Describes an elementary school six years after it adopted the Comer process, an educational philosophy promoting ongoing collaboration among parents, teachers, and administrators to do what is best for student learning and development. Consensus whenever possible and open expression of feelings and issues builds professionalism and community.…

To restructure teaching by changing teacher roles, five working condition must be enhanced, including support for teaching, collegiality, influence, recognition and advancement, and time. Three policies claiming to facilitate these conditions (differentiated staff, site-based management, and schools with learning communities) are true…

Discusses the impact that Chancellor Joseph Fernandez has had on the New York City school system. Discusses his ideological beliefs, which include school-based management and accountability. Comments on Fernandez's personal style and how this has affected his relationships with teachers, parents, principals, and others involved in the educational…

Discusses the importance of organization beliefs, values, and ideology to the internal environment of the organization. Applies the idea of culture development within the system to the workings of schools. Discusses how rites move from the individual to the organization and eventually affect the effectiveness of the organization. (JS)

Examines the effects of decentralized governance on instructional and curricular organization for disadvantaged pupils at the classroom level. Using descriptive information gathered from four inner-city elementary schools in Chicago and Albuquerque, this study finds that strong professional control over program decisions remains intact regardless…

Two years into five-year study of school-based decision making under Kentucky Education Reform Act, preliminary findings offer guidance and warnings considering decentralization. Across state, number of parents running for school councils and voting in elections is small. Most councils consist of six people with little teamwork or representative…

To increase parental involvement, Mount Carmel High School (Poway, California) has adopted strategic-planning change model. Successful strategic plans are connected to school mission and core values, gain staff support, remain open to input from all parties, build trust and rapport among participants, ensure open communication with stakeholders,…

Analyzes a coordinated children's service project in Chicago's decentralizing the school system from an organizational change perspective. Identifies issues, problems, and lessons concerning school-site administration that emerge from combining policy initiatives designed to open schools to community influence while extending schools' service…

Since site-based management supports the separate-schools concept, promotes interschool competition, and allows community pressures to influence decision-making, great disparities in resource allocations can occur. To ensure equity, central management must define and limit principals' roles, provide training for principals, build consensus,…

In The Netherlands, school management is no longer deemed senior management's exclusive preserve. This paper reports Dutch research into departmental teams carrying out middle-management functions in secondary schools. Departments offer relevant contexts for teachers' collective engagement and collaboration but can create barriers to professional…

Traces the long-standing debate about the distinctiveness of Scottish education. Examines the development of school-based management in Scotland, differences in policy development between Scotland and England, and the power of the ongoing perception of distinctive Scottish educational values to influence implementation of school-based management…

Trust is a significant factor in collective action. A composite case illustrates the value of trust as a critical element of effective teamwork in a self-managed school context. Trust depends on individuals' predilections, intensive communication and interaction patterns, team composition, guiding principles, and teammates' emotional bonding.…

Describes factors that constrain and facilitate participation, representation, and discourse in two urban site-based schools. Presents findings via basic themes, exemplifying scenarios reconstructed from field notes, discussion of observations, and a cross-school analysis. Site-based management could democratize schools if hierarchically based…

Through dedicated educators' efforts, positive climates can be established even in schools with challenging conditions. This article describes two southern urban high schools that beat the odds. The first, a public high school for African Americans, adopted site-based management; the second features an optional creative and performing arts program…

Compares the legal reasoning and results in two cases brought to courts by principals dismissed by local school governing boards under authority granted to these community groups by school reform laws in Chicago, Illinois, and New Zealand. Observations are made regarding the need for appropriate adjustments in school-based-management reform law…