Research " SITE BASED MANAGEMENT: A DESIGN PERSPECTIVE " doc

At Organizational Analysis and Practice, Scott focused on two areas: assisting school districts with planning and implementing shared decision making programs; and assessing the efficacy

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A DESIGN PERSPECTIVE

A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School

Scott Charles Bauer spent his first eighteen years living in Carle

Place, a small community on Long Island, and was a graduate of Carle

Place High School, class of 1976 After spending a year recuperating

from injuries sustained in an automobile accident that occurred on Labor

Day weekend during his freshman year, Scott attended the New York

State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University,

from which he earned a Bachelors of Science degree in January 1981 and

a Masters of Science Degree in August 1983 Scott took a leave of

absence from Cornell in 1984, and joined the staff of Organizational

Analysis & Practice in as an Associate He became a partner at OAP in

1988 At Organizational Analysis and Practice, Scott focused on two

areas: assisting school districts with planning and implementing shared

decision making programs; and assessing the efficacy of school district

administrative structures in supporting the implementation of total quality

management In 1994, Scott returned to full-time graduate study at

Cornell Over the past decade, Mr Bauer has worked on a wide variety

of research and consulting projects dealing with the organizational design

of professional service organizations, and has contributed papers to

scholarly journals in education and organizational studies

ili

I hardly know where to begin First, I want to acknowledge and

thank the individuals in each of the research sites I studied for their

knowledge and expertise, their cooperation, and their trust I owe them a

debt of gratitude for their ability to share their experiences and concerns,

for their openness and willingness to work with me as a researcher and

consultant, and for their sincere desire to improve their organizations

From the outset, my goal has been to find ways to integrate theory and

practice; they helped me at least begin to see that this is a desirable and

worthwhile goal, and one which they support

Second, I want to thank my colleagues at Organizational Analysis

and Practice (OAP), specifically Stephen Mitchell, Joseph Shedd, and

Rose Malanowski I will not try to describe how much I learned from

these characters, nor how much I enjoy their insights, our conversations,

or their company Each contributed a large part of what I now consider

my “professional self.” Our work in the Cooperative Relationships

Project, especially, and our training and research projects involving

shared decision making and total quality in individual school districts, are

evident in this work Each and every day I benefit from having worked

with them and use something that they taught me Many times,

throughout this project, I got on the phone to bounce an idea off of them,

and received as feedback an insight that propelled me a little closer to

where I wanted to be They have the capacity and the ability to help me

(and many others) think, and I treasure our conversations as learning

iv

experiences almost as much as working with them in the field

Third, I owe a million thanks to my special committee members:

Professors Samuel Bacharach and Lawrence Williams, and Dean David

Lipsky From Sam, who got me into this mess in the first place,

(something I credit him with, not blame him for), I have received ongoing

friendship, support and encouragement, and the benefit of his uncanny

ability to sit down with me for just a few minutes and alter how I look at

something in its entirety Likewise, Larry and David have been

encouraging and supportive for a long time, and I thank them for this and

for their wisdom I continue to learn from each of our discussions, and in

very important respects, both have been role models for me and have

contributed to my development in immeasurable ways I also want to

thank all three for their patience For years, Sam has asked, “So when are

you going to get serious about this?” Thanks for allowing me the luxury

of being able to complete this when I felt I was able to do the kind of job

I wanted to do

Finally, I want to thank my friends and family for their

encouragement and love My long-time friends on Long Island, Mark

and Nancy, and in Ithaca, Mike and Donna, kept me somewhat sane with

their encouragement and good humor, and my newer friends, those who

shared an office with me while I was writing (Paul and Vanessa, Dave

and Cindy, etc.), attempted to drive me crazy at the same time by looking

over my shoulder and asking, “Are you done yet?” While they were at it,

they all gave me pats on the back (when I needed it most)

I want to especially thank Peggy Beers for daily support, hugs, and

V

doubt whether I would have had the patience she had or the fortitude to

put up with my craziness (e.g., stopping conversations mid-stream to run

up to the office to jot down some notes or scribble a diagram)

Likewise, I want to acknowledge the love and companionship of

Mickey, Stewart, and Alexander, (whom I miss daily.) The fact that they

are kitties in no way diminishes their contribution to my work (especially since Mickey developed the habit of assisting me whenever I used my computer at home, sometimes adding her two cents by walking on the keyboard)

My parents, Julius and Hildreth, my sisters and their spouses, Joan, Jay, Amy, Lynn, and Tom, and their children, (my nephews and niece),

David, Maureen, and Jared, continue to let me know that they are proud

of me, (even if they secretly - or not so secretly - think I screw my life up

just a little bit) Throughout, they let me know that they are there for me whatever I want to do

The words “support” and “encouragement” are repeated over and over in these acknowledgements, perhaps because I am out of new words;

more likely, it is due to the fact that a lot of people have been there for

me for a very long time I chose not to dedicate this to anyone in particular, not because I am ungrateful, but because I am truly grateful to

so many

In a true sense, my work in organizational theory and design, my

research and consulting work in schools, and this dissertation, are

collective products I cannot imagine having completed this without the

vi

| |

have neglected to single out here in writing I hope they forgive me for

this

Finally, I take full responsibility for the work presented here; any

errors or omissions are mine alone

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Biographical Sketch 6 cece eee e eee cent e eee e eee n nes ili

