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Purpose: This study examines how district governance and different school contexts in Denver’s portfolio management model affect shared leadership for learning. We define this as shared influence on instructional leadership and school-wide decision making, which research suggests have strong ties to student achievement and teacher commitment. Method: We analyze interview data from 53 administrators, teacher leaders, and teachers in eight case study schools and teacher surveys in 48 schools. In both data sets, we purposively sampled based on variance in school performance ratings and by school type (e.g., traditional public, standalone charter, charter management organization [CMO], and innovation schools). Findings: We find that perceptions of shared instructional leadership were generally high across the school contexts, though CMO and innovation schools had the highest perceptions in both the survey and case study data. Schools varied substantially in shared decision making, but innovation schools had higher average scores than other school models. Centralized policies and supports, alongside organizational visions spanning networks of schools, helped explain the enactment of shared leadership for learning. For example, schools within Denver’s “innovation” network shared a common vision of teacher empowerment, while CMOs that had more prescribed policies and practices across their schools had lower reported levels of shared decision making. Implications for Research and Practice: Portfolio management models that prioritize school-based autonomy and choice between different kinds of schools are proliferating in urban areas. Our study helps explain why and how shared leadership for learning differs between school models and explores important implications for this variation.

Purpose: This study is primarily interested in the operational evidence of distributed leadership using large-scale and multicountry data. Specifically, this study investigates (a) how three position-based human units—the principal, the management team, and teachers—could lead nine school leadership functions together and (b) how the country and school contextual factors are related to the leadership distribution mechanism, which examines the associations among variables across national boundaries including 32 countries. Research Design: This study conducted a secondary data analysis using the 2013 Teaching and Learning International Survey. The researcher first constructed the latent variables to quantify the extent to which the three groups led the nine leadership functions. Then a resampling approach with balanced repeated replication weights was used to disclose the extent to which each group led each of the 17 leadership tasks. Finally, a structural equation model helped reveal the existing associations among contextual factors and distributed leadership operation. Findings: First, distributed leadership was reported by principals to exist in 25 countries, and there were seven distributed leadership patterns discovered among 32 countries included in the sample, though two patterns were revealed to have little leadership distribution. Second, this study found that the principal, the management team, and teachers led varied leadership functions. Finally, both country and school contextual factors were associated with how leadership was distributed. Conclusions: This study, using large-scale and international data, has added new evidence with a particular interest in the effects of contextual influence on distributed leadership practices.

Purpose: Our primary purpose is to examine the implementation of college- and- career- readiness content standards in Kentucky, Ohio, and Texas through the lens of distributed leadership theory, and to determine the affordances and challenges of this distributed leadership through the lens of policy attribute theory. Research Methods/Approach: We analyze data from 66 hour-long interviews of state and district administrators across the three states collected from Spring 2016 to Spring 2017. Using a deductive coding approach, we developed themes around distributed leadership as they pertain to the five attributes of policy implementation: specificity, consistency, authority, power, and stability. Findings: Using the distributed leadership and policy attribute theories, we find similar trends in state leaders distributing instructional leadership to regional, district, and organizational leaders to add specificity to the college and career readiness standards at the expense of compromising the consistency and power of the reform. This distribution of leadership is thought to contribute to the authority of the reform, though this authority is made tenuous by the instability of educational policies at the national and state levels. Implications: We highlight the need to examine the implementation of education policy using leadership frameworks and to understand leadership relationships between the state their regional and district partners. We extend the use of the distributed leadership theory beyond the K-16 level and the use of policy attribute theory to showcase where state actors can strengthen their reform initiatives.

Purpose: Applying an analytic model to better understand collective leadership development, this study examines three high schools: one urban, one suburban, and one rural. Each school’s unique structure and context tests the model’s explanatory power. Research Methods: Using a multiple-case study design, data consisting of interviews with teachers and administrators ( n = 64), document analysis, and observations were collected from each of the three high schools to describe and explain variation in collective leadership development, practice, and student outcomes. Findings: Schools’ efforts to develop leadership are organized for cross-case analysis by model constructs. Variation between schools exists in collective leadership capacity, practice, and student outcomes. This variation is explained by antecedent factors that include principal support of teacher leadership, initial teacher capacity, school conditions, work design, and leadership development experiences. Specifically, catalytic principal support, relational trust, professional capital, and views of leadership as work enhance development. Moreover, because of the iterative nature of improvement captured by the model, improved collective leadership practice influences the antecedent constructs. Implications: This study has implications for how schools and districts understand collective leadership development efforts of administrators and teachers. The analytic model facilitates the examination of school contexts to understand the potential and relative success of development efforts.

