School support centers have been established to facilitate the Queensland (Australia) State Education Department's restructuring efforts. Although these centers are supposed to assist schools as they define their own needs, they must also ensure that schools accomplish system imperatives and centrally determined priorities. Interviews with one…

Responding to the site-based management movement, this article draws parallels between building principals' past and present expectations and submits a planning model for onsite administrators to inspect, study, and implement according to their own needs. Administrators must handle certain responsibilities (like staff training and needs…

As schools become increasingly decentralized, the professional bureaucracy will be replaced by a boundary spanning organization (a school council or governing body) based on participative decision making. If state schools are to satisfy the emerging Third Wave Society's educational needs, school management must be characterized by high levels of…

Summarizes a study that surveys teachers' perceptions of the school-development planning process at a Perth, Australia, secondary school. Teachers believe they are being given more planning authority to control administrative costs; the state education department will continue its strong control over school operations; and a whole-school planning…

Describes a management-development program aimed at developing managerial skills and responsibilities across the whole staff of a Welsh secondary school. Explains the reasons for possible antipathy to this inservice training topic. The project used teachers' current managerial tasks so that teachers, in conjunction with self-study materials, could…

The heads of 12 primary schools in an English country town were interviewed as part of a study examining market ideologies' influence on the management of small-service providers. Overall, despite the business/managerialism rhetoric, management-team governance, and changing administrator and local education authority (LEA) roles, principals felt…

Examines how some East Midland (England) schools have developed interschool collaboration to facilitate implementation of local school management. The study is based on structured interviews with secondary headteachers and primary headteachers whose pupils eventually attend area secondary schools. Assesses the time and effort expended on…

Explores the 1988 Education Reform Act's effects on providing physical education and sports in British schools, and specifically, implementation of the National Curriculum for Physical Education. The ERA and local school management have not only changed interschool and school-government agency relationships, but have fostered potentially damaging…

Examines how control and administrative responsibility is divided, in practice, between the headteacher and the governors, and whether such responsibilities are agreed upon or disputed. Discusses a study of 21 British schools that examines this issue. When there is agreement about roles, a stable situation exists. Where there is no agreement,…

Effective-schools research indicates that greater community involvement in school management usually enhances children's cognitive and affective development. Future school effectiveness will be influenced by how successfully school councils and governing bodies function. Without adequate, ongoing inservice training for participants, school…

A study of 310 British school leaders' learning style preferences identifies a trend toward activist, as opposed to reflector, theorist, and pragmatist approaches. Education Reform Act changes are pressuring headteachers to act quickly and decisively as part of whole-school management teams. This has weakened their perception that analysis,…

Some recent writers cast doubts on planning and development planning and use chaos theory to justify their skepticism. This article questions the application of chaos theory to school planning. Alternatively, control theory clarifies important differences between short- and long-term planning and facilitates self-managing schools' use of…

Summarizes findings of a two-year study of two locally managed Welsh secondary schools' need for support and resources. Discusses resource needs resulting from expansion and diversification of the sixth-form curriculum. Discusses implications of encouraging students to stay on in the sixth form and the factors influencing their decision making.…

Although devolution (decentralization) policies assume that school communities will work collaboratively to make decisions appropriate to the local context, cooperative processes do not occur automatically. This paper outlines a case study of a school committee's efforts to develop a discipline policy at an Australian elementary school. Committee…

Explores Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy, its industrial achievements, and its promise for education. Key elements of TQM include establishing a strong sense of school vision, promoting personal mastery learning for all organization members, focusing strategy on customer-driven values, developing outrageous goals, working effectively…