Acknowledgments - sẽ nh nh nh nh nhỉ iv

List of Tables - sen nh nh nh nh nh th iX

List ofFigures -. {sẽ nh nh nhe nh nh nh nh nh nhớ Xx

Chapter 1 Introduction -<< ch nh nhỉ 1

Chapter4 Site Based Management: Definition and Rationale 89

Chapter 5 Does Site Based Management Work? 121

Chapter6 Metro: Operationalizing Site Team Processes 155

Chapter 7 Metro: Do Team Processes Matter? 182

Chapter 8 Designing Site Based Systems ‹ 212

Chapter9 Design Process Data - cà nỉ nỉ 258 Chapter 10 Design Questions: Focus ‹-‹ccỉ 314 Chapter II Design Questions: Scop© -.‹‹ {ch c 341 Chapter 12 Design Questions: Structure ‹-‹- 372

Chapter 13 Design Questions: Process cà ị 444 Chapter 14 Design Questions: Support - ‹‹‹c{c 473 Chapter 15 Summary and Conclusion: A Process Theory of Site Based Manapement_ - - - - - 504

Bibliography << nỈ nhe nh nh nh nh nh nh nhớ 520 damit igre tegen ee

Table 6.1

Table 6.2

Table 6.3

Table 6.4

Table 6.5

Table 6.6

Table 7.1

Table 7.2

Table 7.3

Table 7.4

Table 7.5

Table 7.6

Table 8.1

Table 11.1

Table 12.1

Metro Survey Response Rate by School 164

Metro Survey Distribution of Respondents 165

Metro Survey Resource / Support Factors . 170

Metro Survey Design Factors - - - - 174

Metro Survey Effectiveness FacfOrS - - 179

Metro Survey Descriptive Statistics of Factors 180

Zero Order Correlations for Variables in the Regression AnalysÌS - «nh nh nh nhớt 189 Regression Analysis Equation Ì - - 199

Regression Analysis Equation 2 - - - 200

Regression Analysis Equation 3 - 202

Regression Analysis Equation 4 -.-. 204

Regression Analysis Equation 5 ‹ - 205

A New Compact for Learning Strategic Objectives 216

Potential Areas for Site Team Decision Making 352

Stakeholder Group Representation on Site Teams 391°

ix

Figure 8.1 Figure 8.2 Figure 11.1 Traditional Design Approach Figure 15.1 A Process Model of Shared Decision Making

LIST OF FIGURES

Summary of Regression Hypotheses . - Relationships between Effectiveness in Promoting Infuence and Design Factors - - Relationships between Effectiveness in Improving

Decision Making and Design Factors

Relationships between Effectiveness in Improving Educational Services and Design Factors

Relationships between Satisfaction with Council and Design Factors {nhà Relationships between Satisfaction with District Program and Design Factors

Overview - Shared Decision Making Design Process

The Role of Focus in Design

6 6 8 8 Ằœ 65m ® neve een o neve ©

“^^

Public schools in this country changed little over the past century

in terms of their basic structure The education system was created to

meet the needs of an industrial society; indeed, the schools adopted many

features of the factory model that emerged at the turn of the century.!

This model served the country well for the better part of the century, both

in industry and in education, but most agree that it has outlived its utility

More precisely, the world has changed in such fundamental ways that the

organizations designed for the needs of an industrial society must be

transformed to meet the needs of a new age

The current education reform movement arose largely from the

recognition that the country’s economic health increasingly depends on a

well educated workforce.? The same environmental forces challenging

American business and industry contributed to the sense that the schools

were not doing their job preparing students for the 21st century In

addition, a constellation of forces contributed to the emergence of

education as a dominant issue on the national agenda, among them the

changing nature of the family, changes in workforce needs, and changes

in the make-up of the school age population Whatever the reason, the

consensus was that schools must improve

'David Tyack, "Schoo! Governance in the United States: Historical Puzzles and Anomalies,"

in Decentralization and School Improvement:_Can We Fulfill the Promise? ed Jane Hannaway and

Martin Carnoy (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1993)

“Michael Cohen, Restructuring the.Educational System:_Agenda for the 1990's, (Washington,

DC: National Governor's Association, 1988)

In the initial period or “wave” of the current reform movement,

change was mandated That is, the traditional bureaucratic structure of

the school system was reinforced by imposing top-down changes such as

standardized curriculum and testing, teacher competency examinations,

and merit pay schemes The states were the most active players in

reform There was an unprecedented volume of activity in this initial

period, but the evidence suggests that the impact on teaching and learning

was negligible? Mandated change did little to affect classroom activity

The more recent period of reform, generally referred to as the

restructuring movement, is based on the assumption that the traditional

structure of “smokestack education” undermines educational

effectiveness.> Along with its virtues, schools inherited the inflexibility

and resistance to change endemic to large-scale bureaucratic systems

Many of the failures of the first wave of reform reflect the fact that there

is only so much change possible within the structure of the traditional

school system At a time when broad agreement exists on the need to

fundamentally redesign education to prepare students for the information

age,® a more flexible and adaptable structure is needed

In contrast to the assumptions of the first wave reformers, those

3Susan H Fuhrman, Richard F Elmore, and Diane Massell, "School Reform in the United

States: Putting it into Context,” in Reforming Education: The Emerging Systemic Approach, ed

Stephen L Jacobson and Robert Berne (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc., 1993)

4yamieson A McKenzie and David M Ruetschlin, Administrators at Risk: Tools and

Technologies for Securing Your Future (Bloomington, IN: National Educational Service 1993)

5Jerome M Rosow and Robert Zager, with Jill Casner-Lotto and Associates, Allies in

Educational Reform: How Teachers, Unions, and Administrators.Can_Join Forces for Better Schools

(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, Inc., 1989)

SJohn C Hill, The New American School: Breaking the Mold (Lancaster, PA: Technomic

Publishing Co., 1992) For a discussion of the reform movement, see chapters two and three

—

who support restructuring believe that the problem with schools is not the people working in them - administrators, teachers, students and other stakeholders in the education process - but the system itself:

The schools are filled with intelligent, conscientious, even

idealistic people eager to be effective The problem is that the system they are caught in - schools as we still organize and run

them, prevailing notions of curriculum and instructional methods,

the existing allocations of responsibility and authority - has become obsolete For all the changes around us, the American school today is more as it was in 1900 or 1950 than it is different

And what worked in the 1900's will not work in the 2000's Either

we will make now the fundamental changes needed in the ways we raise and educate our children, or we can begin the slide into a darker and less prosperous time.’

