Educational Leadership Commons^™

Addressing The Process And The Discipline, David Wilkinson

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Training for stakeholders to participate in school-based shared decision-making (SB/SDM) must first direct itself to the purpose of SB/SDM, which is defined "as a process and discipline for empowering school-site stakeholders to participate in school improvement planning and implementation activities ... " The process is a synthesis of Bill Cook's strategic planning and the human action dynamic described in the leadership model of Dr. Robert Terry. Discipline requires stakeholders to focus on the guiding principles or mission of the district or school (Wegenke, 1993); their knowledge of schooling as described in research, theory, and expert opinion; and the use of …

Legislative, Local, School Questions Asked Before Shared Decision-Making, Maureen Hanson

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

If school-based shared decision-making is to become reality in our school districts, several legal/governance issues need to be resolved. These issues can be grouped into three areas: legislative, local, and school.

School-Based Decision-Making Legal Governance Issues: Who Will Go To Jail?, William C. Jacobson

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

School-based shared decision-making in a school setting has existed since education was formalized. Essentially, it is a reaffirmation of the operational philosophy of the one-room schoolhouse. That means that the person closest to the decision implementation level must be involved in the decision-making process.

The Effective Schools research verifies that an effective school involves staff in its decision-making process. Historically, as schools increased in size, they adopted the look and operational plan associated with factories. In that model, students were products, teachers were workers, and principals functioned as plant managers. The management structure was hierarchical with the principal as the …

Developing A Common Data Base For Measuring Learning Success, Philip G. Tetzloff

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Many researchers and practitioners discuss the changing roles of community members and professionals in the process of restructuring public education. Most of them include parents, students, business leaders, community members, school boards, school administrators, and teachers as important participants in the effort to change the public school system.

Traditionally these groups have not shared a common data base as they measure the success of learners in the system. However, the do all need to share the type of data collected and the process of analyzing, reporting the results, and evaluating the data. The legal governance issue to be resolved involves …

Modifying Top-Down Management Model Necessary For Real Reform, Roger L. White

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

For the purpose of this paper, as well as for real and effective educational reform, I maintain that school-based means the individual school buildings or programs within the buildings. I interpret shared decision-making as a process whereby the teachers, the support staff, and the parents truly participate in discussions and democratically reach consensus about the operation of their school. For such sharing of decisions to occur, the prevalent model of top-down management has to be modified.

The primary legal issues in school-based shared decision-making are: Who has the responsibility to make and execute decisions in behalf of the school corporation, …

Time: Keystone To Building A School-Based Shared Decision-Making Model Of Effective Education, David S. Brauhn

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

This paper will address the age-old dilemma of "Time to plan, implement and institutionalize school-based decision-making; where does it come from and how do we use it most effectively?" Consider this: the single most detrimental barrier to affecting real change in schools is peoples' inability to change how time is prioritized and utilized. Whenever significant school reform is introduced, it almost always requires significant changes in time management. Those districts that only make token time management changes receive in turn only token change dividends for their token investment.

Finding The Patience To Allow School-Based Shared Decision-Making To Grow, H. Alan Heisterkamp

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

I once heard that a bamboo tree shows no signs of growth or maturity for the first four years after it's planted. Then, during its fifth year, the tree shoots up as high as 80 feet.

Due to the realities of human nature, we are not programmed to wait patiently for results and/or change. How incredibly tempting it must be to pull up the roots of a young bamboo tree, to find the cause or reason(s) for its delayed growth. And so it is with educational reform many programs planned, organized, and instituted to promote change and improvements are often …

Challenging The Element Of Time In The Change Process Of School Improvement, Kaye Huff

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Educators, administrators, and staff in small-school Iowa find themselves working longer hours due to increasing demands. The normal 8-hour day has become a 10- to 12-hour day for many educators. These hard-working, value-driven educators are staggering with rising expectations: serving the load of students with multiple needs and problems, teaching an increasing number of subject areas, marking, evaluating, consulting, conferencing, examining, inservicing, supervising, directing, collaborating, individualizing, psychiatrizing, policizing, bureaucratizing, curriculumizing, meetingizing, report cardizing, and on-going professionalizing (Clamp 1992). Such obligations lead to decreasing quality family time, increasing job burn-out, and increasing health risks due to stress.

A Grassroots Movement: Shared Decision-Making, John R. Kelley

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Where does "shared decision-making" come from? We have to go back and look at the total school reform movement, since shared decision-making is just one component of the total school restructuring movement. Two sets of school reform movements currently operate in the United States and they are not joined. One, of which America 2000 is the most visible element, is tied rhetorically to the national interest, international economic competitiveness, and corporate health. It is politically driven. The playing fields are federal executive and legislative halls of government, state capitols, and mayoral offices. Professional associations, the National School Boards Association, and …

Using Shared Decision-Making To Merge Educational Beliefs With Practices, Allen A. Kurland

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

During the past few years, many initiatives to change American schools have been unveiled. Several of these have been shaped in Iowa school districts and schools. A common characteristic in these ambitious changes the desire to improve student performance.

