Educational Alternatives, Inc. (EAI), and others have formed a consortium, "The Alliance for Schools That Work," that seeks to manage the curriculum, maintenance and operation, and financial operations of individual schools or entire school districts. EAI's president describes how the alliance would handle the business affairs of a…

Explores dynamics of parental involvement in one low-income, urban school struggling to improve student learning and to draw parents into all aspects of their children's education. Embracing a "family metaphor" helped participants overcome implementation barriers (overwhelming teacher expertise, culturally-based role expectations, and…

Site-based decision making (SBDM) represents one of the more progressive paradigmatic shifts in decentralization. Varieties of the model have been implemented. Surveys issues emerging from the variety of experiments in SBDM. Concludes that, at its best, SBDM is the grand experiment of letting local schools determine how to meet the district's…

Summarizes an ethnographic study examining interactions perceived as empowering in four inner-city primary schools in Victoria, Australia. Teachers wanted interactions between themselves and principals to be characterized by trust, recognition, respect, support, and reliability, but were disheartened by vanishing career and professional…

Specific problems (involving power, implementation, mission, time management, expertise, cultural constraints, avoidance, and motivation) are keeping school-based decision making from improving teaching and learning. Educators must begin with a clear mission, set explicit goals for the decision-making process, alter governance structures to…

Examines change capacity within one restructuring Ontario school district, employing the notions of chaos theory and a living organization. Analyzed 5 years of longitudinal quantitative and qualitative data to understand effects of organizational change on the whole school. School leadership teams worked differently, depending on context.…

Effective schools exhibit unique structures and continuous change. Moral imperatives inspire people to sustain the commitment critical to building effective schools. Over 450 interviews with practitioners, parents, board members, politicians, academics, union leaders, consultants, and others are joined with background literature and research to…

This report responds to a request for information on School Based Management (SBM) from Senators Edward M. Kennedy and David Durenberger. It answers the following questions: (1) Under SBM, did administrators and teachers change their schools' instructional programs and budgets and, if so, how? (2) What were key similarities and differences in…

The expression "site-based management" (SBM) has become part of the rhetoric of reform of U.S. public schools. The United States has been involved in school reform efforts for many years now, including attempts at SBM. The case of the Toledo (Ohio) public schools serves as a prime example of an urban school district that, like many…

Charter schools have emerged as the latest model for school reform. This handbook contextualizes the emergence of the charter-school concept by examining both the broader political shift in educational governance toward local control and the more specific movement in school reform toward greater institutional autonomy and school-based change. The…

Hawaii's School/Community-Based Management Initiative (SCBM), which was enacted into law in 1989, is part of a national trend toward decentralizing decision making and increasing school autonomy that arose during the 1980s. A voluntary program, SCBM offers schools flexibility, autonomy, and a small amount of resources in exchange for…

Educational policy alone will not create successful educational improvement. This summary presents key findings from 5 years of research on policy and finance, conducted by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE). Key findings include: (1) U.S. schools have demonstrated important, positive changes in practice, attitude, and student…

Although differences in the organization of public and private schools are a focus of school reform discussions, those differences are not well understood. Using data from a national sample of secondary schools in the 1990-91 Schools and Staffing Survey, conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), this report examined…

A 1994 review of international policy research on accountability in education indicates that there is widespread concern over policy content, processes, and consequences. Current purposes tend to be polarized by a simplistic dualism--hyperindividualism versus communitarianism. Policies and practices often exhibit neocentralist assumptions. This…

Local management of schools, parental choice, and accountability were crucial themes of Great Britain's 1988 Education Reform Act. Central government's belief in market forces as the key to sustained systemwide school improvement was further supported by the 1993 Education Act, which increased the variety of school offerings for parental choice by…