A seminar held on a kibbutz in Israel in which educators from the United Kingdom, Canada, and Israel discussed school-based curriculum development is described. (RM)

In 1997, former Edmonton (Alberta) school superintendent Michael Strembitsky instituted school-based management in seven schools. Although the district retained policymaking responsibility, schools could decide matters such as class organization, number of teachers, and budgeting for learning resources and equipment. Giving schools control over…

Examines site-based management's effects on schools, using a Canadian framework and drawing on research from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. As branches carrying the "corporate line," schools still lack local decision-making flexibility. Principals' workload is more demanding, and student learning outcomes have not…

Summarizes results of an in-depth study of 25 elementary and middle schools in 11 districts in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Some schools were actively restructuring; others were going through the motions of school-based management with little instructional change. The most successful SBM plans were those that empowered new decision…

A detailed analysis of how and why school-based curriculum development (SBCD) occurs is provided in this book. Case studies from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States are presented to show that despite different contexts, common patterns exist, especially in terms of participant motivation and processes. An innovations…

This paper summarizes the findings of a doctoral disseration that examined whether control over educational decision making in Saskatchewan (Canada) school systems was becoming more centralized or decentralized. The study also determined whether critical theory, as defined by Habermas, provided a useful conceptual framework for assessing the…

The School-Based Management Project was designed to determine how School-Based Management (SBM), when combined with curriculum and instruction reform, could work to improve the performance of schools. This report presents findings of a study that examined American, Canadian, and Australian schools that exhibited a range of success in restructuring…

The five papers in this special section explore basic middle-management issues at the secondary level in various countries, including subject leader/department heads' range of responsibilities and effects of school cultures. New training standards demand a blending of line management, accountability, leadership, followership, and collegial…

Motivated by the increasing prevalence of shared decision making and distributed leadership in restructured schools, six teams of Canadian secondary teachers were interviewed to explore their collective learning and the conditions influencing it. Qualitative and quantitative evidence identified numerous conditions to explain across-team learning…

The first year of shared governance in a Canadian urban elementary school and the responses of the school's 14 teachers to the system of equal rights and responsibilities for teachers and the principal were described. Shared governance worked well, although not without conflict, but the group eventually used shared governance to resolve conflicts.…

Surveys of small, mostly rural, schools in Ontario (Canada) and New South Wales (Australia) found remarkably similar responses from the two locations with regard to the creation of school councils; membership; council's role in policy making, policy advice, budget functions, and accountability; how councils benefit their schools; and council…

Overviews the role of school councils in each of the 12 Canadian provinces as part of a trend toward site-based management that empowers local communities with decision making and encourages significant input from those responsible for implementing decisions. Suggests that school councils allow parents decision-making power in the policy areas of…