Making Schools Work : A Revolutionary Plan to Get Your Children the Education They Need (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Lydia G. Segal (Author) "The year was 1988, and William Bennett was secretary of education..." (more)
Key Phrases: weighted student formula, local school autonomy, central office bureaucrats, Los Angeles, New York City, Seven Keys (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Since the 1983 publication of A Nation at Risk, readers have been deluged with proposals for school reform. This work by UCLA management school "corporate renewal" professor Ouchi takes its place among them. Ouchi bases his theory on sound principles derived from his research into a variety of successful schools. Educational management systems should be entrepreneurial rather than bureaucratic, he says. Give principals real control over their budgets, empower parents as genuine participants in school decisions, and student achievement will soar, even in communities beset by poverty and high immigration rates, two usual indicators of school failure. Any useful management book must reduce complex issues to bullets, and this one is no exception: Ouchi's arguments, encapsulated in his "Seven Keys to Success," claim to "revolutionize" schools and lead to vastly improved student academic achievement. "Revolutionary" may be too strong a word here, and in fact, some of the pedagogical practices Ouchi highlights are dubiously retrograde (e.g., third graders "reciting the days of the week, the months of the year, and the number of days in a week, month, and year"). However, Ouchi doesn't prescribe any of these rituals; he merely advocates for the empowerment of school communities to choose what's best for their particular students. Of interest to school leaders and policy makers, the book also has a section devoted to what parents and community members can do to improve not just their school but their school district, where fundamental change is essential.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Ouchi, a professor of management, studied 223 schools in nine school systems to develop a theory on how to manage schools successfully. He focuses on public and Catholic schools in the three largest school districts (New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago) and compares them with three successful school districts (Edmonton, Canada; Seattle; and Houston). Ouchi boils down the successful elements to seven factors: entrepreneurial principals, budgetary control, accountability for performance and budget, delegating authority, focus on student achievement, community of learners, and real choice for families. Ouchi devotes an entire chapter to each key to success, drawing on his observations at the successful schools and comparisons with the nation's largest school systems. He concludes with a guide for parents to evaluate their children's school and practical recommendations on how parents and educators can adopt the key elements of success to their own schools and districts. This detailed and compelling look at effective school management will appeal to parents and educators alike. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743246306
• ISBN-13: 978-0743246309
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #519,284 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Is this guy talking about the same Seattle and Houston?, January 15, 2004

By	Melbrook "melbrook" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

I live in Seattle and have children in the public schools here (also, I'm an education activitist here). Dr. Ouchi has written quite a revisionist history of Seattle education and used some cunning tricks to do so. For example, on page 37 he states that it was reported by a local newspaper that our last superintendent, Joseph Olchefske,was to resign at the end of the school year. Immediately following that sentence he gives a reason why (making it look as though that is what the newspaper, the Seattle Times, reported). The reason, as Dr. Ouchi, states, was that the superintendent "had been criticized for moving too slowly to close small schools and reduce central office expenses". Nothing is further from the truth and if Dr. Ouchi had bothered to actually read either of our two local newspapers, he would know this. Our superintendent was ousted for mismanaging $34 million dollars (he was an investment banker and possibly could have done more but hey, it's only money). Dr. Ouchi tries to hide this information in another section of the book by calling them accounting errors. If only they had been simple errors!
He also tries to make it seem as if Seattle teachers, by voting more than 85% a no-confidence vote, were trying to get back at the superintendent for his work in changing the procedure for teacher removal. Again, untrue. Teachers voted against him because of his lack of ability in running the district. They were joined by the principals executive board and by so many parents that he was forced to resign. The only supporters he had left sat on the school board which promptly saw the majority overturned in the last election.
Couple this disinct penchant for fudging the truth to support his theories with the recent revelations in print and on television about the so-called Houston miracle makes this entire book suspect.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars School Reform 101, April 27, 2004

By	J. Camp (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Anyone who complains about public schools should read this book. It is going to be VERY important to the national dialog about how we pull up our socks and get busy making things better.

I know you are busy, so I encourage you to do a good old college-style "gut the book" exercise on this one. It reads well and is only as long as it needs to be (262 uncrowded pages). Speed-devour 100 pages a night and you can get the essence in 2 stints.

I've been voraciously consuming education reform literature, and this one is by far the best of the lot. It gives me a considerable sense of hope that Governor Schwartzenegger has read it and reportedly gave it to some people as a Christmas present. I suspect that this will be a book that many, many people read and talk about.

Prof. Ouchi worked with a team of researchers to analyze the organizations of hundreds of schools and districts, documenting trends in function and dysfunction and examples of turnarounds. He took the findings and synthesized them into seven "keys." He does a great, sensitive job of explaining how none of these alone is the magic answer -- rather, progress is made by working on all seven together. One of the super things about this book: it is very grounded in the reality that education is about people. He speaks to the reader as a potential reformer, and never gets highfalutin or pessimistic. He reminds the reader often that the people involved almost never WANT bad things to happen. Things just seem to work out that way when the organization is busted.

The "Keys" are:
1) Every Principal is an Entrepreneur
2) Every School Controls its Own Budget
3) Everyone is Accountable for Student Performance and for Budgets
4) Everyone Delegates Authority to Those Below
5) There Is a Burning Focus on Student Achievement
6) Every School Is a Community of Learners
7) Families Have Real Choices Among a Variety of Unique Schools

Another great thing about the book: it prepares you to get involved constructively in making YOUR school or district better. This is not just an academic exercise -- it's a plan for bringing better results.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Making Schools Work, October 13, 2003

By	Randall W. Roth, Senior Advisor for Education... (Honolulu, Hawaii United States) - See all my reviews

This book explains how the organization of a school system can affect student performance. It is filled with stories and data that are interesting, uplifting and compelling. I especially like Professor Ouchi's response to the question, "What makes a school great?" His Seven Keys to Success are "right on," in my opinion. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding why some schools and school systems work while others do not.