Based on recent school effectiveness literature, this paper suggests local policies to stimulate and facilitate school reform. After discussing the goals of the effective schools movement and briefly reviewing the literature, it presents a two-phase model for school improvement projects, based on the premise that a school's culture primarily determines its effectiveness. This model uses relatively simple organizational adjustments to stimulate more organic changes; participative decision-making is recommended to effect these changes. Accordingly, the authors propose that planning proceed from the school level upward, and they offer four general policy recommendations. Subsequent passages discuss the respective roles of the school and the district in a reform program; the applicability of school effectiveness research to secondary schools; the roles of teachers' unions and middle management and of the school board and the superintendent; individual school goals; evaluation methods; and staff development programs. The paper concludes with some observations on school improvement theory and on "institutionalizing" or "routinizing" reforms. (MCG)