How autonomous should schools be? Research based on teacher opinions

<p>The study intended to contribute to the quality of schools and teachers with the help of suggestions obtained from data and to shed light on regulations in school autonomy. Qualitative research method, which was thought to be more convenient to examine cases in depth, was used in this study and phenomenology was adopted. In order to provide maximum diversity, twenty four voluntary teachers were chosen from pre-school (5 teachers), primary school (7 teachers), secondary school (7 teachers) and high school (5 teachers). Following results were obtained related to more effective school management: Decisions related to teacher dismissal and dismissal of other staff should be taken by upper educational managers and not by schools; schools should be given full autonomy in making decisions about duties and responsibilities of school managers, giving overtime to teachers and other staff, paying for additional courses, choosing school managers, appointing substitutes for absent teachers and other staff and deciding the duties and responsibilities of teachers and other staff. Before schools and teachers are provided with more autonomy, effective, sufficient and qualified school managers should be selected, trained and assigned. Financial issues should be audited externally and controlled carefully.</p>

Do Principals Fire the Worst Teachers?

This article takes advantage of a unique policy change to examine how principals make decisions regarding teacher dismissal. In 2004, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Chicago Teachers Union signed a new collective bargaining agreement that gave principals the flexibility to dismiss probationary teachers for any reason and without the documentation and hearing process that is typically required for such dismissals. With the cooperation of the CPS, I matched information on all teachers who were eligible for dismissal with records indicating which teachers were dismissed. With these data, I estimate the relative weight that school administrators place on a variety of teacher characteristics. I find evidence that principals do consider teacher absences and value-added measures, along with several demographic characteristics, in determining which teachers to dismiss.