Purpose: Using the collective leadership framework, this study examines (a) how principals perceive their own influence and that of other key stakeholders in various school decisions and (b) how principals’ perceived influences of other stakeholders are associated with their own influence. Research Method/Approach: This study uses the nationally representative database of public school principals from the 2007 to 2008 School and Staffing Survey. A series of ordinary least squares regression models were estimated to examine how principals’ perceptions of decision influence were associated with principal characteristics, school contextual factors, and influences of other stakeholders. Findings: Among all the stakeholders, principals perceived themselves to have the greatest influence in school decisions in almost all key decision areas, while other stakeholders also exerted significant influences to different extents. Depending on the decision area, principals viewed other stakeholders’ influence as either supporting or inhibiting their own influence. For example, principals perceived influences from teachers and school districts as high and supportive. On the other hand, the influence of state agencies were perceived as generally inhibiting. In addition, collective leadership was more prevalent in some decision areas (e.g., setting standards and establishing curriculum) than others (e.g., hiring and evaluating teachers). Conclusions and Implications: School leadership does not have to be a zero-sum game. Principals’ decision influence does not necessarily diminish when other stakeholders gain more influence. Improving collective leadership and maintaining the right balance of decision influence among stakeholders and across decision zones have the potential to create a harmonious and high-functioning school environment.

Purpose: The study is focused on the question of how principals in Swiss compulsory schools evaluate civic and parental participation in education governance. Public management reforms in Switzerland have led to the implementation of semiautonomous school administration and the encouragement of professional leadership. Thus, the traditional role of school boards has come under scrutiny. Research Methods/Approach: Using the theoretical framework of actor-centered institutionalism, the study compares patterns of education policies in Swiss cantons and analyzes data of a principals’ survey by structural equation modelling. Findings: The views of principals concerning lay participation in school governance reveal a multifaceted picture. Principals affirm lay participation on the levels of the right to be informed, the right to be heard, and the right to volunteer; they regard with skepticism the authority of lay participants to make decisions. Implications for Research and Practice: Principals tend to insist on professional discretion and opt against the blurring of boundaries between schools and their social environment. This implies the self-justification of professional leadership. That such self-justification does not derive from a neutral perspective, but is an expression of stakeholder interests, has to be taken into account.

Purpose:This article presents findings from a study of six schools in the Together Initiative (TI), which facilitates increased school autonomy from districts and expands teacher decision-making authority. This study aims to understand how TI’s theory of action changed structures, cultures, and agency as the concepts of site-based management and expanded teacher decision making were interpreted and implemented by district and school leaders and teachers.Research Design:Data were collected over the first 2 years of the initiative using a concurrent mixed-methods design. Field notes from more than 200 hours of observations and transcripts of 231 semistructured interviews with stakeholders were coded using the constant-comparative method. Findings from qualitative data were triangulated with annual teacher survey findings.Findings:Implementation of TI varied across the six schools and depended greatly on school staffs’ existing relationships the district, principal support for decision-making structures, and the extent to which school cultures reflected trust and teachers were able to enact greater agency. Only two schools experienced moderate increases in site-based management and expanded teacher decision making; those that did not were missing at least one of these structural or cultural supports.Conclusions:At a time when charter schools are touted as an effective reform model, this article informs policy and practice on the original charter concept—autonomous, innovative district schools. Our findings suggest that creating contexts where site-based management can flourish is far more complicated than changing structures or establishing supportive school cultures.

Purposes: This study investigates the role of formal and informal leaders in the diffusion of external reforms into schools and to teachers’ practices. Formal leaders are designated by their roles in the formal organization of the school (e.g., principals, department chairs, and instructional coaches) and informal leaders refer to those who do not have any formal leadership roles but are nominated by other colleagues as influences on their instructional practices. In the context of implementing reading policies associated with No Child Left Behind (NCLB) 2001 legislation, this study aims to examine (a) how formal and informal leaders promote instructional changes through professional interactions with teachers and (b) which types of instructional practices are most responsive to which types of leaders. Research Methods: The authors analyze longitudinal data concerning both professional interactions about teaching reading and instructional practices of teachers and leaders in nine K-8 schools in a single state. Findings and Implications: Formal leaders convey influence on general teaching practices such as setting standards, selecting materials, and assessing students while informal leaders convey influence on specific pedagogical practices (e.g., the use of particular strategies for teaching basic reading skills). Findings contribute to the theoretical and methodological development of both distributed leadership and policy implementation within schools. Moreover, this study suggests the importance of and several strategies for developing a strong instructional leadership team that recognizes and supports the complementary influences of formal and informal leaders.

