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The process of performance appraisal has long been viewed as a primary source of an organization's capacity for improvement and vitality. Formal personnel evaluation is an organizational control system that [...]

Using a sample of 524 elementary and 816 secondary school teachers, the authors evaluate the plausibility of seven alternative models of the determinants of teacher militancy concerning issues of workplace control. The findings suggest that the more plausible models are those that explain militancy as a function of (a) the extent of the teacher's integration into the organization and (b) the teacher's affective response to organizational conditions. For example, a strong inverse relationship was found within both groups of teachers between militancy and satisfaction with supervision. Demographic variables were found to have less impact on teacher militancy than the organizational-integrative variables.

Several letters to the editor are presented in response to articles in the April 30, 2007 issue including Jeffrey Kluger's "Inside a Mass Murderer's Mind", Joe Klein's "Making Bush Make a Deal" and Alex Perry's "Land of Chains and Hunger."

In this qualitative study, we explored how accreditation processes as routinized action can retain stability while promoting school reform efforts. We identified three secondary schools (two high schools, one middle) that had each employed accreditation processes as required in their respective school districts. We conducted interviews with key informants at each school, reviewed documents prepared for accreditation, and analyzed the findings based on routinized action theory. Using Feldman's (2000) typology of change (repair, expand, strive to make change), we posited how school renewal takes place in an ongoing and systematic manner. The findings suggest that the routines provided in accreditation processes can offer more than just stabilizing elements in a school organization, which had been the traditional view of organizational theorists. We offer implications for researchers and school leaders to consider in applying routines while seeking reform.

Structural equation modeling was used to assess the plausibility of a conceptual model specifying hypothesized linkages among teachers' perceptions of the role stresses of role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload and commitment, satisfaction, and intentions to leave their employing school. 178 teachers in four high schools in a southern coastal region of California responded to survey questions designed to capture the above constructs. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess whether the role-stress items fit hypothesized constructs. Structural equation modeling results indicated that satisfaction and commitment are two mediators in the role stresses–intentions to leave relationship.

While providing stability and uniformity, organizational routines can foster continuous change. Using Feldman's (2000) performative model of routinized action theory, coupled with leadership succession research, we examined how three successive administrations in a California high school revised a student attendance (tardy-monitoring) routine over 7 years. Although the changes made by the different leaders did not translate into large shifts in action and behaviors, each administration altered the way that tardies were monitored, thus demonstrating routines’ continuous and dynamic nature. Administrators also shifted resources to accommodate changes. Given our findings, we draw implications to help new leaders better understand change in daily school routines.

This study examined the job and growth satisfaction of secondary school administrators. Three sets of variables (job, organizational, and personal characteristics) were tested in terms of their impact on 2 related but distinct dependent variables: job and growth satisfaction. The participants included 153 school administrators, 66 principals, and 87 assistant principals. Some analyses combined these groups, and others examined them as separate samples. Strong support was found for the association of job characteristics and some organizational characteristics with job and growth satisfaction, but there was generally a weak association of personal characteristics with these outcomes. Implications follow from study findings.

Negotiating teacher compensation has always been a central part of union bargainers' work. Employers or teacher union representatives may introduce new compensation strategies at the bargaining table, such as teacher skill-and-knowledge-based pay, perhaps in part to support local initiatives, teacher retentiion, and/or state accountability demands. We conducted interviews with union negotiators in Brevard County, Florida in 1999 as part of a larger study of alternative pay systems in American Federation of Teachers (AFT) sites. This description of Brevard County's pay for performance program is intended to assist union and district bargainers who are interested in developing local compensation strategies that support the work of teachers and educational reform strategies. Initially, we provide a brief overview of issues involved in negotiating new pay plans. We then examine the negotiation and early implementation of Brevard County's compensation plan. Finally, we raise questions about some future directions for negotiating teacher compensation.

Many recent educational reform and school improvement initiatives have asserted the importance of teachers working in groups. However, it is not clear what organizational redesign has occurred to support a shift to team- or group-based work. This article examines one such organizational shift, changes in teacher compensation, that might accompany organizational redesign arranged to support teacher work groups. The article describes a continuum of possible options for teacher compensation in teacher teaming arrangements. Three interrelated aspects of teaming and compensation are considered: the relationship of teaming to teachers' overall work, the investment a school or a district might make to accomplish the teaming in education, and the degree to which the team aims to increase employee self-management and self-governance (Hackman, 1986). Some implications of these options for personnel evaluation are also discussed.

Discusses the development of school-site management in the U.S. Participation of teachers in expanded decision making at the school site; Creation of professional work environment for teachers; Distinction between de facto and de jure school-site management; Factors influencing the success of school-site management program; Strategic considerations in school-site management.

Focuses on the importance of addressing organizational management issues in educational reform in the United States. Conflict between bureaucratic and professional models of school management; Ten questions that can be used as a diagnostic tool to help local school districts assess the effectiveness of their management and identify areas of weakness.

This article examines several workplace predictors of career satisfaction for teachers involved in a career development plan. Furthermore, it examines whether different aspects of the work environment, including intrinsic job characteristics and positive personnel evaluation, are predictors of career satisfaction for teachers in different groups. The predictors of career satisfaction vary according to divergent work roles and career phases. Among the independent variables emerging as important are informational resources and hierarchy of authority for entry-level teachers, rationality of promotion for career-level teachers, and positive evaluation by the principal for experienced teachers who are not participating in the career development plan.

Current literature that suggests that work redesign contributes positively to teacher job satisfaction hasa largely theoretical as opposed to empirical, basis. By using data from one state-sponsored career ladder program, this study examines the interrelationships between work redesign, work rewards, values, and teacher job satisfaction. Participation in work redesign is found to be associated with job satisfaction among more experienced teachers but not among their less experienced counterparts. The interpretation of results explores this dichotomy of findings related to teachers with differing experience levels.

While the literature on education reform has called for increased teacher participation in decision making, little is known about the decision participation construct itself Previous research in this area may be categorized according to the approach taken with respect to the conceptualization and operationalization of participation in decision making. We argue that an approach which views the construct as both evaluation-based and multi-dimensional in nature has advantages over three other common approaches taken in such studies. A sample of 842 elementary and 689 secondary teachers is used to (a) show the utility of a multi-domain evaluative approach to examine participation in decision making and (b) empirically identify four decision domains.

The reform movement has focused primarily on issues of teacher preparation and compensation. However, as our schools are currently structured and managed, many teachers become dissatisfied with their careers regardless of their level of preparation and compensation. If we can discover the organizational work characteristics of schools that are associated with teacher career dissatisfaction, we may have a basis for changing the work environment of schools to ensure more continuous career satisfaction for teachers. Analyzing a sample of 42 elementary schools and 45 secondary schools in the state of New York, this article takes a step toward addressing this goal by investigating the organizational work characteristics that predict teachers' career dissatisfaction.

Concerned with problems of implementing the Holmes Group proposals, Conley and Bacharach explore from an organizational theory point of view issues relating to standards for entry into teaching, differential staffing models, and school management. They focus on the central issue of control vs. autonomy in the organizational structure of our schools.