A key issue in educational administration in England at present is the interrelationship between professional responsibility and public acceptability, and between professional responsibility and political control. These papers show how the conference focused on this issue and the question, Should the education service in the future continue as an…

In response both to a growing national grumbling about the need for educational accountability and to a felt need to better define and focus on district priorities, the Madison Public Schools adopted a mangement by objectives (MBO) program in 1970. It is on the basis of three years' experience with this program that this book has been written. The…

School board and community have only two ways to achieve accountability: by prescribing teaching methodology and establishing expensive supervisory superstructure to enforce it; or by establishing desired learning outcome standards and products and requiring professional staff to develop plans to achieve them and criteria to evaluate results.…

In the New York City high schools, three change strategies have been used to improve a system which, in and by itself, is dramatically changing. The high school system has undergone significant changes in purpose, organization, culture and student performance. The first change strategy established a partnership between the high schools and the…

Six papers from a Phi Delta Kappa symposium on educational accountability begin with an examination of accountability both as a goal and a process for achieving a goal, particularly from the state education agency perspective. The second paper, prepared from the vantage point of the teacher, asks questions about the development of accountability…

The intent of this paper is to recount briefly the management process and the sequence of activities that have let the Baltimore City Public School System to the stage in its curriculum development where the focus is on learning hierarchies as a major tool in the improvement of the teaching/learning process. In the fall of 1973, Baltimore City…

This book was designed to help citizens evaluate and improve their local schools. It contends that the solution to the potential end of America's progress is through positive school reform--the public management of schools. It presents a system of participative and results-oriented management that is implemented by boards, administrators, and…

The mission of the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) is to ensure that all students acquire the knowledge, skills and values necessary to live rich and fulfilling lives as responsible, productive and enlightened members of a democratic society. It is the vision of the District of Columbia School System that it will be known as one of the…

The U. S. Commissioner of Education discusses how State boards of education can make themselves more effective on behalf of many critically important causes in U.S. education today. He argues that State boards must take a tough, unequivocal position on some of the gross inequities that have stood for so long. Additionally, the five most critical…

Throughout Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries, school systems and individual schools are experimenting with new approaches to management that seek to run schools in ways that are right for the 21st century. Those who manage these schools must take responsibility for an arduous task due to the complexity…

Argues that the "new managerialism" approach to educational management in Scotland, with its emphasis on performance monitoring, diverts attention away from the core concerns of educational delivery and incurs significant bureaucratic costs. An alternative model, which is based on collegiality and democracy, focuses on professionalism,…

Accountability systems target effective school management among other key aspects of the school-improvement process that impact teacher performance. In treating this aspect of accountability, it asks, "What do school improvement plans reveal about schools' responses to accountability and probation?" The school-improvement plan…