Purpose: Educational leadership is key to addressing the persistent inequities in low-income urban schools, but most principals struggle to work with parents and communities around those schools to create socially just learning environments. This article describes the conditions and experiences that enabled principals to share leadership with teachers and low-income Latino parents to improve student learning. Methods: This study used interviews, observations, and documents to examine the perceptions and experiences of the principals of three small autonomous schools initiated by a community organizing group in California. Data analysis was conducted in iterative phases using shared leadership, social capital, and role theories as lenses to identify themes, triangulate across data sources, and examine alternative hypotheses. Findings: Findings illuminate how a design team process initiated principals into a model of shared leadership with teachers and empowered parents that focused on deep relationships and capacity building. Principals enacted this model of the “principal as organizer” in the newly-opened schools, but they struggled to navigate conflicting leadership role expectations from district administration. Implications: Organizing approaches to education reform can cultivate shared leadership in principals and the capacity to partner with empowered, low-income Latino parents. District expectations and principals’ broader social networks may be critical in navigating and sustaining such leadership. Further research on districts that collaborate with community organizing groups may provide promising insights into the development of a new generation of educational leaders.

Purpose: This study examines policies set in the collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) negotiated between teachers’ unions and school boards and explores what kinds of districts have contract provisions that restrict district administrators, enhance administrative flexibility, and/or improve teachers’ professional work lives and that have contracts that are more restrictive overall. Method: The author analyzes a sample of 465 California CBAs and uses linear probability models to highlight the relationships between a set of 95 representative provisions and characteristics of districts that may make them “hard to staff.” A measure of overall contract restrictiveness is generated and used to assess the relationships between these district characteristics and contract strength. Findings: Some CBA provisions restrict district administrators, whereas others may provide administrators with greater flexibilities. In addition, many provisions serve to enhance teachers’ working conditions. Many of the most restrictive clauses are more frequently found in the contracts of urban districts and districts with higher proportions of minority and poor students. However, many of these same districts have contracts that include important flexibilities and provisions that may enhance teachers’ working conditions. Large and urban districts have more restrictive contracts overall, although districts with high proportions of poor and minority students do not. Implications: As policymakers consider renegotiating provisions within CBAs and diminishing the strength of CBAs themselves, it will be important to consider the specific regulations within CBAs and whether they truly constrain administrators or serve some other purpose and whether specific high-need districts are more or less harmed by the contents of CBAs.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to provide a better understanding of how instructional leadership responsibilities are distributed in International Baccalaureate (IB) schools in East Asia. Research Design: Case studies were conducted in five international schools located in Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and China. These schools were selected on the basis of location in East Asia, the offering of the full continuum of the IB’s three programs, and evidence of prior academic success. In total, 68 teachers and administrators and 25 students were interviewed. Qualitative analysis of the interview data was conducted using pattern coding. Findings: Three broad instructional leadership practices were identified: curriculum articulation, cross-program activities, and strategic staffing. These appeared to enhance curriculum consistency and coherence across the three IB programs, a problem that had been identified in full-continuum IB schools. The qualitative data suggested that distributed instructional leadership forged and sustained professional interactions among staff across programs and organizational units. Conclusions: IB schools globally are often structurally separated into two or three organizational units (e.g., primary, middle, high school). These units operate IB programs that, despite their common origin and international philosophy, employ distinct pedagogical and curricular approaches. The findings reinforce the importance of acting intentionally to distribute responsibilities for instructional leadership widely throughout the school. They also support the assertion that international schools offer a unique and fruitful context for studying distributed instructional leadership.

