Toward An Institutional Contingency View Of School Organization PDF Download

The editors maintain that the current debate over school restructuring is essentially a debate over which strategy of organizing will achieve the best results. Organizational theory suggests that there are two primary mechanisms that may be used in organizing behavior within an organization: the organization as a whole, and the specific roles within the organization. Following this logic, the book is divided into two parts. The authors in part one present various answers to the question, "What must be organized in schools?" These answers include the decision-making process, external political forces around ideologies and policies, the promotion of creativity and innovation, and the best compromise between mechanistic and organic structures, among others. In part two, the authors examine how roles in schools can function as modes of organizing behavior. They present various possibilities for reorganization and improvement - specifically for the roles of teachers and administrators. The ideas include organizing and evaluating the role of teachers based, at least partially, on student outcomes; reorganizing according to the actual work a teacher does, organizing around clear goals and the provision of adequate resources; organizing the role of administrator to provide leadership to the rest of the people in the school; and using research findings to fit a specific individual to the role of administrator.