Integrating Site-Based Management and Effective Schools Research for Policy Development

Shared decision making is a central tenet of site-based management. Effective educational policy should be an outgrowth of this shared decision making and provide direction for educational practice. To this end, this article provides a sequentially integrated approach to policy development. By incorporating analyses of foundations of educational decision making, accepted practices of site-based management, sound educational research, assessment of policy values, and a disciplined decision-making process, campus management teams can provide the effective, proactive leadership that society and the educational community demand and deserve. The model outlined is designed to provide educational leaders with an enhanced context within which one can effectively integrate site-based management principles and effective schools research that will result in policies and practices for more effective schools.

Principals’ Instructional Leadership and School Performance: Implications for Policy Development

Currently, many districts and states are pursuing reforms that focus on holding principals accountable for school performance. While effective schools research has established that strong principal leadership affects school academic achievement at least indirectly, this relationship is more complex than originally thought. Personnel decisions about principal effectiveness made by educational policymakers or lay-controlled school site councils should be made only after careful consideration of research on the relationship between principal instructional leadership and school outcomes. This article presents data from a study to determine whether principal instructional leadership is predictive of school outcomes and discusses the implications of the research for developing school improvement strategies.

Lessons From the Field: Case Studies of Evolving Schoolwide Projects

This study describes changes that occurred in one of the nation’s largest urban school systems on the East Coast following passage of the Hawkins-Stafford Amendments. Case study methods were used to describe the central office and system role and changes at the elementary school level in selected sites. A major emphasis of central office framework for school wide projects (SWPs) was school-based management and instructional frameworks based on effective schools research. The primary type of instructional intervention at the school level was reduction of class size during reading and math instruction. School wide projects offer the potential for improving learning outcomes of disadvantaged students but require coordinated and direct support from the central office and district