Based primarily on social information processing theory, two purposes guided this investigation: (1) to determine the effects of structural and expenctancy linkages on three indicators of school effectiveness and (2) to assess the stability fo these relationships during a school year. Teachers and students from 89 elementary and secondary schools participated in the study. Data were collected early in the fall semester and late in the spring semester. As a group, the structural and expectancy linkage variables were consistent predictors of the criterion variables, especially later in the school year. The findings support the social information processing model and Mintzberg's conception of professional bureaucracies.

The purpose of this study was to build on the literature dealing with school configurations, interpersonal processes, and performance indicators. The findings suggest that more effective schools, as perceived by teachers, are characterized by more participative organizational processes, less centralized decision-making structures, more formalized general rules, and more professional activity.

Conventional wisdom maintains that changing administrators will improve school performance. Some research evidence suggests, however, that because leader succession is disruptive to communication, decisionmaking and power processes, it will have either no causal effect or a negative effect on organizational effectiveness. Even if the impacts are modest, leader succession produces a naturally occurring set of events that provides excellent opportunities for researchers to assess administrator effects on school performance. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is threefold: (a) to construct a model that specifies a number of major school process and outcome variables associated with administrator succession, (b) to review the succession literature for each component, and (c) to suggest a variety of research strategies to examine administrator succession and effects of leaders on school processes and outcomes

This study assessed policy actors' influence on state reading policy and compared the structure of reading policy networks across eight states. Data for the study came from structured interviews and archival documents and were analyzed using social network analysis methods. This study found that state reading policy networks were heterogeneous in terms of both composition and policy actor influence, with government actors occupying significantly more central and more prestigious network positions than nongovernment actors. The analyses failed to confirm, however, that teacher organizations were the most central interest groups in state reading policy networks as hypothesized. Implications of this study for education policy actors were discussed and directions for future research suggested.

Reading became a hotbed of policy activity during the 1990s with both state and federal policymakers launching major initiatives to raise reading achievement. When President George W. Bush introduced his Reading First initiative in early 2001, we saw a unique opportunity to investigate the policy processes, antecedents, and unplanned events surrounding an important and potentially controversial initiative. We began with the assumption that major policy changes are typically made by powerful actors operating in relatively open issue networks. In regard to the Reading First legislation, however, we found a small clique of inside policy entrepreneurs who fashioned major changes in a short period. Upon recognizing this condition, we expanded the research purpose to describe the actions of this insider policy group.