Preparation for school leadership has become a major global educational issue since the late 1990s. In Hong Kong, the establishment and implementation of school-based management in the 1990s have made significant demands on principals. In 1999, a leadership development and training programme for serving and aspiring principals was initiated by the…

This study investigates the relative roles of school district and school-level decision-makers in the implementation of effective substance use prevention curricula. Drawing on a "Site-Based Management" approach to effective decision-making, we hypothesized that schools whose personnel played active decision-making roles would be more likely to…

School-based management is being increasingly advocated as a shortcut to more efficient management and quality improvement in education. Research, however, has been unable to prove conclusively such a linkage. Especially in developing countries, concerns remain about the possible detrimental impact of school-based management on school quality;…

Background/Context: This study builds upon research on teacher professional communities and high school restructuring reforms. It employs a conceptual framework that draws upon theories of "community of practice" and "community of learners." Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This study analyzes how teachers' professional inquiry…

This article builds and explores the hypothesis that parent and community participation in school governance can have positive impacts on community development by fostering improvements in school performance and school-community relations and by acting as a catalyst for collective action around community-development issues. It does so through case…

Vocational schools in Germany are currently undergoing administrative reform. The main idea behind this reform, taken from the administrative paradigm of New Public Management, has been to grant schools extended autonomy but to make them more accountable for their results. Critics emphasize that such reform tends to reduce school administration to…

Site-based management (SBM) is an increasingly popular approach to school restructuring. SBM aims to transfer authority from state agencies and school districts to committees based at schools. To garner a consensus supporting reform, these committees are to be representative of educational and community members. SBM plans are characterized by: (1)…

Site-based management (SBM) could change schools by altering the scope of authority, involvement, and influence to lessen dominance relationships in education and inequities regarding struggling students. These dominance relationships exist between administrators and staff and between staff and students. SBM seems to signal a paradigm shift from a…

School restructuring, or school-based management, is one of the most widely discussed educational reform movements. School restructuring improves education by giving teachers and principals more independence and responsibility in the educational process. The accelerated-schools process provides a means for school restructuring, emphasizing unity…

This paper presents findings of a study that described and analyzed the first 5 years (1985-90) of the Spanish experience in school-based management (SBM). The Spanish experience is instructive because the country, formerly comprised of independent territories, made a swift and peaceful transition to democracy. As a means of reinforcing the…

This guidebook was designed to help educational practitioners and community members in Oregon understand the issues regarding school-council formation and development. In 1991 the Oregon State Legislature passed the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century, mandating a fundamental change in public education. The Act assigns school councils the…

In providing leadership for school improvement teams, principals must employ group communication and decision-making skills. In this study, a planning procedure called Quality Function Deployment (QFD) was modified for use with school-based administrators. Teams of school leaders used QFD to generate the top priority needs of school customers…

The West Virginia education reform legislation of 1988 and 1990 mandated greater involvement of school personnel, parents, and community in site-based decision making. This paper examines the operations and activities of faculty senates, which are composed of all full-time educators in each school, for the years 1990-91, 1991-92, and 1992-93. A…

The current literature on school restructuring emphasizes cooperative learning, collaborative planning, teacher empowerment, and participative policy making. This literature tends to set aside client and technical perspectives and to exhibit a professional view, which deems accountability to be a politically incorrect issue. The literature on…

This document presents findings of the Assessment of School-Based Management Study, which identified the conditions in schools that promote high performance through school-based management (SBM). The study's conceptual framework was based on Edward E. Lawler's (1986) model. The high-involvement framework posits that four resources must spread…