Purpose: This article describes and reports the results of testing a new conception of how leadership influences student learning (“The Four Paths”). Framework: Leadership influence is conceptualized as flowing along four paths (Rational, Emotions, Organizational, and Family) toward student learning. Each path is populated by multiple variables with more or less powerful effects on student learning. Leaders increase student learning by improving the condition or status of selected variables on the Paths. Research Methods: Evidence includes teacher responses to an online survey (1,445 responses) measuring distributed leadership practices in their schools ( N = 199) and variables mediating leaders’ effects on students. Grade 3 and 6 math and literacy achievement data were provided by the province’s annual testing program. The 2006 Canadian Census data provided a composite measure of school socioeconomic status. Path modeling techniques were used to test six hypotheses. Results: The Four Paths model as a whole explains 43% of the variation in student achievement. Variables on the Rational, Emotions, and Family Paths explain similarly significant amounts of that variation. Variables on the Organizational Path were unrelated to student achievement. Leadership had its greatest influence on the Organizational Path and least influence on the Family Path. Implications: School leaders and leadership researchers should be guided much more directly by existing evidence about school, classroom, and family variables with powerful effects on student learning as they make their school improvement and research design decisions.

Purpose: To fill the gap in theoretical and empirical knowledge on late career in principalship, the aim of this study was to explore the career experiences, needs, and behaviors of principals at this stage. Research method: Life history and semistructured interviews were conducted with 20 late-career principals, 20 schoolteachers, and 10 supervisors. The analysis followed the principles of qualitative research. Findings: The article presents an initial conceptualization of late career in principalship in terms of tasks and issues. Among these tasks are demonstrating professional competence and personal success and obviating continuous decline of physical and energies. Among the major issues are organizational commitment, personal energy, positive attitudes toward changes, a greater sense of professional competence, high self-confidence, and participative leadership style. Implications: Empirical implications for the educational system and the educational research are suggested. Researchers of educational systems are provided with new directions for research on late career in principalship.

The increasing emergence of participation in decision making (PDM) in schools reflects the widely shared belief that flatter management and decentralized authority structures carry the potential for promoting school effectiveness. However, the literature indicates a discrepancy between the intuitive appeal of PDM and empirical evidence in respect of its sweeping advantages. The purpose of this theoretical article is to develop a comprehensive model for understanding the distinct impacts of PDM on school and teachers’ outcomes. The proposed analytical framework is set within contingency theory and is aimed to predict the distinct impacts of PDM on school outcomes: innovation, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and productivity; and on teacher outcomes: job satisfaction and strain. It contains mediator-moderator components, where the mediator factors explain the relationship between PDM and school and teacher outcomes and the moderator factors influence the strength and/or the direction of these relationships. Specifically, the framework suggests that two mechanisms, one motivational and one cognitive, serve as mediators in the PDM-outcomes relationship. Then, by taking a multilevel perspective, the author posits moderators that may facilitate or inhibit the PDM effect: teacher personality (the Big Five personality characteristics) at the individual level, principal-teacher exchange (leader-member exchange; LMX) at the dyadic level, structure (bureaucratic/ organic) at the school level, and culture (individualism/collectivism) at the environmental level.

Purpose: This article aims to validate the Leadership Daily Practice (LDP) log, an instrument for conducting research on leadership in schools. Research Design: Using a combination of data sources—namely, a daily practice log, observations, and open-ended cognitive interviews—the authors evaluate the validity of the LDP log. Participants: Formal and informal leaders were asked to complete the LDP log for 2 weeks; observers shadowed a subsample of leaders in each school, 1 day per week. Analysis: Using the three sources of data, the authors analyzed interview responses (specifically, the participants' interpretations of the log); they matched log entries with observer recordings; and they compared (a) the characteristics of the social interactions that were entered into the log with (b) the overall sample of interactions that occurred while observers shadowed participants. Findings: The study shows that LDP log entries capture school leadership interactions as recorded by independent observers; it also demonstrates that study participants, with some exceptions, were not biased toward reporting certain types of interactions over others. Still, some log terminologies were problematic for participants, as was the limited sampling period of 2 weeks. Conclusions: The authors propose ways to (a) change the LDP log to reflect the concerns raised by participants in the cognitive interviews and (b) alter the sampling scheme to capture leadership around the school year. The LDP log is less costly and time-consuming than in-depth ethnographic studies, and it is an important tool for researchers who aim to collect data in schools, one that reaches beyond surveys.

