Site-based management and school success: Untangling the variables

Site-based management (SBM) has received decidedly mixed reviews as a reform strategy. Although most scholars who have studied it note that this form of governance can be linked to some positive changes in culture or parent or teacher satisfaction, only a few have observed clear changes in student achievement that can be tied to site-level autonomy and shared decision-making within the school. The absence of learning effects may be due to problems in theories undergirding SBM, to weak or uneven implementation,, or to methodological problems in evaluative studies. In this study, researchers set out, not to evaluate SBM, but rather to understand how it worked in a school that, by many criteria, could be considered a success. After engaging in a year long, intensive case study at one urban elementary school, the authors concluded that four commitments, deeply embedded in the minds of educators and, to a lesser extent, parents, drove successful reform at this site. The central and organizing commitment was a kind of "learning imperative." Administrators and teachers were passionate and knowledgeable about learning and determined to do whatever it took to see that students and their families had optimal educational experiences. This imperative was buttressed and supported by three other "imperatives." Educators viewed themselves as members of a community and felt an imperative to interact in supportive and respectful ways. Most teachers, all administrators, and a number of parents, responding to a leadership imperative, willingly and actively took responsibility for life at the school, and administrators and teachers were determined to be guided by a capacity-building imperative which required that resources be aimed at promoting learning. Site-based management facilitated the ability of persons at this site to act on these imperatives. It did not, however, influence the quality of decisions to any great degree.