This study focuses on the school district decision to initiate an innovative program. A natural experiment in the identification of school districts interested in initiating serious innovation is used to study the differences between school districts that were and those that were not considering innovation in one specific decisionmaking period. In late 1970 the U.S. Office of Education offered every school district an opportunity to receive a substantial grant if the district had a serious and well-planned innovative school program. In this study, the districts that applied are "initiators," and the districts that did not submit grant applications are "noninnovators." The model uses indicators of economic, organizational, and political phenomena to "predict" whether or not each of the sample districts applied for the federal innovation grant. Variables used in the analysis are: grant application, school enrollment, central city or suburban character of the district, poverty measure, board of education selection, and the number of calendar years elapsed since each district's 1970 superintendent of schools was appointed. (Author/MLF)