KENNAN N.

AZOR

School-Based Management
School-based management (SBM) is a strategy to improve education by transferring significant
decision-making authority from state and district offices to individual schools. SBM provides principals,
teachers, students, and parents greater control over the education process by giving them responsibility
for decisions about the budget, personnel, and the curriculum. Through the involvement of teachers,
parents, and other community members in these key decisions, SBM can create more effective learning
environments for children.

While there are many ways in which school-based management can be practiced, all forms are
based on the premise that the school site becomes the central locus of control in decision making. The
rationale behind SBM is that those who are closest to the primary business of schools will make the best-
informed decisions. The essential purpose of redistributing decision-making authority to increase the
autonomy of the critical stakeholders is to improve the instructional process and, although rarely stated,
student outcomes. SBM is frequently advocated on the grounds that it increases the accountability of
school-site personnel. Schools are forced to become more responsive to local needs through the inclusion
of parents and community members on decision-making committees. In exchange for increased
autonomy, schools are usually required to report the results of SBM efforts to the central administration.

The term "school-based management" has many variations—school-site management, school-site

autonomy, shared decision making, shared governance,

school improvement program (or project or process), school-based budgeting, and administrative
decentralization. In part because school-based management is intended to enable schools to respond to
local needs, it can vary greatly from school to school in three fundamental characteristics: the authority
that has been delegated, the resources (inputs) devoted to implementation of SBM, and the stated
objectives in introducing SBM.

The essential purpose of redistributing decision-making authority to increase the autonomy of the
critical stakeholders is to improve the instructional process and, although rarely stated, student outcomes.
SBM is frequently advocated on the grounds that it increases the accountability of school-site personnel.

Inputs to School-Based Management

A second characteristic that contributes to the final shape and scope of SBM in a given school or
district is the allocation of resources for program implementation. Very little specificity is given in the
individual SBM descriptions of these resources. Dollar resource estimates are mostly absent and, where
given, anecdotal. Three kinds of resources are referred to in establishing SBM—training of school
personnel, government or foundation funding, and new positions within the central administration or at
the local school site. In some cases, no such resources are provided; in others two are used; occasionally,
allocations are made in all three areas. There is simply no evidence in the published literature on which to
base cost estimates. Many school personnel indicate that lack of adequate time, funding, and training are
impediments to successful implementation, but the data available on both inputs and outputs make it
impossible to render a judgment on the efficiency of the current allocation of resources.

School-Based Management and Student Outcomes

Our review of the literature, as indicated earlier, revealed the general characteristics of SBM
efforts. The studies, and therefore their evaluations, concentrated on changing methods of governance and
changing relationships among the stakeholders as governance structures change. There is an implicit
assumption that, if the processes of decision making change, schools will be more effective instruments
for educating children. The studies were designed, however, to look at the effects of SBM on governance
processes, not educational outcomes, just as SBM efforts are designed to alter stakeholder relationships
via governance changes, not to change student performance.

Essentially, the large literature on the effectiveness of SBM ignored the effects on student achievement,
either because the SBM advocates do not regard achievement as an important output measure or because
there is faith that increased school discretion will increase student learning. As a result, there is little
evidence to support the notion that SBM is effective in increasing student performance. There are very
few quantitative studies, the studies are not statistically rigorous, and the evidence of positive results is
either weak or nonexistent.