This work looks at managing school system change. It covers such topics as: challenges to leading and managing school and school system change; key roles and competencies for administrators; stakeholder theory analysis; understanding school culture change; and more.

Colleges and universities have been criticized for their failure to educate students effectively. As a result, higher educational institutions have become increasingly interested in student outcomes assessment as an important tool for curriculum development and policy planning. This valuable work offers comprehensive coverage of issues, concepts, and practices in student outcomes assessment. The author explores the history of outcomes assessment, the role of governmental intervention in outcomes assessment, and the relationship between outcomes assessment and institutional accreditation. Sims begins by reviewing the political context of assessment programs and policies and by identifying and defining significant terms. She then traces the history of outcomes assessment programs at several institutions, and she studies the impact of federal and state initiatives on higher education. The study concludes with practical advice on developing assessment programs, and a valuable appendix summarizing and discussing important federal legislation in this area. Academic administrators and others concerned with educational policy will find this book a useful guide to a growing area of concern.

As we move through the 1990s, the role of HRM is becoming ever more demanding. HRM issues are replacing capital resource issues as the guiding force for today's and tomorroW's organizations. HRM professionals must respond to changes in the economy, government and legal influences, new organizational forms, and changing employee expectations. They must also anticipate changes in global competition and training requirements. In the future, HRM professionals must work to become equal strategic partners in their organization, if they are to add value to the company. Here is an in-depth discussion of current and future challenges and issues for HRM professionals and scholars of human resource managers.

The authors present these challenges, with specific examples of individual HRM managers and their department's responses to these problems. The authors discuss steps that HRM professionals need to take to become more efficient and productive with limited human resources. Cultivating ethical behavior, trust and teamwork, as well as the use of information systems are also addressed. Special attention is given to the need of HRM professionals to increase their competency in their expanding role of providing strategic advice to senior executives and line managers.

If Black colleges and universities wish to survive in the competitive and economically stressed education environment of the 21st century, they would do well to respond to some of the pressures for reform that the general school structures are undergoing, in particular population diversification. Sims provides a model for diversification that presents four major steps in orderly progression: the removal of barriers for admission of nonblack students; the development of special programs of interest to the general student population; and the diversification of faculty and administration. Ways of restructuring historically Black colleges and universities to be more supportive of diverse student populations are also developed in this work.

Rising costs, shrinking enrollments, more diverse student populations, the need for adaptive management, the trend toward evaluation and assessment of programs and students will require proactive responses by college and university administrators in the 1990s and beyond. This book provides analyses of the key issues that must be addressed. The Sims have assembled a distinguished group of contributors who discuss in detail issues, threats, and opportunities for administrators, where feasible action plans that can be adopted by colleges and universities are provided. A key theme throughout is that administrators must view periods of financial stress as opportune times to eliminate outmoded facilities and equipment, re-evaluate the roles of faculty and programs, and investigate service markets that may have been ignored in the past. Cost-reduction strategies, selective marketing, asset redevelopment and repositioning have a place in modern administrative thinking, and this book shows how they can be employed in successful institutions of higher education. Higher education administrators, faculty, graduate students, and policy makers concerned with education management and public administration will find this book invaluable.

It is the premise of this book that to successfully respond to today's increased 'accountability and testing' expectations educational institutions and other organisations, administrators and especially teachers and others responsible for organisational learning must become more tolerant of and perceptive enough to recognise how increased attention to learning differences or styles among their students or learners is central to not only meeting the new demands being placed on them but to also find alternate ways of enhancing and measuring the learning that does take place. For our purposes, understanding the role of learning style in the learning process is an important concept for those committed to meeting the demands being placed on education and their own personal commitment to learning excellence, be it teachers, training and development professional, staff, administrators or other leaders or others involved in the educational process. This book has been written with the belief that an increased attentiveness to learning style differences is at the core of what it will take to better prepare students to learn while also meeting the demands of the many stakeholders who continue to set higher and higher learning performance expectations with the goal that "no child or adult' is left behind." -- From the Preface.

This work looks at managing school system change. It covers such topics as: challenges to leading and managing school and school system change; key roles and competencies for administrators; stakeholder theory analysis; understanding school culture change; and more.