Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools

The Center's mission is to study how organizational features of schools can be changed to increase the intellectual and social competence of all students. The five-year program of research, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, will focus on restructuring schools in four areas: the experiences of students in school; the professional life of teachers; the governance, management, and leadership of schools; and the coordination of community resources to better serve educationally disadvantaged students.

Through syntheses of previous research, analyses of existing data, and new empirical studies of educational reform, the Center will focus on six critical issues for elementary, middle, and high schools: How can schooling nurture authentic forms of student achievement? How can schooling enhance educational equity? How can decentralization and local empowerment be constructively developed? How can schools be tranformed into communities of learning? How can change be approached through thoughtful dialogue and support rather than coercion and regulation? How can the focus on student outcomes be shaped to serve these five other issues?