Even If It Isn't Broken: A Proposal for Wholesale Change.

10 Few events cause more wholesale change in a school district than the move from junior high or a K-8 organization to middle schools. Not only are middle level teachers, administrators, and students affected, but the change has implications for elementary and secondary levels as well. When one tier of schooling significantly alters both its curriculum and delivery system, no one is exempt from the waves of change. "At the school level, certain kinds of change are inevitable. They generally are responses to changing local or school-site conditions, and they may be changes for the better or the worse" (Tye, 1991, p. 44). The need to make changes on the one hand and the desire for maintaining the status quo on the other, calls up some interesting questions. For example, is the educational climate more alive and healthier in a stable period? Is it made less so when there is change? Is everyone more productive or just more comfortable maintaining the status quo? Is it a golden opportunity or merely the "cross to bear" for the building administrator who must enact change? We propose answers to these questions based on a few assumptions about middle schools and change. First, the new organizational patterns (i.e., grades 6-8, cooperative team planning, teacher-based advisory) are often proposed and enacted with little initial input from teachers or even building administrators. That is, the change is mandated from above in most cases. "It is crucial to recognize (however), that major educational change cannot be legislated or mandated if it is not in tune with a concurrent