Partnership as an Intervention Strategy in Self-Managing Schools

The alternatives of taking over failing schools or handing over resources for them to develop their own improvement strategies are recognized as ineffective in achieving improvement. When deciding how best to intervene in 26 self-managing schools, the Ministry of Education in New Zealand attempted to avoid the negative consequences of these alternatives by developing a partnership with the schools and their communities. This article documents both the difficulties experienced in the first intervention phase, dominated by concerns about respecting the schools’ autonomy, and the successes of the second phase, when the Ministry was more explicit about the school improvement tasks.