Superintendents' Perceptions of the Control and Coordination of the Technical Core in Effective School Districts

This is an exploratory study of the coordination, control, and assessment procedures employed by superintendents in effective school districts. Both the types of mechanisms and the extent of their use by superintendents to direct the activities of the technical core in these districts are reported. Findings indicate that a number of approaches are used by superintendents to coordinate curriculum and instruction and to control the work of principals and teachers. These findings suggest the existence of tight linkages between the managerial level and the technical core in these school districts. This is in contrast to the types of linkages that have been reported in research indicating that schools operate as loosely coupled systems.