The school as an organization must be redesigned to fulfill new purposes

Furthermore, the locus of change cannot be the statehouse; instead, a

central tenet of the restructuring movement is the need to make the school the center of change.® Rather than imposing reform from above,

stakeholders at the school level must be involved in designing and implementing reform

Since the beginning of the second wave of reform, there has been near universal agreement that teachers, parents, principals, and other school staff should be more involved in making decisions on educational matters A series of commission reports published in the late eighties

“The University of the State of New York, The State Education Department, A New.Compact

for Learning: Improving Public Elementary, Middle, and Secondary Education Results in the 1990's (Albany, NY: The University of the State of New York, The State Education Department, March 1991), pp 1-2

8enneth A Sirotnick, "The School as the Center of Change," in Schooling for Tomorrow:

Directing Reforms to Issues That.Count, ed Thomas J Sergiovanni and John H Moore (Boston: Allyn

and Bacon, 1989).

4 endorsed the notion of site based management,’ as did associations of

teachers and administrators.'° Expanded use of employee involvement in

industry during the eighties no doubt contributed to the interest in

decentralizing change in education.'’ Employee involvement has been

called the number one strategy in creating the change sensitive

organization," and has been associated with the creation of “learning

organizations”? and total quality systems.’ The use of team structures,

including quality circles, semi-autonomous work teams, and cross- functional teams, has been on the rise.'®

See, for instance, National Governor’s Association, Time for Results: The Governor’s.1991

ion (Washington, D.C.: National Governor’s Association Center for Policy Research and Analysis, August 1986); Education Commission of the States, What’s Next? More Leverage for

Teachers? (Denver: Education Commission of the States, July 1986); Carnegie Commission on

Teaching as a Profession, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century (Hyattsville, Md.:

Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, May, 1986); Holmes Group, Tomorrow’s Teachers:

A Report of the Holmes Group (Lansing, MI: The Holmes Group, Inc., April, 1986)

l0council of Chief State School Officers, Success for All in a New Century: A Report by the

Council of Chief State School Officers on Restructuring Education (Washington, DC: Council of Chief

State School Officers, 1989); National Association of Secondary School Principals / National Education

Association, Ventures in Good Schooling: A Cooperative Model for a Successful Secondary School

(Reston, VA: NASSP, NEA, August 1986); National Education Association, Site-Based

Decisionmaking: The 1990 NEA Census of Local Associations (Washington, DC: National Education

Association, Research Division, 1991)

LÍ Tosenh Shedd, Involving Teachers in School and District Decision-making (Ithaca, NY:

Organizational Analysis and Practice, Inc., 1987)

12att Hennecke, “Toward the Change-Sensitive Organization,” Training, 28, no 5 (May

1991), 54-63

\3pavid A Garvin, “Building a Learning Organization,” Harvard Business Review, 71, no 4

(July-August 1993), 78-91

lstanley J Spanbauer, A Quality System for Education: Using Quality and Productivity

Techniques to Save Our Schools (Milwaukee: ASQC Quality Press, 1992)

ge, for instance, Richard S Wellins, William C Byham and George R Dixon, Inside

Teams: How 20 World-Class Organizations Are Winning Through Teamwork (San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1994), and Glenn M Parker, Cross-Functional Teams:_Working with Allies,

Enemies.and Other Strangers (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1994).

In education, support for the notion that the schools must be

empowered change agents in the school improvement process has been

advocated for decades.'® In fact, over 60 years ago, Buchholz concluded

that giving teachers the control they need to structure educational

programs to meet the needs of their students was a pedagogical

necessity.!7 In 1940, Cillie found that decentralized educational systems

exhibited greater adaptability and flexibility than centralized systems,

and that they were more responsive to the needs of their students."

Studies of educational problem solving and decision making in the fifties

and sixties consistently showed that the opportunity to actively

participate in decision making enhanced the likelihood that policies

would be supported,’® and many schools have a long history of involving

staff in policy development through participation on committees and task

forces.”

More recently, interest in promoting decision making participation

grew after release of the Rand studies of educational change in the mid-

seventies,2! which found that unless the individuals ultimately

\6sirotnick, "The School as the Center of Change.”

M7 Heinrich Ewald Buchholz, Fads and Fallacies in Present-Day Education (Freeport, NY:

Books for Libraries Press, 1931)

18Erancois S Cillie, Decentralization or Centralization?_A study in Educational Adaptation

(New York: Teachers College Press, 1940)

Sherry Keith and Robert Henriques Girling, Education, Management,.and Participation:

New Directions in Educational Administration (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1991)

291osenh B Shedd and Charles Read, "School Committees and Shared Decision Making: Are

We Reinventing Wheels?" The Council Journal, 11, no | (April 1994), 89-102

21 nonna K Crawford, Richard J Bodine, and Robert G Hoglund, The School for Quality

Learning: Managing the School and Classroom the Deming Way (Champaign, IL: Research Press,

1993)

