NASSP Bulletin

System change becomes possible when individuals with different roles—students, teachers, school administrators, and policymakers—interact around a shared concern for student learning. A study of systemic change in five Vermont high schools suggests that change must grow from seeds already planted in different high schools, fed by a constant flow of human energy interacting across all levels of school organization.

Secondary education in the United States has undergone a great deal of change in the last half of the 20th century. In the first wave of change, lower secondary education was transformed, changing the junior high school to the middle school. Most of this modification in middle level education has been completed; now profound change has reached the high school level.

Never before has there been such an extensive literature about productive schools, nor has there been such awareness of that literature. Increasingly, research is identifying the quality indicators of exemplary schools such as continuous improvement, human resource development, strategic planning, accountability, and collaboration. These findings have numerous implications pertaining to the productivity of U.S. schools.

While most public school principals and superintendents must be awarded annual or multi-year employment contracts by their school districts, such contracts offer little protection from reassignment to a lesser position or even from dismissal. Inadequate remedies for breach of employment contracts subject school administrators to working solely at the pleasure of their school boards.

A retrospective view of the shift from technical to systemic reform seems to indicate an emerging realization of the complexity and comprehensiveness of schools as social organizations. Though still addressing change effects rather than processes, symptoms rather than causes of educational ills, the more systemic view of schools inherent in recently-instituted policies may have set a precedent.

If the research on education for the 21st century were to be summed up in three words, they would be technology, technology, and technology. Almost without exception, information regarding education in the 21st century directly or indirectly involves technology in some way. How might technology affect education and schools in the next century?

Barbara Pollard recently spent a sabbatical in London updating her 1974 study of British secondary education, which was published in the November 1974 NASSP Bulletin. What has changed in education in the United Kingdom? What has remained the same? Barbara Pollard's thoughtful comments illuminate both British and American secondary education.

The top 10 factors that influence teachers who are applying for an administrative position describe a complex list of “wants and needs” for this new generation of school leaders. A study strongly suggests that organizational relationships, more than any other factors, affect a teacher's willingness to seek an administrative position in a particular district.

Today's principal operates in a climate of school restructuring and reform wherein bureaucratic structures are fast giving way to collaborative endeavors among groups of education professionals. But letting go of old roles and power while being accountable for decisions made by others can be challenging and stressful.