As interest in school-based management grows and the number of efforts increases, the gap between the strategy's potential and its realization is being explored. Although school-based management may stimulate a redistribution of informal power or influence, there is little evidence that significant, long-lasting, or widespread changes are occurring either in the exercise of teachers' professional expertise or in parent participation at school-based management sites. Teachers are involved in issues peripheral to fundamental instructional content or methodology and seldom experience change in roles and responsibilities. Parents most commonly function only as advisors or endorsers of decisions already made. Although input into school-site decision making initially enhanced participants' morale and motivation and stimulated school improvement efforts, recent research shows a clear decline in satisfaction and involvement after the initial energizing effects wear off. School-based management has not fulfilled its promise due to problems with delegating and distributing authority. The ability of school-based management to bring about enduring school improvement hinges on how effectively it is linked with shared decision making. Shared decision making can close the gap between the promise and the reality of school-based management by harnessing the energies currently expended to manage, flee, or subvert an unresponsive system. (10 references) (MLH)