6 responsible for implementing change are involved in the change process,

the change will not be permanent The effective schools research of the

- Jate seventies and early eighties identified school decision making

structures as associated with more effective schools, as well,” expanding

the interest in adopting team-based participation structures at the school

level

It should come as little surprise, then, that adoption of site based

management” has been widespread A recent survey of state education

departments showed that 44 reported adopting some type of site based

management or shared decision making program A survey of National

Education Association locals showed that 30% reported use of some form

of site based decision making, with another 15% reporting that their

district was in the planning phases of implementation.” A recent survey

by the American School Boards Journal indicated that 70% of the

22S ce Janet Hageman Chrispeels, Purposeful Restructuring: Creating a Culture for Leaning

and Achievement in Elementary Schools (Washington, DC: The Falmer Press, 1992); Stewart C

Purkey and Marshall S Smith, "Too Soon to Cheer? Synthesis of Research on Effective Schools,"

Educational Leadership, 40, no 4 (December 1982), 64-69

235 later chapters will demonstrate, terminology is an issue in the study of decentralized

decision making in education For simplicity, the term “site based management” will generally be used

throughout this work

24 Janice L Herman and Jerry J Herman, “A State by State Snapshot of School-Based

Management Practices,” International Journal of Educational Reform, 2, no 3 (July 1993), 256-262

States like Kentucky, Texas and New York have mandated the adoption of some form of site based

management, while others have endorsed the idea by initiating pilot programs or providing incentives

to districts for adopting a program See, for instance, West Virginia Education Association, WVEA-

AEL Site-Based Decisionmaking Casebook: A Joint Study, Available: ERIC (ED 332331), 1991;

Task Force on School/Community Based Management, School/Community-Based Management:_Final

Report (Honolulu, HI: Task Force on School/Community Based Management, 1989)

25National Education Association, Site-Based Decisionmaking

respondents felt that their district practiced site based management.”

Another survey, this time of members of the Council of the Great City

Schools, showed that 85% of the nation’s largest districts implemented

some form of site based management,”” among them several high profile

pilot projects such as those in Chicago and Dade County (Miami) Florida

Other countries have adopted some form of site based management as

well, including Australia and Great Britain.* Recently, the concept of

faculty and staff participation in decision making was also endorsed by

its inclusion in the Baldrige National Quality Award Education Pilot

Criteria? A “quality” school system is one in which faculty and staff

participate in making educational decisions

While there is widespread support for the concept of site based

management, the literature reveals that there is skepticism regarding

whether restructuring decision making can fulfill the promise of

promoting school improvement Studies of the implementation of

various forms of site based management show that there is seldom an

?6Thomas H Gaul, Kenneth E Underwood and Jim C Fortune, “Reform at the Grass Roots,”

The American School Board Journal, 181, no | (Jan 1994), 35-40

27 Sarrel Drury and Douglas Levin, School-Based Management:_The Changing Locus.of

Control in American Public Education (Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and

Improvement, 1994)

28posalind Levacic, “Local Management of Schools: Aims, Scope, and Impact,” Educational

Management and Administration, 20, no 1 (1992), 16-29; Gilbert Austin and David Reynolds,

“Managing for Improved School Effectiveness: An International Survey,” School Organisation, 10, no

2-3 (1990), 167-178

29 Mfalcolm Baldrige National Quality Award - Education Pilot Criteria 1995 (Gaithersburg,

MD: U.S Department of Commerce, Technology Administration, National Institute of Standards and

Technology, 1994)

8

explicit connection between the practice and school performance.*°

Likewise, studies fail to show much support for the connection between

the implementation of site based management and intermediate benefits

such as improved morale, stakeholder influence, and the use of quality

planning practices.”!

The literature on site based management is itself deficient in many

regards First, even as researchers assert that site based management is

poorly defined and that there is no single, best approach to implementing

the process, a single model is stressed This model defines site based

management as devolving authority over issues relating to budget,

staffing, and certain aspects of curriculum to the school site, normally to

a council made up of the building principal, teachers, other school staff

and parents By stressing this definition, researchers and practitioners in

effect promote devolving administrative decisions to the site council,

resulting too often in confusion over the goals of site based management

and the role of site administrators in a collaborative system

Second, there are few systematic studies of the implementation of

collaborative decision making processes Most of the literature consists

of advocacy pieces associated with a district’s implementation of the

process, plan descriptions, and anecdotal accounts of “what works."32

3Cohen, Restructuring the_Educational System

3 See, for instance, Jane L David, “Synthesis of Research on School-Based Management,”

Educational Leadership, 46, no 9 (May 1989), 45-53; Karin M Lindquist and John J Mauriel, “School

Based Management: Doomed to Failure?” Education and Urban Society, 21, no 4 (August 1989),

403-416; Betty Malen, Rodney T Ogawa and Jennifer Kranz, "Unfulfilled Promises: Evidence Says

Site-Based Management Hindered by Many Factors,” The School Administrator, 47, no.2 (Feb 1990):

30-32, 53-56, 59

> Betty Malen, Rodney T Ogawa and Jennifer Kranz, "What Do We Know about

School-Based Management? A Case Study of the Literature - A Call for Research,” in Choice and

9 The ambiguous nature of the subject, and the fact that different sites

define “site based management” differently makes it difficult to compare

studies The commission reports advocating adoption of decentralized

decision making offer no suggestions as to the steps needed to implement

it° and the literature on site based management seldom addresses the

implementation process itself,>* focusing instead on reviewing extant

programs in terms of their progress in meeting stated goals

The overwhelming consensus in the literature on existing site

based management programs is that districts and schools seldom fully implement site based systems.” Issues of “insufficient capacity” are

most often cited as explaining the failure of site based management

“Capacity” equates to district support for site teams in terms of providing

authority, training, time, information and other resources necessary to

team operation Districts rush to implement site based management

without considering what it takes to make the transition from traditional

decision making structures Nevertheless, a growing number of

researchers conclude that educators need to rethink their support for site

Control in American Education, volume.2: The Practice of Choice, Decentralization and School

