In 1986, new statutes provided New Jersey's nine state colleges with autonomy from the state government for specific administrative, fiscal, and personnel matters, with boards of trustees assuming greater responsibility and authority. Discusses the transition process and reviews the outcomes of the new governance pattern. New Jersey's experience…

This paper discusses resource allocation at the school level, concentrating particularly on school-based budgeting. School-based budgeting is a process calling for preparation and administration of a budget for the allocation of the individual school's resources by the school principal, usually in consultation with staff and parents. The paper…

Views school reorganization as best achieved through school-based management, featuring transformational leaders, school effectiveness teams, school strategic plans, school-site budgeting, and school performance reports. Describes a Dallas County (Texas) district's efforts to create a mission, review organizational structure, and adopt strategic…

Pennsylvania's 10-year-old system of 14 state-owned universities has focused on increasing the stature and character of individual institutions, limited centralization, and fostered cohesion and cooperation rather than competition, particularly in difficult economic conditions. (MSE)

The Dade County (Florida) Public School system has had various types of school-based management (SBM) procedures in operation since 1974. During the 1985-86 school year, a committee of principals and other administrators reviewed the concepts of SBM from a different viewpoint, using various materials that addressed the professionalization of…

To date, eight states (Minnesota, California, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Mexico, and Wisconsin) have passed some type of charter school legislation. This report provides information on activities and legislation in these states regarding charter school formation, including the roles played by individual teachers and others as…

School/Community-Based Management (SCBM) improves the quality of education by providing schools with administrative flexibility and by empowering each school's community to make and implement decisions that will directly affect its members and students. To help individual school communities that are considering adopting SCBM understand how shared…

Late twentieth-century growth in French universities that undermined centralization and the academic staff resulted in anarchic development until recent governments tried to control the system's evolution. For two years the government has tried to convince universities of the need for decentralization for responsiveness to outside stimulus.…

The 1983 University Reform Act in Spain is examined, and its proposals for autonomy are analyzed in terms of the effect of the internationalization of Spanish universities. The reorganization of university teaching is seen as a possible impediment to internationalization of the teaching corps. (Author/MLW)

Finnish higher education has begun to develop decentralization of decision making together with evaluation and negotiation in higher education. This article notes the risk that economic recession will bring about renewed centralization before self-regulatory mechanisms are set in place. (Author/JDD)

This paper argues that changes in educational administration in Poland must be seen in the context of the enormous social and political changes that have occurred in that country in recent years. Centralized bureaucratic planning of social and economic programs has been discarded. The changes have impacted the system of educational administration…

Educational improvement can occur if school decisionmaking is shifted from centralized, "top down" administration to individual school control cooperatively directed by the principal, the staff, and parents. Site-based management allows the school a high degree of autonomy by placing the responsibility and authority for decisions at the school…

Describes the challenges facing the Hungarian educational system in the post-Communist era. Focuses on the issue of increased community and teacher participation in educational decision making. Presents the relationship of this issue to economic and political reorganization in the context of changing societal structures and individual…

Describes the plan to decentralize all public schools in Chicago (Illinois). The following unique features are discussed: (1) local school councils governing each school; (2) principals' responsibilities; (3) central school board's role; (4) specific school and system goals. (FMW)

Discusses the marketisation of education in Singapore since the mid-1980s. Describes and analyses two major manifestations of this phenomenon: encouragement of greater school autonomy and fostering of competition among schools. Argues that Singapore has a regulated market, which threatens to exacerbate the disparities between schools in terms of…