Tight, Loose, or Decoupling? A National Study of the Decision-Making Power Relationship between District Central Offices and School Principals

Autor/inn/en	Xia, Jiangang; Shen, Jianping; Sun, Jingping
Titel	Tight, Loose, or Decoupling? A National Study of the Decision-Making Power Relationship between District Central Offices and School Principals
Quelle	In: Educational Administration Quarterly, 56 (2020) 3, S.396-434 (39 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Xia, Jiangang)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0013-161X
DOI	10.1177/0013161X19851174
Schlagwörter	Decision Making; School Districts; Power Structure; Principals; Standards; Faculty Development; Teacher Evaluation; Teacher Selection; Discipline Policy; Budgets; Central Office Administrators; Board Administrator Relationship; Kindergarten; Elementary Secondary Education + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Decision-making; Entscheidungsfindung; School district; Schulbezirk; Principal; Schulleiter; Standard; Teacher appraisal; Lehrerbeurteilung; Disziplinarmaßnahme; Finanzhaushalt
Abstract	Do school district central offices and school principals have the same level of influence on school decisions? What does the district-principal power relationship look like? These two questions are discussed but are rarely examined in the literature. Based on a nationally representative sample from the 2007-2008 Schools and Staffing Survey data, we explored these two questions. Specifically, we applied the paired samples t test to compare the district central offices' and school principals' influences and applied the multilevel modeling method to estimate the power relationship. We found that (a) on average, districts and principals had the same level of influence on establishing curriculum, whereas school principals had higher influence on the other six decision areas examined (performance standards, teachers' professional development programs, evaluating teachers, hiring teachers, discipline policies, and school budget), and (b) a tight coupling power relationship between district central offices and school principals was identified for the three areas related to the technical core of schools (performance standards, establishing curriculum, and teachers' professional development programs), a loose coupling power relationship was revealed for the personnel (hiring and evaluating teachers) and budget areas, while a decoupling power relationship was found for discipline policy decisions. Discussions and implications for school leadership and policy were included in this study. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01