Following Snow's (1973) description of an "inductive" process of theory formation, this article addresses the organization of the knowledge base on school effectiveness. A multilevel presentation stimulated the conceptualization of educational effectiveness as an integration of system-level, school-level, and classroom-level…

In this commentary, the 3 review papers by Reynolds et al. (this issue), Muijs et al. (this issue), and Hopkins, Stringfield, Harris, Stoll, and Mackay (this issue) on "educational effectiveness", "teaching effectiveness", and "school and system improvement" are discussed. In the text, the 3 papers are occasionally…

From an international review of 109 school effectiveness research studies, only 6 could be seen as theory driven. As the border between substantive conceptual models of educational effectiveness and theory-based models is not always very sharp, this number might be increased to 11 by including those studies that are based on models that make…

Over the past 2 decades, a large number of countries have been engaged in the decentralization of decision-making to schools. Although the motives and incentives for school autonomy are often diverse, it is commonly believed that decentralization will enhance the quality of schooling. Based on a secondary analysis of data from OECD's Programme for…

Reviews models and theories on effective schooling. Discusses four rationality-based organization theories and a fifth perspective, chaos theory, as applied to organizational functioning. Discusses theory-embedded principles flowing from these theories: proactive structuring, fit, market mechanisms, cybernetics, and self-organization. The…

The Netherlands has a flourishing, quantitatively sophisticated effectiveness research base that seems relatively unused within practice and abused by the political sphere. Dutch studies evince context specificity (while failing to replicate some validated school-effectiveness factors), sophisticated theoretical formulation, multiple-level…

Examines empirical research on school in developing countries. Reports large between-school variance, strong influence of material and human-resource input factors, and limited impact of instructional conditions. Discusses contextual challenges to the school-effectiveness model. Explores the use of the school-effectiveness knowledge base for…

Discusses two types of studies that may strengthen the conceptual and theoretical basis of school-effectiveness research: foundational studies, aimed at resolving basic conceptual questions regarding the school-effectiveness construct; and fundamental studies, aimed at developing and testing of school-effectiveness theories available from the…

School-effectiveness research (SER) has an instrumental orientation. Although critics claim otherwise, SER researchers usually consider students'"innate" background characteristics when studying schools. Theory formation, foundational issues, and research viability are being addressed. The field is definitely alive and kicking, despite…