCDQ-RM (openness) questionnaire and the OHI-M (health) inventory are included in this book - ready to copy and administer. These measurements are user-friendly and easy to interpret; scoring directions are clearly explained. School leaders, especially superintendents and principals, can use these hands-on tools to understand what's going on in their schools and then make changes as necessary. Actual case studies show how using the questionnaires can help make every middle school a high-quality and positive learning environment.













Educational Administration


Book Description

This text provides a synthesis of theory and research in organizational behaviour as it applies to the practice of educational administration. Organizational theory can be taught at either the introductory or advanced levels in educational administration curriculums.







Improving Schools


Book Description

Improving Schools: Studies in Leadership and Culture is the seventh in a series on research and theory dedicated to advancing our understanding of schools through empirical study and theoretical analysis. This book is organized around two broad concepts—leadership and culture, which have important implications for improving schools. The book begins with an analysis of the saliency of trust in the culture of schools. In the first chapter, Patrick Forsythís review of the consequences of school trust sets the tone for seeking and developing school cultures that enhance high academic performance of students. The investigation of school trust is traced over several decades at four research universities as scholars at each institution conceptualized, refined, and examined the consequences of school trust. It seems fair to conclude that a school culture that is anchored in values and norms of faculty trusting students and parents facilitates high academic achievement and positive outcomes.




Jsl Vol 4-N5


Book Description

The Journal of School Leadership is broadening the conversation about schools and leadership and is currently accepting manuscripts. We welcome manuscripts based on cutting-edge research from a wide variety of theoretical perspectives and methodological orientations. The editorial team is particularly interested in working with international authors, authors from traditionally marginalized populations, and in work that is relevant to practitioners around the world. Growing numbers of educators and professors look to the six bimonthly issues to: deal with problems directly related to contemporary school leadership practice teach courses on school leadership and policy use as a quality reference in writing articles about school leadership and improvement.




Open Schools/Healthy Schools


Book Description

Is your school a good, healthy place to work? Does the organizational climate contribute to academic achievement? Do you know how to evaluate the factors that can directly affect the effectiveness of education? Open Schools//Healthy Schools offers the basis for answering these and other questions. The authors demonstrate the significant relationship that exists between school health and academic performance. They then present the measures, developed over many years of careful research, that can best test the organizational climate of any school.