School-based management (SBM) is a strategy to decentralize decision-making authority to the individual school site. This document describes the principles of SBM, of which devolution of authority is the fundamental concept. Local control and shared decision-making are manifested in five educational operations: goals, budget, personnel, curriculum…

This paper is part of a larger report entitled "The Reform of American Public Education in the 1980s; Themes and Cases." A discussion on the reform of school administration, specifically the forces leading to the reform of school administration in the 1980s is presented. The first part of the report documents the forces that led to demands for…

States should take an active and direct role in education reform: supporting school reform efforts, providing technical assistance, defining and controlling educational content, and assessing the outcomes of education. (MLF)

Although most efforts to improve academic learning time have been directed at classroom teachers, principals can also employ schoolwide procedures to improve time usage. This article presents 11 such strategies involving direction-setting, direct staff support, and structural alterations. Academic learning time should be a schoolwide goal linked…

This paper presents the insights of superintendents about the school restructuring process in Kentucky and its likely effects. Data were derived from a focus group held with 24 members of the Kentucky Educational Development Corporation (KEDC), and from a survey of 48 superintendents, of which 35 responded. A majority of respondents expressed…

Little research has investigated the effects of school restructuring on the roles of central office administrators, particularly the superintendent. This paper presents findings of a study that examined the perceptions of superintendents in Kentucky, whose State Legislature passed a statewide systemic reform initiative, the Kentucky Education…

This paper examines the contributions of the two dominant theories of school improvement--effective schools and school restructuring--to education. The first section reviews effective schools theory; the second section reviews the school restructuring literature, with attention to its extension of tenets of the effective schools paradigm. Each…

The focus of this document is on the reemergence of the principal as the school's instructional leader as attributable to effective schools research. The document presents a framework that conceptualizes instructional leadership as a two-dimensional construct comprised of leadership functions and leadership processes. The leadership functions…

Student opportunity to learn may be the critical variable in explaining student engagement and subsequent achievement. Lower-ability students are systematically discriminated against in quality of instruction and curricular content and in use of learning time. Suggestions regarding teacher preparation to offset these patterns are made. (MT)

A recent study indicates that the superintendent's personal involvement in principal supervision and evaluation, including frequent school visits, can be a key ingredient in school effectiveness. (MCG)

School reform has taken many shapes over the years. Among the most pervasive of school-reform theories is school-based management (SBM), which is examined in detail in this book. The introductory chapter locates the current round of SBM in the longer cycle of educational reform, describes the extent of SBM activity over the past decade in the…

This paper analyzes the empirical evidence available to date concerning the evolving role of the principal. First, it briefly describes the effects of fundamental reform measures on the work environment of school principals, with a focus on work overload and role ambiguity. The second section unpacks the available body of empirical research to…

This book is designed to inform the debate on administrator preparation and to provide information for shaping new designs for administrator education. Chapter 1 discusses the changing educational environment and the need for improving administrator training. Chapters 2 and 3 review phases in the evolution of training programs over the last…

This paper examines changes in school administration over the past 15 years. Five sections explore the ferment in educational administration and focus on the causes of unrest in the field. It looks at key markers on the path to reform in the academic arm of the profession; major changes in the profession, in general, and in the way school leaders…

Ways in which restructuring approaches to school improvement are likely to promote advances in educational equity are discussed in this paper. The first sections briefly define restructuring and equity and examine three ethics that drive efforts to make schools more equitable: competitive/utilitarian, social justice, and caring ethics. A…