This article explores different ways in which public primary schools sustain democratic governance structures created beyond those mandated by law in Spain. These new institutional designs, while not opposed to policy text requirements of having a governing body with representatives of parents, teachers and public administration, are being carried…

Over the past 20 years, federal and state reforms have drawn on heavy-handed attempts to close the achievement gap through top-down management of teachers. Such approaches have often included high-stakes accountability systems that mandate what to teach and how to teach it and that evaluate teachers on the basis of annual standardized test scores.…

Based on two years of extensive data collection in four urban elementary schools, this paper examines the role of principals in the implementation of the Together Initiative (TI), a school reform model for schools labeled low-performing per state accountability standards. The reform model aims to increase school autonomy from district mandates and…

Based on two years of extensive data collection in four urban elementary schools, this paper examines the role of principals in the implementation of the Together Initiative (TI), a school reform model for schools labeled low-performing per state accountability standards. The reform model aims to increase school autonomy from district mandates and…

Many educators advocate school-based management, a method of decentralization wherein the school, instead of the district office, becomes the primary unit of educational decision-making. This shift is part of American education's long-term oscillation between administrative centralization and decentralization. Centralization, say its critics, has…