An overview of school-based management (SBM) and the issues involved are provided in this document. Information is offered on the following topics: the advantages and liabilities of SBM; its effect on the roles of the school board, superintendent, and district office; decision-making processes; elements of SBM implementation; examples of three…

Findings from a study to determine the knowledge base among Kentucky superintendents about site-based management (SBM) are presented in this paper. Questionnaires mailed to all of the state's 177 public school superintendents yielded a 73 percent response rate. Findings indicate that while there was considerable interest in SBM, there was…

The concept of power, fundamental to understanding human interactions and institutions, remains puzzling, elusive, theoretically complex, and largely unexamined by practitioners. A school restructuring agenda that purportedly changes power relationships in schools is being proposed and tested throughout the country. Basic questions are being asked…

Moving toward site-based management, Greece (New York) Central School District administrators and the teachers' organization established a representative steering committee to coordinate and facilitate the decentralization process and develop a master plan. Benefits include increased faculty understanding, improved school climate, and increased…

Recently, the Petersburg (Virginia) Public Schools have moved away from a highly centralized organizational structure to a Total Quality Management system featuring shared decision making and school-based management practices. The district was guided by Deming's philosophy that all stakeholders should be involved in defining the level of products…

Decentralization has been one of the centerpieces of education reform in the United States over the past decade, yet the results so far are not encouraging. This booklet presents findings of a study that explored the hypothesis that decentralization efforts have failed to relax external constraints on schools or to enable school staffs to make…

Site-based management (SBM) is an increasingly popular approach to school restructuring. SBM aims to transfer authority from state agencies and school districts to committees based at schools. To garner a consensus supporting reform, these committees are to be representative of educational and community members. SBM plans are characterized by: (1)…

In December 1988 the Illinois State legislature passed the Chicago School Reform Act, which sought to replace traditional bureaucratic control of the schools with a complex system of decision making by local schools. The act promotes three distinct sites of power in school communities: (1) parent-dominated local school councils (LSCs); (2)…

The two reform orientations termed "hard" and "soft" policy do not represent a set of mutually exclusive choices for policymakers. Bureaucratically and professionally based decision-making approaches must coexist in schools and school districts. The dual policy approach necessitates a rethinking of administrative posture and gives shape to a…

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…

Few of the empirical studies on school restructuring adequately describe the role of site teams in school reform. This paper addresses this gap, an analysis of what site teams do, how they are configured, and how they operate. This paper presents empirical measures of variables relating to the decision-making and communication practices engaged in…

Findings of a study that explored the extent of knowledge and use of school-based management concepts by faculty, graduate students, and school administrators are presented in this paper. Nationwide data were obtained from surveys that were returned by 63 professors of educational administration, 82 principals, and 216 graduate students in…

Presents a feminist analysis of how decentralized decision-making policies are reflected at the local level in four countries: Australia, Sweden, New Zealand, and Israel. These examples indicate that management practices tend to be more modernist than postmodernist, and often have highly inequitable effects for female teachers. Contains 63…

Two distinct "waves" characterized the efforts to change public schools in the 1980s. The first wave called for increased academic standards (increased graduation requirements, longer school days, and strict accountability standards), but neglected educational practice and the roles that parents, teachers, administrators, and community members…

The adoption of a school-based management/shared decision-making administrative process (SBM/SDM) was recommended for the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) school district in June 1990. Findings of a study that determined the attitudes of three non-Chapter 1 elementary school communities in Philadelphia toward the adoption of SBM/SDM are presented in…