Using the experience of the Educational Quality Inputs (EQI) Scheme in Sri Lanka the paper examines the distributional aspects of formula-based funding and efficiency of decentralized management of education funds in a developing country setting. The study finds that the EQI fund distribution is largely pro-poor. However, results show that to…

An Illinois school district decided, on an experimental basis, to drop junior high schools and go back to a K-8 organization. In the first year of a three-year experiment, average student learning growth in all subjects was 11 months at the K-7 buildings compared to six months at the junior high school. (MLF)

School district size is important to policymakers and educators who need to determine the most effective way to structure school organization. For more than 40 years, a growing body of research has focused on the relationship between school size and school effectiveness (Monk & Plecki, 1999). Early studies did not address the effect of school…

In this paper the authors extend an earlier study that developed images of what schools are like as social entities. That study found that elementary schools correspond to the rational bureaucratic image, whereas secondary schools are more loosely coupled systems. The study was limited by a small sample. In this paper the research was extended to…

Middle school transition brings with it considerable change for those involved. Using corporate and industrial management theories and practices presents a rationale for wholesale and comprehensive educational change. (six references) (MLF)

Researchers say transition programs need to last longer than just the first few days of a new school year. Most transition programs consider only one thing helping students adjust to their new school. Schools need to go through a transition process of their own, paying serious attention to the research on transition, adjusting to the students, and…

This report by the Governor's Commission on Excellence in Education proposes to restructure middle school education (grades 6, 7, and 8) in Virginia. The restructuring process has two components: the identification of Vanguard Schools and the development and implementation of a restructuring process in other schools. Schools that seek Vanguard…

Asserts that achievement and cost measures of school districts' effectiveness are useful but insufficient performance critera. Focusing on British Columbia, Canada, this paper demonstrates a surprising negative relationship between cost and achievement and seeks a third element--school ethos or goodness--as a potential predictor of school…

The primary goal of the School Improvement Project (SIP), administered by the central office of New York City (New York) Public Schools, is to improve academic achievement through school-based planning. A planning committee representing the various school constituencies is responsible for developing and implementing a comprehensive plan to effect…

In October 1989, the government of New Zealand responded to results of a 1987-88 study on school management by passing legislation that shifted control of education from a central bureaucracy to local boards of trustees. Using a question-answer format, this document presents a model of the decentralization process as it analyzes the 1989 plan in…

This interim report evaluates the implementation of the "House Plan," a plan to create small personalized schools within the 110 large comprehensive high schools in New York (New York) by subdividing all ninth grades into separate units. This evaluation covers only the 37 "dropout prevention" high schools which had been…

Results of a followup legislative review of the operation of the University of Mississippi School of Dentistry are summarized. An initial 1982 evaluation of the dental school revealed numerous deficiencies in financial and operational management. Among other things, the 1982 report concluded the the dental school, the third smallest in the United…

The effectiveness of the financial management practices and the efficiency of the operations of the University of Mississippi School of Dentistry were evaluated, and recommendations to improve operations were offered by the legislative review committee. While the primary emphasis was effective cost management, attention was also directed to: the…

This document, a two-volume report, provides in volume 1 the final longitudinal evaluation of the New York City Dropout Prevention Initiative (DPI), 1985-86 through 1987-88. (The second volume comprises appendices containing summaries of each previous evaluation for this time period.) The DPI was implemented in 13 high schools and 29 feeder middle…

This speech addresses reform in the middle grades. The ideas were prompted by mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act. The speaker focused on eight fundamental questions, suggesting that the questions should have less to do with the techniques of implementation than with provoking discussion about a school system's or school's values, priorities,…