Dynamic home-school-community partnerships established through site councils can help produce improved schools that serve their communities better. Parents on the council must be careful to represent diverse segments of the student body. Members need both proper orientation and a constitution to be effective. Includes three references. (MLH)

School/Community-Based Management (SCBM) improves the quality of education by providing schools with administrative flexibility and by empowering each school's community to make and implement decisions that will directly affect its members and students. To help individual school communities that are considering adopting SCBM understand how shared…

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…

Factors that influence the perceptions held by school site council members and others about the quality of site-based management (SBM) are examined in this study. Specifically, the relationships among a group's assessment of SBM, perceived level of influence on council decision making, perceived level of support from other groups, and perceived…

Two results of minority pressure for community involvement in educational decision making are (1) administrative decentralization and community participation, and (2) administrative decentralization and community control. However, regarding "community control," controversy abounds over whether elected public officials and professional educators or…

This study compares parent participation in a suburban New York school district with parent participation in five Chicago city schools. Section one provides an overview of the study, which was based on an examination of external innovations (such as laws, court orders, and new programs) that created new bases for parents to become involved in…

School councils, a school-based decision making (SBDM) form of governance, are mandated for Kentucky public schools by the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA). Commonly composed of the principal, three teachers, and two parents, the school council is designed to be a form of democratic or shared school governance. The missions of school councils…

This book is an introduction and guide to school-based management, a decentralized form of organization in which decisions that have traditionally been made by a superintendent or school board are made by the local school. Chapter 1 provides an overview of decision-making in public school systems starting with a brief history of the trend toward…

This paper discusses the impact that recent educational reforms by the New Zealand government had on Maori individuals involved in community decision-making processes, focusing on one predominantly Maori rural community. Three strands of recent educational change in New Zealand are the move to self-managing institutions; ongoing debate over…

Presents a case study of the impact of school-based development planning on a small, disadvantaged rural elementary school in New South Wales. Although this collaborative approach increased parent participation and ownership in the school, more demands were placed on staff, particularly the teaching principal. Additional resources are essential…

The "ideal" principal is facing a world of decentralized school structures, increasing and changing environmental boundaries and roles, less homogeneous schools, closer contact with stakeholders, and a market-driven view of education. Principals should view themselves as environmental negotiators, not merely school-system managers.…

Summarizes a five-month study of a British secondary school governing body to determine whether the 1986 and 1988 education acts' goals were being achieved. One significant research issue was the emerging lay-professional relationship. At present, the school governing body is not fully exercising its powers but is responding to an externally…

Decentralized decision-making is an important characteristic of effective schools. Effective decentralization requires that teachers, parents, students, and the community be involved, despite the various problems they face. The creation of school improvement councils is one step towards implementing the massive structural change needed to improve…

Describes the work of Mary Hunt and the Scientific Temperance movement to mandate teaching about the nature of alcohol and narcotics in the public schools. Examines the struggle over organization and planning within the public school system. Discusses organization in the Scientific Temperance movement's response to public school administration and…

In this monograph, the authors attempt to illustrate some of the more important components of decentralization and participative management with examples, or working models. Many of these models, according to the authors, function to illustrate the concept, provide models for adaptation, and inform the readers about districts that can be contacted…