School-based management (SBM) decentralizes control from the central district office to individual schools as a way to give school constituents -- principals, teachers, parents, community members, and in some schools, students -- more control over what happens in schools. Proponents of SBM argue that increasing the involvement of school-level stakeholders in managing schools will increase the capacity of schools to improve by increasing stakeholders' ownership and accountability for school performance. It is further argued that through SBM, a broader range of perspectives will be taken into account in the decision-making process, thereby producing decisions better tailored to the needs of the local school community. These potential outcomes are strong inducements. As a result, more and more school districts are turning to school-based management as a centerpiece for their improvement efforts. However, as educators, parents and the public are discovering, some districts and some schools are experiencing greater success than others in implementing SBM. While some schools are using SBM to redesign the school organization to accomplish an educational vision, other school communities are stuck on power issues like whether the principal should have veto power and who should serve on the site council, and on housekeeping issues like who should have access to the copy machine.

When SBM is adopted, site councils usually are created at the school site to make decisions about programs and resources. In some schools, the structure and composition of the council is decided by the district or even by the state, while in other schools, the school itself can determine the composition of the council. Whether established at the district, state or the school-level, most councils are composed of administrators,