Restructuring, ed William Clune and John Witte (London: The Falmer Press, 1990)

33Sharon C Conley and Samuel B Bacharach “The Holmes Group Report: Standards,

Hierarchies, and Management,” Teachers.College Record, 88, no 3 (Spring 1987), 340-347

34 fatthew B Miles and Karen Seashore Louis, "Mustering the Will and Skill for Change,"

Educational Leadership, 47, no 8 (May 1990), 57-61 A similar gap in the research on employee

involvement in industry is noted in John L Cotton, Employee Involvement:_Methods for Improving

35wohlstetter, Priscilla and Allan Odden "Rethinking School-Based Management Policy and

Research." Educational Administration Quarterly 28: 4 (Nov 1992): 529-549

36Carl D Glickman, “Pushing School Reform to a New Edge: The Seven lronies of School

Empowerment,” Phi Delta Kappan, 72, no | (Sept 1990), 68-75.

10 based management as a reform strategy

Gaps in Site Based Theory and Research

This perspective is seriously flawed First, as Stewart Purkey

observed, it is illogical to conclude from an examination of poorly implemented site based management programs that the process is not

worthwhile.” The literature says more about how districts and schools

enact site based management than about the process itself, or as Sarason

pointed out: “Good intentions married to good ideas are necessary but

not sufficient for action consistent with them.”

Second, the inability to compare different site based management

processes speaks volumes about a huge gap in the literature, one that calls

into question the conclusions about the efficacy of site based

management as a reform strategy Too often, the actual process of site

based decision making is treated as a “black box” by researchers Studies

seldom describe exactly what school site teams do when they implement

site based management Instead, studies look at sites after implementing

the process to determine if espoused outcomes were reached, or

alternatively researchers examine sites with site based management and

compare them to sites without, but again, they are compared in terms of

outcomes Most studies focus, then, on support issues to explain variance

in attainment of outcomes Seldom are the actual processes used by site

teams factored into the picture; the “black box” represents what actually

37 Stewart C Purkey, "School-Based Management: More and Less than Meets the Eye," in

Choice and Control in American Education, volume.2:_ The Practice.of Choice, Decentralization and

School Restructuring, ed William Clune and John Witte (London: The Falmer Press, 1990)

38 Seymour B Sarason, The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform: _Can We Change

Course Before It's Too Late? (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1990), p 99

occurs at the school site

The behavioral sciences have two broad functions: first, to

describe phenomena being studied in the empirical world, and second, to 3 establish theories by which these phenomena may be explained and

predicted.” Theory may be defined as a statement of relationships

among units observed or approximated in the empirical world;

approximated units are constructs that are assumed to exist, and observed

units are the variables that are operationalized by measurement A theory

is considered to be useful if it can both explain and predict

Bacharach states that a frequent problem with organizational

theory is that incomplete theoretical systems are used to make

predictions, even though they do not provide adequate explanations of

the empirical reality in question.” It is my contention that the theory

dealing with site based management can be similarly criticized Site

based management theory is underspecified in the sense that important

aspects of practice are unaccounted for in both descriptions of the

phenomenon and in explanations of the relations between various aspects

of implementation The theoretical systems proposed lack sufficient

scope; they fail to account for dimensions of site team process, in

particular

Put another way, theory on site based decision making deals on the

level of construct The literature includes a description of the broad

factors that must be considered in explaining and predicting the

39gamuel B Bacharach, “Organizational Theories: Some Criteria for Evaluation,” Academy

of Management Review, 14, no 4 (Oct 1989), 496-515

phenomenon, along with some propositions regarding the relation

between these factors, but theorists seldom deal at the level of variables

and measures The literature lacks a vocabulary to discuss site based management at the level of variable, and this results in an inability to create sound models that reflect the complexities of practice

Instead of considering site based management as a unitary concept involving the decentralization of authority over budget, staffing, and

curriculum to site councils, it is argued that it is best to view site based

management as an exercise in organization design The design of site based processes represents a strategic choice process; each district and

school implementing site based management must determine the best

“Fit” between different practices and the organization’s goals, existing structures and processes, human resource capabilities, district history and experience with collaborative processes, and other factors in the

organization’s context

Four broad sections are presented Chapters two through five present a review of the literature on restructuring and site based management The similarity between environmental pressures acting on private sector organizations and their responses to these pressures, on the

one hand, and the pattern of the current education reform and

restructuring movement are first highlighted, followed by a review of the

specific literature on the implementation of site based management

Chapters six and seven present research on site based team

practices based on an evaluation of a large, Midwestern city’s site based

pilot program Factor analysis is used to analyze survey data to first

develop measures of site team decision making and communication

processes, and these measures are then used in regression analysis to

determine whether process variables are important predictors of the

perceived effectiveness of site councils

Chapters eight through fourteen present the results of an action

research process used with New York State school districts to construct

site based management processes under the state’s recent mandate In

recognition of the fact that site based management processes will differ

from district to district, the design metaphor was used with district level

planning teams to construct a process that each district subsequently

implemented District planning teams discussed and weighed the

potential answers to a series of “key design questions” in order to

develop their own site based management process Taken as a whole, the

use of this methodology uncovered the critical variables hypothesized by

teams as important to their success in implementing site based

management Additionally, the development of the methodology itself is

important to the success of site based management; using the key

questions, each team was able to determine whether various practice

options would be suitable for their organizational culture and history

“One best program” was replaced with a design that organizational

14 insiders felt “fit” their district, and in the process ownership was built

Thus, the design process represents a methodology that not only allows

the creation of a site based plan tailored to district needs, but also suits

the practice of sharing decision making in the sense that the plan is

designed collaboratively using a process that emphasizes authentic

dialogue among stakeholders.”

