The purpose of this study was to investigate the problems and issues that emerged as school districts in Pennsylvania tried to implement a strategic planning mandate at the local level. In June 1993, revisions to the Pennsylvania school code changed requirements for graduation from time spent in the classroom to the mastery of 53 state-designated student learning outcomes, and the state mandated that districts develop strategic plans for implementation of the new regulations that included community participation. The concept of student learning outcomes became a mass media blitz called "outcome based education" (OBE). Criticisms against OBE were emotional and well-organized, and supporters were not able to defend it well. In this climate, school districts confronted many issues in their planning. Seventeen districts in Allegheny County (Pennsylvania) participated in this study, which relied on observations and on-site or telephone interviews with administrators in each district and the state's education department. Implementation of the reform was hampered from the start, with issues of communication and resources central to implementation problems. Administrators were cowed by the magnitude of the task, and a third of them thought that additional resources would be needed to address curriculum and assessment changes. School district administrators thought that they needed security in the knowledge that there would be adequate resources available to plan for a systemic change of this nature. Training for educators and the public and the establishment of a sense of being stakeholders are other aspects of the reform that are needed to ensure acceptance and implementation. (Contains 1 table and 48 references.) (SLD)