Purpose: The current literature's call for a more ecological approach to violence theory, research, and practice stimulated the current study. This model postulates that teachers' willingness to engage in behaviors intended to tackle violence in school as part of their in-role duties (role breadth) will affect school violence. Specifically, the model examined the mediating role of teachers' role breadth in the relationship of the organizational-level factors of participative management and job autonomy with school violence. Method: Data were collected from a survey of 1,512 teachers and their principals at 119 elementary schools in the northern and central parts of Israel. Findings: The structural equation model confirmed the main hypotheses and indicated that for both job autonomy and participative management only the indirect paths (job autonomy—role breadth— school violence; participative management—role breadth—school violence) were significant. These results indicated that role breadth fully mediated the relationship between participative management and job autonomy and school violence. Conclusions: These results carry important practical implications for administrators to help schools cope with the phenomenon of violence. Understanding why teachers choose to broaden their role is important in decreasing school violence. Schools that encourage staff members to see themselves as part of the picture in all aspects of school functioning by involving them in the decision making process, and by providing them with opportunities for discretion, will benefit teachers who believe that student safety is possible and are willing to tackle the phenomenon of violence in schools as part of their in-role duties.

Purpose: This study sought to deepen current understandings of collaboration and leadership in the context of partnerships between diverse universities, schools, and communities. Using a critical epistemological perspective, the project specifically attempted to learn more about the processes employed by one particular partnership in the Western United States. To inform this process evaluation, the study's conceptual framework was rooted in tenets of Paulo Freire's (1970) concept of dialogue. Specifically, the study sought to reveal the extent to which the Freirean dialogical tenets of humility, faith, hope, and critical thinking were embodied in this collaborative process. Research Methods: Qualitative case study. Data Collection and Analysis: Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 17 participants, 25 observations, and analysis of relevant documents and archival data. After a process of open and axial coding, the findings were deductively analyzed using tenets of Freire's (1970) dialogue. Findings: The findings suggested that although the partnership's participants appeared to have intentions that were closely aligned with the tenets of dialogue, various factors inhibited the actual process from evolving as one that was comprehensively dialogical. Conclusions: It is asserted that in educational partnerships between diverse individuals and organizations, the onus is on those who occupy traditional leadership positions to ensure that equal participative opportunities are afforded to all interested parties. Several recommendations are offered to facilitate the creation of such collaborative structures.

Purpose: The study investigates how various accountability contexts—including states, local boards, districts, school site councils, parent associations, and teachers—affect the ability of principals to influence instructional and supervisory decisions in their schools. Data: Data for the analysis come from 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey responses of 8,524 elementary, middle, and high school principals in low-, moderate-, and high-control states. Principals responded to queries regarding their personal influence and the influence of various other policy actors on decisions in the instructional and supervisory domains in the principals’ schools. Analysis: To examine variation in principal influence within and between states, the study uses hierarchical linear modeling as its primary analytic technique. Findings: Results indicate that the various accountability contexts differentially affect principals’ influence, which also vary by domain, extent of state control, and region. Implications for Practice: Principals’ influence in both the supervisory and instructional domains is strongly related to that of teachers’ active participation in decision making, suggesting the benefits of mutuality in school leadership. Implications for Research: How do state accountability systems differ in relation to improving student achievement? How has an accountability-influenced learning process led to the reculturing of a school district and its schools?

Purpose: The contingency model theory suggests that the effects of a leadership style cannot be studied without explicit attention to the given situation. Accordingly, the authors propose a model that allows them to examine simultaneously the relative impact of participative leadership and directive leadership on teachers' performance through the intervening effects of three factors: job structuring (bureaucratic job structuring vs. person-job integration), decision domain (technical vs. managerial), and leader-member exchange (LMX). Method: Data were collected from a survey of 100 teachers and their principals at seven elementary schools in northern Israel. Results: The mixed models analysis shows that although the impact of directive leadership on teachers' performance was contingent in nature, the positive effect of participative leadership on their performance was above and beyond the specific conditions studied. Regarding the impact of directive leadership on teachers' performance, job structuring, decision domain, and LMX served as moderators in the directive leadership–teachers' performance relationship. Implications: These results offer a basis for ongoing conceptual development by helping researchers and practitioners to move from an either/or to a both/and leadership approach. Moreover, these interpretations take direction and participation to be interpersonal processes rather than stable personality traits.

The present study aimed to refine the participative management concept in schools by adopting a multidimensional approach. Specifically, the author examined simultaneously five dimensions of participative management: decision domain, degree of participation, structure, target of participation, and rationale. The data were obtained from a sample of 99 elementary school principals. The results of the present study highlight the readiness of principals to utilize participative approaches to decision making mainly out of pragmatic motives to achieve valued organizational results. Principals tended to involve teachers more in the technical domain than in the managerial domain mostly by using consultative methods of participation, and they preferred to include teachers based on their motivation rather than their expertise. The findings suggest that participative management is a complex concept that consists of several dependent yet distinct dimensions; therefore, its conceptualization and operationalization should be examined by themselves, before an investigation of their antecedents and consequences.