Finally, in the last chapter, a process theory of site based decision

making is proposed based on the survey and action research studies

presented The process theory is speculative; it has not been

operationalized and tested Nonetheless, it is important to move in the

direction of developing a comprehensive theory of site based

management that overcomes the liabilities of the extant literature; thus,

the theory proposed incorporates a focus on student performance and

achievement and considers team processes as important to both team

success and individual participants’ motivation to engage in change

activities

Contribution of This Work

The research presented is intended to contribute to the research

literature by adding to our understanding of the role of site team decision

processes and the operationalization of site based management Using

organizational design as a metaphor for structuring school districts’

strategic choice of site based management practices, the variables that are

critical to the implementation of site based management, and which need

4l carol H Weiss, "Shared Decision Making About What? A Comparison of Schools with and

Without Teacher Participation,” Teachers College Record, 95, no 1 (Fall 1993), 69-92

to be incorporated into theory, are uncovered, and various design choices

are developed This helps not only to clarify various aspects of the

practice of site based management, but also provides researchers with an

expanded vocabulary for categorizing and discussing the impact of these

variables on outcomes The design process helps develop an

understanding of the role of the district in promoting restructuring and

school based change, as well, a subject that has been largely unexplored

in the literature on site based management

Taken as a whole, this research is intended as a response to the call

for the development of a “theory of practice”” or “practical theory.”

Bacharach and Mitchell observed that organizational theorists tend to

develop broad, overarching theories that are applicable to all

organizations, with little attempt to see how these theories apply

empirically in daily organizational life.“* To a large degree, cognition,

volition and self-interest of individual actors or interest groups are

ignored in favor of describing common patterns across organizational

contexts In contrast, researchers in education administration tend to rely

on detailed empirical descriptions of school organization rather than

developing broad theory; case studies are the preferred methodology for

describing the idiosyncrasies of school systems

““Thomas l Sergiovanni, "Developing a Relevant Theory of Administration,” in Leadership

and Organizational Culture: New Perspectives.on Administrative Theory-and Practice, ed Thomas J

Sergiovanni and John E Corbally (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984)

43g amuel B Bacharach and Stephen M Mitchell, “The Generation of Practical Theory:

Schools as Political Organizations,” in Handbook of Organizational Behavior, ed Jay Lorsch

(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1987)

“4 pid,

Thus, neither organizational theorists nor educational researchers

have achieved the ideal of a practical theory Organizational

theorists’ fondness for developing general models limits

applicability of their work to the study of schools as organizations

At the same time, an overemphasis on idiosyncratic aspects of

schools also works against the generation of knowledge useful to

both scholars and practitioners What is needed is a middle ground

that recognizes the unique properties of schools as organizations

and develops general theories based on these properties

The challenge is to find the appropriate balance Practical theory must |

generate a theoretical understanding of schools as organizations that

applies broadly while remaining sensitive to the specific properties of

school systems.** It must emphasize both expanding the knowledge base

and improving practice; this involves stepping beyond the “what is”

question of the researcher and venturing into the practitioner’s normative

question, “what ought to be.”””

Researchers in educational administration have long recognized

this dilemma There is widespread agreement that there is a gap between

research and practice, and that educational research often has very little

impact on practice.** The present work attempts to strike the balance

needed to generate practical theory first, by establishing broad

propositions regarding the critical variables using traditional research

methodology, and second, by using an action research methodology to

45 tbid, p 410

46B acharach, “Organizational Theories ”

47 Sergiovanni, “Developing a Relevant Theory of Practice.”

48p obert Boostrom, Philip W Jackson, and David T Hansen, “Coming Together and Staying

Apart: How a Group of Teachers and Researchers Sought to Bridge the 'Research/Practice Gap,”

Teachers College Record, vol 95, no 1 (Fall 1993), 35-44

more fully articulate these phenomena in collaboration with

organizational “insiders.” The methodology itself insures that the

research is relevant to practitioners by involving them as knowledge

creators in the research process, guided by the structure of the key

questions and strengthened in terms of generalizability by employing the

method at many sites

Rosow and his colleagues warned: “The road to educational

reform is paved with slogans and buzzwords, well intended but

dangerous Phrases such as teacher empowerment, participation, school-

based management, and the like are attractive, but putting these ideas into

practice can as readily frustrate as advance the attainment of desired

goals.” If concepts like site based management are to be more than

buzzwords, the gap between research and practice must be narrowed

Researchers cannot settle for generating vague theories at the level of

“construct,” but instead must articulate theory relevant to practice at the

level of “variable.” Practitioners need to be involved in the production of

knowledge as well as its consumption

“2Rosow et al., Allies in Educational Reform, p 15

REFORM The beginning of the current reform movement is dated to the

publication of the National Commission on Excellence in Education’s

report, A Nation at Risk, in 1983.' The impetus for reform was primarily

economic; the belief that America was losing ground to the Japanese,

Germans, and other economic competitors was connected to the

education system’s apparent inability to produce literate and numerate

graduates.” The assumption was that the nation’s preeminence in the

sciences, mathematics, technology and commerce was threatened by a

mediocre education system,’ and furthermore, that restoring the schools

to their former level would be instrumental in regaining our competitive

edge The maintenance of high living standards was directly correlated to

improving our education system.‘

The supposed “total collapse” of the education system has been

INational Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation.at Risk: The Imperative for

