Findings from a study that examined the attitudes of California school district superintendents toward school restructuring are presented in this paper. Interviews were conducted with a total of 30 superintendents and senior staff members in 22 California school districts to explore their orientations toward school restructuring in general and toward eight specific restructuring approaches--school-based management, teacher empowerment, teacher professionalization, labor relations restructuring, pedagogical restructuring, governance reform, school choice, and integrated child service delivery. Although the superintendents held widely divergent perceptions about the nature and potential value of various approaches, three key tensions shaped their overall pattern of thinking about restructuring: (1) saliency vs. explicitness of the issue; (2) performance improvement vs. legitimacy of the schools; and (3) accountability vs. ownership. Two contextual factors also influenced their thinking--amount of superintendency experience and the kind of community support. Implications are that school restructuring is not a clearly focused program of reform; caution should be used in judging reform efforts; and most efforts are relatively remote from the "technical core" of teaching and learning. A conclusion is that the politics of evaluation are important to the longterm success of restructuring. (23 references) (LMI)