School-based management/shared decision-making (SBM/SDM) in New York City rests on the conviction that schools can be improved by giving school professionals and parents the flexibility to develop local solutions for local problems. Accountability is critical to this approach; a school system cannot ask school staff to accept responsibility for…

A study of one school's involvement in school-based curriculum development (SBCD) for nearly 30 years provided researchers with information on the factors affecting the success of SBCD programs. The school studied serves 3,500 students in 12 grades at several sites in an Israeli city. Following interviews with faculty members, the researchers…

School site management, a decentralized approach to decision-making and school governance, is intended to help parents and teachers share increased accountability for student learning and provide a broadened leadership base through teacher empowerment. This approach involves a shift of decision-making responsibility from the school district to…

A commission on school leadership, charged with examining how schools are managed by school administrators in California and then determining whether emerging trends in America's most well-managed companies have relevance for schools, went far beyond this and finally recommended a top-to-bottom revolution. The recommendations, which are based on…

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…

Existing schooling structures cannot produce the changes necessary for substantial educational improvement. Although school-site management literature offers no procedural recipes, experience suggests that a certain configuration of concepts, processes, and enabling conditions can produce substantial and sustained school improvement. This paper…

Discusses the following complaints about schools that, though brought up by religious fundamentalists, are deserving of consideration by more liberal Americans and educators: (1) neglect of moral values; (2) over-emphasis on the value of objectivity; (3) school management practices; and (4) a curriculum robbed of any point that might lead to…

This article outlines the types of school programs that will build on the strengths of educationally disadvantaged students, bring them into the mainstream, and prepare them for economic, political, and social participation. (MT)

Many urban schools are undergoing restructuring due to the problems they face and their resistance to traditional solutions. This volume deals with the various ways in which eight case-study schools in Chicago implemented strategies that called for whole-school change and system reform. The book is comprised of 10 chapters: (1)…

Improving the efficiency of schools is a growing concern of educational planners and managers in Asian countries in recent years. The seminar on Improving School Efficiency was convened in December 1998 to address this concern. Seminar topics in this book cover challenges to educational reform, including the introduction of school-based…

This report provides information on school community based management (SCBM) as a process for school improvement and as applied to schools on the island of Chuuk (formerly, Truk). It involves everybody within a school's community, including mayor, principal, teachers, church leaders, traditional leaders, parents, and students. As a cooperative…

In practice, most education systems have both centralized and decentralized elements. Planners involved in a decentralizing reform must identify which components of the system are more appropriately managed at the central level and which at the local level. This book is intended to inform education policymakers, planners, and practitioners about…

This guide shows the school principal how to delegate and empower others to help move the school toward fulfillment of its vision. It emphasizes the need to shift the focus from the task of the individual school professional to the task of the school. It examines the conditions for effective delegation and helps the principal identify…

This paper examines the effects of site-based budgeting in education. It describes and presents a school-based budgetary decision-making model that was designed originally to shift the balance of power from the central office to the building level. The model has been refined and successfully utilized in one school district for 20 years, and its…

This book addresses the critical issues and challenges facing state and district policymakers as they work to develop school-based funding policies and related resource data systems. The text is divided into three sections. The first section provides a conceptual overview of the different issues involved in designing, implementing, and evaluating…