Across the United States, a movement to create a new kind of public school--"autonomous district schools"--is giving districts the freedoms charter schools receive. Like charter schools, autonomous district schools are freed from innovation-inhibiting state and district policies, allowing talented educators to make academic and…

New "autonomy initiatives" aim to increase schools' decision-making authority as a strategy to leverage school improvement. These policies build on lessons of previous reforms such as site-based management in ways that bode well for their success. However, how are these policies actually faring in implementation? The authors addressed that…

High-performing, at-risk schools are not all equal in the challenges they face and the resources available. This study extends the research on at-risk schools by expanding the definition of at-risk to include risk factors beyond poverty. In addition, the study explicitly examines possible differences between district and school-level factors.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the current school-based management (SBM) policy reform in Indonesia, with an emphasis on the impacts of shifting authority and responsibility to school level, as well as challenges confronted by the school council members, followed by remedial measures to minimize the problems.…

Recounts a principal's experiences at a British Columbia elementary school with control over its own budget. Decentralized administration did not prevent mistakes. At first, administrators and teachers made more errors in judgment than an experienced school business officer would have made. This district's success may be attributed to the…

Written to help educators maximize student learning, this publication outlines a process for designing and implementing an improvement and restructuring plan based on knowledge acquisition, needs assessment, indepth planning, and development of commitment to change. Research has identified 14 conditions for successful schools: high attendance,…

Countless American schools are progressing toward effectiveness, ensuring that all students, regardless of family income, sex, or ethnicity, reach basic peformance levels in reading, mathematics, and language arts. Others are moving beyond effectiveness toward excellence and true equity. The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL)…

This publication summarizes research that investigated how school-based management (SBM) can be implemented for long-term school improvement. It is argued that a successful SBM plan must be part of a quest for improvement and utilize a "high involvement" model. In addition to having more power, schools need knowledge of the organization,…

Outcomes of the School-Based Instructional Leadership (SBIL) program are described in this paper. The goal of the program is to empower school leadership teams (which include administrators, teachers, and representatives of stakeholder groups) for new roles and relationships as they implement a school-development process within their own contexts.…

A study conducted in an Illinois metropolitan school district explored four dimensions of school-based management implementation: school leadership, school climate, student achievement, and community involvement. Survey data from 176 teachers, 42 parents, and 6 administrators revealed that length of program involvement positively influenced…

Besides reorganizing the central office to support instructional goals, the Vancouver (Washington) School District has passed bond and levy issues to revitalize the infrastructure, changed to a three-year middle school configuration, designed three new school facilities, and allocated $1 million for school improvement initiatives. The goals are…

Reviews the emerging second wave of research generated by many different countries and relates findings about good school characteristics to broader managerial issues concerned with the actual implementation of effective schools research. School improvement programs should be school-based and "whole school"-oriented and dependent on outside…

Presents survey and case data from a study of knowledge use in United States schools and concludes that well-designed government-supported dissemination activities that focus on reaching schools rather than individuals may be one approach to capitalize on both internal and external pressures for school improvement. (MLF)

This paper reviews research on principals' and teachers' roles in site-based decision making (SBDM). Research examining teacher participation in SBDM is reviewed, finding that higher quality teaching behaviors and higher student academic attainment resulted from teacher participation. The review focuses on steps in implementing SBDM, means for…

Four school boards in Ontario, Canada, were selected for intensive case studies to examine the models, policies, procedures, and practices used to stimulate, support, coordinate, and assess the effectiveness of curriculum changes within their jurisdictions. The data collection consisted of (1) documents such as organizational charts,…