Tight, Loose, or Decoupling? A National Study of the Decision-Making Power Relationship Between District Central Offices and School Principals

Do school district central offices and school principals have the same level of influence on school decisions? What does the district–principal power relationship look like? These two questions are discussed but are rarely examined in the literature. Based on a nationally representative sample from the 2007-2008 Schools and Staffing Survey data, we explored these two questions. Specifically, we applied the paired samples t test to compare the district central offices’ and school principals’ influences and applied the multilevel modeling method to estimate the power relationship. We found that (a) on average, districts and principals had the same level of influence on establishing curriculum, whereas school principals had higher influence on the other six decision areas examined (performance standards, teachers’ professional development programs, evaluating teachers, hiring teachers, discipline policies, and school budget), and (b) a tight coupling power relationship between district central offices and school principals was identified for the three areas related to the technical core of schools (performance standards, establishing curriculum, and teachers’ professional development programs), a loose coupling power relationship was revealed for the personnel (hiring and evaluating teachers) and budget areas, while a decoupling power relationship was found for discipline policy decisions. Discussions and implications for school leadership and policy were included in this study.