The article examines the effects of principals’ leadership style (transformational or transactional), principals’ decision-making strategy (autocratic versus participative), and teachers’occupation perceptions on teacher satisfaction from the job. More specifically, it attempts to find out how much of the variation in teachers’job satisfaction can be attributed to their perceptions of their occupation, as compared to their perceptions about their principals’ leadership style and decision-making strategy. A quantitative questionnaire using Likert-type scales was administered to 930 teachers in Israeli schools, of whom 745 responded. Path analysis was used to explain teacher job satisfaction by the exogenous variables. The most salient finding was that teachers’occupation perceptions strongly affected their satisfaction. Principals’transformational leadership affected teachers’satisfaction both directly and indirectly through their occupation perceptions. Implications of the study are discussed in relation to supervisors and principals, as well as to policy makers at the government level.

The December 1997 issue of Educational Administration Quarterly was devoted to the theme, “What will replace the comprehensive high school?” The articles were uninformed by a historical perspective on the American comprehensive high school. The authors of these articles ignored historic proposals for the comprehensive model and overlooked tensions between the ideal and reality of the comprehensive high school. Instead, the authors contrived a negative image of the comprehensive high school that served as a straw man against which restructuring measures were defined. In fact, each restructuring measure proposed by the EAQ contributors has precedents in the historic literature advocating the comprehensive high school. An alternative and ironic answer to the issue’s rhetorical question, then, is “the comprehensive high school.”

Greater collegiality among teachers is frequently suggested in the research literature as one way of improving decision making and problem solving in schools. In this article, we argue that this claim cannot be sustained without more sophisticated theorizing about the attributes of collegiality that promote quality decision making and problem solving. In the first part of our argument, we use a constraint inclusion theory of a problem to argue that the attributes of collegiality most frequently discussed in the literature are as likely to generate poor as high quality problem-solving processes and solutions. In the second part of the article, we illustrate this argument in a case study of collegial problem solving by identifying the precise processes that contributed to the quality of the problem solutions.

The problem-solving processes of seven superintendents with reputations of effectiveness were studied during regular meetings with senior administrative staff An information-processing orientation guided the coding of verbal protocol data collected through the use of a stimulated recall technique. Results describe superintendents' processes for interpreting problems and setting goals for their solution. Also described are their processes for dealing with constraints, the nature of solution processes, and the role of values and mood in superintendents' problem solving.

After identifying the aspects of classroom life that school restructuring might influence, this paper summarizes findings on school principals' perceptions concerning the potential effects of fundamental school reform. Because so little is known about principals' views on restructuring, an exploratory study employing qualitative methodology (indepth interviewing of a small sample) was used. Participants included 15 principals (2 women and 13 men) from public schools in New York, Illinois, and Tennessee. Findings were organized around the major areas of inquiry: conceptions of restructuring; potential impact of restructuring; prerequisites for successful implementation; and changes at the classroom and school levels. Generally, observed differences in principals' responses did not conform to patterns related to schooling level, geographic location, distciet context, or years of administrative experience. Principals felt that restructuring would have its greatest impact on the teacher's role. For themselves, principals forecast fewer decisions to be made by themselves, leading to a loss of power. Most principals felt that students would remain largely untouched by restructuring efforts. Principals' perspectives on radical change, restructuring goals, performance accountability, and curriculum and instruction are also discussed. Although the principals as a group were fairly supportive of restructuring, their beliefs emphasize the myriad difficulties associated with fundamental reform and its implementation. (34 references) (MLH) ************************************************:., ****wx************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best tnat can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** Restructuring Schools: Principals Perceptions of Fundamental Educational Reform

Changes in processes, problems, costs, and benefits develop when the decision-making prerogatives in a school are shifted from a hierarchical pattern to a participative one in which the principal shares power with teachers. A critical variable related to the success of a participative de cision-making mode is the congruence between attitude set-behavior mix of the principal and the teachers. Arthur Blumberg is Associate Professor of Education, Syracuse University, William Wayson is Principal of the Martin Luther King Elementary School, Syracuse, N.Y., and Wilford Weber is Assistant Professor of Education, Syracuse University.