Educational Reform (Washington, D.C.: U.S Government Printing Office, April, 1983)

Joseph Murphy, “Restructuring America's Schools: An Overview," in Education Reform in

the '90's, ed Chester E Finn, Jr., and Theodor Rebarber (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company,

1992) See also Michael W Kirst, “The Crash of the First Wave: Recent State Education Reform in

the United States, Looking Backwards and Forward,” in Education Reform: Making Sense.of it All, ed

Samuel B Bacharach (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1990)

3carol Ascher, The_1993 Educational Reform Reports, ERIC/CUE Digest Number 22 (New

York: ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education, May 1984)

‘Stanley J Spanbauer, A Quality System for Education: Using Quality and Productivity

Techniques to Save Our Schools (Milwaukee: ASQC Quality Press, 1992)

18

debunked as grossly overstated;’ in fact, there is considerable support for

the notion that the schools are doing well, given the societal problems

with which they contend Schlechty, for example, stated that schools are

doing a much better job of meeting yesterday’s standards of preparing a

workforce for factory jobs Schools are not less efficient than they once

were; instead, they have been asked to take on tasks they were not

designed to take on.° Bracey makes this point in his fourth report on the

condition of public education, when he lists the most pervasive school

problems of yesterday’s schools along with those of today’s:

The catalogue of horrors for the 1940's included, in order, talking,

chewing gum, making noise, running in the halls, getting out of

place in line, wearing improper clothing, and not putting paper in

wastebaskets The list for the 1980's was dramatically different:

drug abuse, alcohol abuse, pregnancy, suicide, rape, robbery, and

assault.’

Furthermore, Shanker reminds us that a return to the “good old days” of

schooling would mean a return to seventy percent dropout rates, a

relatively small percentage of graduates going on to college, and

inequitable treatment of minorities, among other things

Whether schools are viewed as a cause of the country’s economic

woes, a source of salvation, or both, the current reform movement can be

pauline B Gough, “Moving Beyond the Myth,” Phi Delta Kappan, 76, no 2 (October 1994),

p 99

ỐPhillip C Schlechty, Schools for the Twenty-First Century:_Leadership Imperatives for

Educational Reform (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1991)

7Gerald W Bracey, “The Fourth Bracey Report on the Condition of Public Education,” Phi

Delta Kappan 76, no 2 (October 1994), p 115

8 4 Ibert Shanker, "Reforming the Reform Movement," Education Reform:._Making Sense_of It

All, ed Samuel B Bacharach (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1990)

¬

nn

seen as part of a broader transition affecting all organizations, the

transition to the post-industrial age or “information age.”” Just as private

sector firms must adjust to the new economic realities associated with

this transition, schools, too, must make adjustments to be compatible with

changing environmental conditions

Educators tend to ignore the experiences of organizations in the

private sector, often vehemently arguing that schools are so different

from profit-seeking enterprises that there is nothing to learn from them."

While it is obvious that schools differ from private concerns in certain

fundamental regards, an examination of trends in industry show that it is equally obvious that educators can learn a great deal from organizations’

experiences in the private sector There is a striking similarity between

the response of private sector firms to the emerging demands of the

information age and the patterns of the present education reform

movement For instance, David Kearns observed that the bureaucratic

responses to environmental pressures that epitomized the first wave of

educational reform might have been predicted by looking at trends in

industry a decade earlier: “To an extraordinary parallel, schools are

doing just what American business did in the late sixties and seventies -

instead of genuine restructuring, new labels were applied and

management grew rapidly.”'! Instead, just as industry was abandoning

? Austin D Swanson, "Restructuring Educational Governance: A Challenge of the 1990's,"

Educational Administration Quarterly, 25, no 3 (Aug 1989), 268-293

10 muel B Bacharach and Sharon C Conley, “ Education Reform: A Managerial Agenda,”

Phi Delta Kappan, 67, no 9 (May 1986), 641-645

‘penis P Doyle, Bruce S Cooper, and Roberta Trachtman, Taking Charge: State Action_on

School Reform in the 1980's (Indianapolis: Hudson Institute, 1991): p v.

highly centralized approaches to change, education reformers adopted

them.”

Environmental forces associated with the transition to the

information age are acting on all social institutions and organizations To fully understand the impact of these forces on education, it is beneficial

to consider the broad context in which reform is occurring, the pressures leading to reform and restructuring in industry, and the response of organizations in the private sector to these pressures In particular, this informs the later discussion of site based management by framing the emergence of employee participation and total quality management as a strategic responses to the need for organizations to create flexible and adaptable organizational structures

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a context for the

discussion of educational restructuring and site based management A brief historical review of the development of schools and their purpose in American society follows The current trends leading up to widespread restructuring in industry will then be juxtaposed against the initial wave

of the education reform movement Special attention will be paid to the forces contributing to the trend toward implementing participation

practices in both organizational contexts

Schooling in America: A Brief History

"Education restructuring is best understood in its historic context The reason schools need to be restructured is because they no longer fit the needs of post-industrial society “Given that our present system of

l2chanker, “Reforming the Reform Movement."

schooling was designed to meet the needs first of an agrarian rural society and then an urban industrial society, it should not be surprising to find

there is a need to redesign our schools.”

The “common school” of the last century emerged in an agrarian society, and served its needs by training citizens and inculcating a sense

of morality and civic duty The purpose of the common school was to

“preserve and transmit the fundamental truths on which the republic was

founded; the truths were rooted in the heritage of Western civilization.”"’