School-based shared decision-making is one of the best ways to produce meaningful, broad, and lasting improvement in student performance. However, it is often a tedious, time-consuming method. That is why conscious efforts must be made to construct effective communication. With effective communication, people can discover time together and the time can be used effectively.

Collaboration, Staff Empowerment Essential In Shared Decision-Making, Marty J. Lucas

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

School improvement efforts have taken many forms over the last several years. Some of these efforts have successfully in brought about real change in student learning. However, many more school reform efforts have been unsuccessful.

School-based shared decision-making is a school improvement method used successfully in many parts of the country. School-based decision-making refers to a philosophy adopted by schools or school districts to improve education by increasing the autonomy of the school staff to make school site decisions (White, 1988). School districts have experimented with this philosophy of management for over 20 years.

How To Accomplish Time Release For Shared Decision-Making, Doris Maurer

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

When transformation activities begin and develop in a school district, the level of staff involvement mushrooms. Teachers who are interested in sharing information, discussing issues, examining alternatives, and deciding action are provided a new breath of professionalism previously inexperienced. Their enthusiasm is excitingly contagious. These 'movers and shakers' must be provided time release to accommodate the additional commitment before disillusionment and burn-out set in.

Issue Area One: The Current Debate In Public Education: Whose Children? Whose Schools?, Jan Reinicke, Wayne Wolf

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

This group, more than any other at the conference, was polarized around the topic, Whose children? Whose schools? The divisions were great and the beliefs personally and intensely held. The group spent much time identifying the issues and discussing the topic, but in the end failed to reach consensus on any real solution to the problem. Although many suggestions were explored, the dynamics of the group made a satisfactory resolution unattainable. Because there was so little agreement on the fundamental issues involved in this topic, the report from this group will emphasize the issues we did explore, the discussion surrounding …

Cover - Front Matter - Table Of Contents

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

No abstract provided.

Preface

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) is a Division of the College of Education at the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa. The Institute's mission is to promote the improvement of elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education throughout the State of Iowa. To fulfill this mission the Institute serves as a catalyst for: informal dialogue on educational issues impacting the schools of Iowa, region and nation; developing collaborative relationships with individuals and/or organizations external to schools; and education policy development.

This compilation of position papers and issue group reports represent the individual and collective wisdom of Iowa educators and citizens …

Parental Authority Versus Government Ownership Of Education, Jill M. Carlson

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Though parents don't own children like chattel, centuries of common law uphold parents' authority over their own children. But that authority is in unwitting conflict with government-controlled ownership of education. And the more centralized the state-run control, the greater the conflict.

As an author, I dialogue with parents from coast to coast through radio and public forums. Parents-some of them educators-say their authority is intact when they help with school bake sales or band-booster clubs. But their authority erodes when they are shut out of pre-curriculum decision making, and their post-curriculum challenges are labeled censorship. Parents don't blame their local …

Divergent Views On The Control Of Schools: An Iowa Dialogue [Complete Monograph]

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

No abstract provided.

Family V. School: A Custody Battle That Clobbers Kids, Marshall Fritz

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Some parents disagree with their local school district over whose values and virtues are taught to the children. Their children hear conflicting messages from the people they trust the most, parents and teachers. The children do not have the security of living in a ''village" of shared values.

The battle is fought by many groups over many topics: Hasidic Jews, Black Muslims, and the Amish want to instill ethnic specialness and separateness, yet schools teach that all cultures are of equal value. Creationists teach that God designed and created Johnny, yet schools teach that hydrogen plus time created Johnny. Other …

Christianity: Core Of Colonial And Present Education, Larry Miller

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

As a former public school educator and a former private school educator and administrator, the current debate in public education involving the ownership of the children and the schools hits very close to home. Even though removed from the formal education process, I am still involved in education as a pastor and as a counselor to families whose children are in both the public and private school systems. Much confusion continues over this issue and needs to be addressed.

To address this issue, I believe it is important to look at the foundation of our nation and how our founding …

Upholding Parents' Ultimate Responsibility For Children's Education, Cindy Joens

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Position: To uphold the parent's ultimate responsibility and liberty for the nurturing, education, and moral guidance for their children, without government control. Humboldt School District, Humboldt, Iowa.

In the last few years it has become evident to many in this nation that we are in a war for the very hearts and minds of the next generation, our children!

