Groups With Influence Over Decisions Related to Reform

Public school principals were asked to rate on a scale from 0 to 5 (where 0 indicated no influence and 5 a great deal of influence), the actual influence they thought that four groups-the state department of education, the local school board, local district administrators, and principals and teachers at the school-have on three types of decisions related to reform at their school. The decisions are establishing curriculum, developing content standards, and developing student performance standards.

In general, high ratings were given by principals to most groups over most decisions, with the local school board generally attributed less influence over each of the three types of decisions (Table 5 and appendix table B-10). For example, for decisions related to developing content standards for the school, similar percentages of principals attributed a moderate or great amount of influence to the state department of education, to local district administrators (both 86 percent), and to principals and teachers at the school (85 percent); and 69 percent attributed this level of influence to the local school board.