Provides a walk through a model "essential" high school belonging to the National Coalition of Essential Schools. These schools feature the basics carefully integrated into a few subject areas, teaching across the curriculum, pedagogical variety, materials matched to different students, insistence on mastery, cooperative problem-solving,…

Proposals for helping districts with severe financial problems range from various forms of privatization to administrative decentralization and boards of local control. An alternative approach to state takeovers employs a state government corporation (similar to the Tennessee Valley Authority) free of political influence, along with site-based…

A review of 200 documents describing site-based management in the United States, Canada, and Australia shows that this management style does not achieve its stated objectives to change school policy, broaden decision-making, and improve instruction or student achievement. Program viability, site conditions, and assessment issues are discussed. A…

Describes a Dade County (Florida) Schools pilot program to decentralize the district's schools and adopt teaching professionalization as a primary goal. Using various committees and task forces, the district formulated goals, developed a shared decision-making model, addressed management/labor issues, and provided team training opportunities. (MLH)

Reviews research principles underlying site-based school management, including the National Committee for Citizens in Education's parameters. Outlines a Missouri school district's approach to site management, highlighting establishment of guidelines, team training, financial support, flexible staffing, and sense of ownership. (MLH)

Views school reorganization as best achieved through school-based management, featuring transformational leaders, school effectiveness teams, school strategic plans, school-site budgeting, and school performance reports. Describes a Dallas County (Texas) district's efforts to create a mission, review organizational structure, and adopt strategic…

Michael Strembitsky, director of the High Performance Management Program with the National Alliance for Restructuring Education, helps administrators, policymakers, and community leaders work through problems and challenges accompanying decentralization, deregulation, and results-driven reform efforts. He finds that school staff with…

The principal as all-knowing patriarch and problem-solver is passe. Today's principals must be team builders who can inspire a diverse group of professionals to cooperate. Principals need a leadership vision and strategic planning skills. Superintendents should teach principals how to dream creatively, conduct environmental scans, assess…

Describes a unique contract among the Dade County (Florida) School Board; Education Alternatives, Inc. of Minneapolis; and the United Teachers of Dade. The contract establishes South Pointe Elementary as a public school, staffed and managed by public school employees, governed by a school-based management cadre, and supported by the teachers'…

A central office administrator describes her emerging role as coordinator and facilitator of professional development programs at Rochester (New York) City Schools. In a newly decentralized setting, she acknowledges and accepts responsibility for all district staff, responds to all staff members' identified and stated needs, and remains well…

Describes one Florida principal's pursuit of school-based management and shared decision making for the wrong reason--to escape from central office domination. Although chosen as the lesser of two evils, the new committee structure has worked well for Myrtle Grove School. Since giving up veto power to gain staff trust and commitment, teacher…

Individuals interested in derailing school-based management lurk in most school communities. Some stakeholders are against true decentralization and can play their cards to subvert the process. Illegitimate intransigence can arise at the exploration or commitment stages. A sidebar shows how to defend against sabotage by making critical choices…

Mastering the new professional standards for superintendents is important, but courageous risk-taking, timing, and judgment are the "heart-and-soul" factors of leadership. The usual board/superintendent relationship is inconsistent with site-based management and building autonomy. Perhaps boards should develop a clearly defined set of performance…

In communities as diverse as those in Montgomery County, Maryland, and the state of Kentucky, school staffs have shown reluctance to opt into shared decision-making programs. Teachers have often declined, and, in Montgomery County, the principals' bargaining unit went on record in opposition to a proposed policy of participatory decision making.…

Central office administrators are increasingly expected to be planners and facilitators. To succeed in their new roles, administrators must do long-range planning; be expert, customer-driven, and proactive; offer friendly criticism; generate new services and discontinue others; develop facilitation skills; and help schools exchange unnecessary…