As parents of five sons, now all school age, my husband and I have tried, to the best of our ability, to stay in touch with the education they receive. I was very active in the public schools my sons attended. …

The Teaching Of Values In The Public Schools: Not Whose, Not Which, But How, Lynne Kail Gentry

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

John Merrow stated my position on the teaching of values very well in the April, 1994, issue of Teacher Magazine: "Schools shouldn't be battlegrounds over values. In fact, they should be the meeting ground, the common ground. Schools should be helping parents raise children with strong, positive values" (p. 39). Of course, that statement leads directly to the most classic "ya-but" question connected with the values controversy-whose values? Amatai Etzioni commented in the November, 1993, issue of Educational Leadership (cited in Berreth & Scherer), "Most people feel that this question is such a strong counter argument that after they ask …

Issue Area Two: The Teaching Of Values In The Public Schools: Which Values? Whose Values?, Sam Warren

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Education is inherently a value-laden process. The seemingly neutral act of deciding what subject matter to include in the curriculum is, in fact, a decision-making process that is heavily based on value judgments. The value framework of the curricular designer will clearly be reflected in the materials chosen for instruction. Thus education, by its inherent nature, cannot be designed or delivered in a totally value-free manner.

Individuals representing the two major "value view" groups in Iowa met to attempt to identify a common core set of values which might be appropriate for public school instruction and at the same time …

Growing As Individuals, In A Community, And From Common Ground, Loretta S. Kuse

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Public school teachers and administrators need to know about the value and belief systems represented in a classroom in order to understand attitudes, actions, words, habits, and customs of students. Teaching of values must begin with teachers who have knowledge about a wide variety of value and belief systems. The result need not be professionals who say one system is as good as another but rather people who understand and acknowledge the existence of the systems.

The beliefs of people cannot be separated from their being. The beliefs of a person in a public school cannot be filtered out by …

Vital Values Build Viable Societies, Charles R. Landon Jr.

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

In the not-so-distant past, the vast majority of Americans assumed that their values were commonly held by all, would be taught to all in the public (and private) schools, would be reinforced in homes and churches, and would be practiced by all "respectable" people. One's word was as good as one's character. Deals and agreements were sealed with handshakes. Authority - in homes, schools, churches, and communities - was recognized and respected.

All this began to deteriorate in the post-World War II years. By the 1970s, many voices argued, indeed virtually announced, that there were no longer any commonly held …

Values Education-An Essential Element Of The Public School Curriculum, Larry Parman

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Considerable controversy surrounds the teaching of values in public schools. Should instruction in moral and ethical behavior be the sole province of the family or the church? Should the school play a role in teaching or reinforcing values? If so, which values and whose values should be taught?

Values are taught in every public school in Iowa. It is impossible to teach content without also teaching values. All persons in a school system teach values by their appearance, behavior, and interactions with other people. When teachers establish expectations for students, they are teaching values. Classroom rules such as working cooperatively, …

School Choice: Right Of The Past, Need Of The Present, Bruce W. Klett

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Given the modern status quo, school choice is both a possibility and a problem. School choice is a possibility because it is a fundamental constitutional liberty. School choice is a problem because standardized state schools funded and regulated by state and federal governments do not easily mesh with families who choose educational alternatives to the public school. The purpose of this paper will be to establish school choice not only as a possibility, but as a necessity and even a benefit in a constitutional republic such as the United States. Considerations for implementing a position favoring school choice will be …

Issue Area Three: School Choice: Possibility Or Problem?, Ed Dickerson

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The debate over school choice in our society will continue to be a knotty problem, indeed. This knot consists of several strands and it might well be unraveled, though not without significant difficulty, except for the issue of funding. Like the prelude to the American Revolution, the debate over school choice centers on taxation and representation. Not political representation in governing bodies, but representation of deeply held values and beliefs in the curriculum used to educate our children. And not merely taxation, but how and where those tax dollars may and should be spent.

The following critical issues were identified: …

School Choice Is A Requirement, Greg Nichols

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Without choices, alternatives, and competition, I see in the future trend of education increased program and bureaucratic requirements and forced mergers of more and more small school districts. Those currently in political power see the big city model of education as the ideal. As schools get closer and closer to this big city model, I expect to see parents getting angrier and teachers increasingly refusing to send their own children to the schools in which they teach. Currently, 22% of National Education Association (NEA) members choose to put their child in a private school (The National Extortion Association, 1993). This …

Modify Public Schools To Include Education And Upbringing, Warren Wiele

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Conclusion - It is essential to the future of this country that young people of today receive instruction and training in a set of fundamental values. School systems are but one source for this instruction and training.

History and today's situation suggest three general value categories or value systems. They are: Judeo-Christian, humanistic, and community-based. This paper includes my personal observations and conclusions. I will attempt to identify and separate them from specific facts and the opinions of others.

What Will Happen With Too Much Diversity?, Don Mcginnis

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

If parents and students are given school choice, what will the impact be on education in our society? This choice is becoming more of a possibility with each passing year. It also appears to be emerging as more of a complicated problem.

An endless variety of school choice alternatives exist. Open enrollment, vouchers, tuition tax credits, home schooling, and private schools may well spell problems for what we now know as public schools in the United States. Charter schools are also a choice in some states.

The problem will be not only the impact on education in our society, but …