Hundreds of thousands of common school “districts” emerged as settlers crossed the nation Governance of the common school was similar to a town meeting Even in cities, school governance was decentralized to the ward structure.'5 The school was considered a place of virtue, akin to a place of worship Common culture served to standardize instruction more than administrative or political centralization."®

In contrast to the common school of the 19th century, which

focused on imparting a sound basic education and promoting a common culture, the schools of the early 20th century were asked to serve

different purposes as well as a different student population As the

United States became a nation of immigrants, schools were called upon

to sort and Americanize and to determine students’ potential for carrying

3g chiechty, Schools for the Twenty-First Century , pp 34

4G Alfred Hess, Jr., "Decentralization and Community Control," in Reforming Education:

The Emerging Systemic Approach, ed Stephen L Jacobson and Robert Berne (Thousand Oaks, CA:

Corwin Press, Inc., 1993): p 74

'Sgwanson, "Restructuring Educational Governance "

l6David Tyack, "School Governance in the United States: Historical Puzzles and Anomalies,"

in Decentralization and School Improvement: Can We Fulfill the Promise? ed Jane Hannaway and

Martin Carnoy (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1993).

out the work of an increasingly urban industrial society The modern high school and vocational school emerged to fit these demands, to track students into their appropriate caste.”

Centralization of schools emerged with urbanization of American society, and the school district emerged out of the combination of former ward level school governance structures.* Turn of the century reformers sought to depoliticize schools, to take governance away from local

politicians and ward bosses, and put them in the hands of professionals

In the process, they also sought to define the “standard” school system

“Tf there was ‘one best way’ - and these reformers believed that there was

- then centralized authority and expert administration were necessary to its implementation.””

The last decade of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th saw an incredible degree of centralization of schools The number

of school systems dropped from literally hundreds of thousands to approximately 15,000, the same number that exists today Ward boards were eliminated in cities, and the number of individuals sitting on boards

of education in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants dropped from

an average of 27 to seven New, specialized central office functions emerged, as well To illustrate, in 1889, the average city district had four employees who spent the majority of their time supervising, whereas by

1920, New York City had over 1,300.”

17s chiechty, Schools for the Twenty=First Century

185 wanson, "Restructuring Educational Governance ”

l2 Tvack, "School Governance in the United States ,” p 14

A teacher became a person certified under state law to practice teaching,

a high school a separate building where teens spent a certain number of hours a day studying certain courses for roughly an hour at a time

Accountability was defined as conforming to standard practice States

schooling, and perhaps most importantly, while all this occurred, the classroom remained largely self-contained and insulated from above

Characteristics of schools as loosely coupled systems, with administrative structures decoupled from the technical work activity of the

organization” were institutionalized The “schooling rules” were born.”

Schlechty suggests three metaphors that characterize the various

purposes of schooling during this transformation.” During the Common School era, the school was a “tribal center.” The school’s purpose was to induct children into the community, the teacher acted in loco parentis,

?2John W Meyer and Brian Rowan, “The Structure of Educational Organizations,” in

Organizational Environments:_Ritual and Rationality, ed John W Meyer and W Richard Scott

(Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992); John W Meyer, W Richard Scott and Terrence E Deal,

“Institutional and Technical Sources of Organizational Structure: Explaining the Structure of Educational Organizations,” in Organizational Environments:_Ritual and Rationality, ed John W

Meyer and W Richard Scott (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992)

24cchlechty, Schools for the Twenty-First Century

and parents entrusted their children to the care of the school Teachers took a symbolic (if not literal) vow of poverty, and were in turn treated with reverence, and the principal or “principal teacher” as a minister of

school emerged as an assembly line, with tracks for fast, modified, and

slow learners The image was that students were products to be molded, their background providing the raw material, and the teacher a worker or technocrat, the holder of knowledge and deliverer of a service Over

time, as schools became larger and more differentiated, curriculum

experts assumed the role of preparing “teacher proof” curriculum and materials In Tayloristic fashion, “thinking” was separated from “doing.” The principal in the factory school was no longer a tribal leader or

minister, but instead a manager Skills of supervision became key

More recently, during the post-war period, rapid expansion of

suburban school systems and a concurrent decline in urban schools led to

further centralization in the name of equity.”> Federal laws and court

25 swanson, “Restructuring Educational Governance " See also Margaret L Hadderman, State vs, Local Control of Schools, ERIC Digest Series Number 24 (ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management, Eugene, OR, 1988).

decisions required desegregation and fought sexism, Public Law 94-142 mandated services for the handicapped, the courts required assistance for non-English speaking students, and various funds were earmarked for services to underprivileged youth.” The image of the school promoted during this period is that of school as “hospital.””’ If the legitimate role

of the school is to redress the inequities of modern society, then

specialized professionals like social workers and psychologists must play

a role in educating Poor and rich alike deserve the same services, and to

place them on equal ground, the school must assume new and different roles such as feeding, clothing, and treating the needs of the

underprivileged Educators responded with the creation of new

administrative offices to coordinate these programs Accountability for these new services became accounting, literally tracking federal and state funds as they passed through the system Over this period, as regulations and the development of categorical programs targeted the needs of neglected groups of students, local control over education was greatly diminished2® This is reflected in the states’ expanded role in financing education: until 1979, local districts’ aggregate share of finance on

education exceeded the states’, and by the beginning of the current

reform movement in 1983, the local districts’ proportion had declined to

26T yack, "School Governance in the United States ”

28michael W Kirst, “Who Should Control the Schools? Reassessing Current Policies,” in Schooling for Tomorrow: Directing Reforms.to Issues That Count, ed Thomas J Sergiovanni and

John H Moore (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1989).