ABSTRACT
Performance management is a relatively new concept for administering public education systems. To many it simply connotes “managing to results,” i.e., student academic achievement. This perspective emerges in part from the urgent need to improve student performance and close the achievement gaps related to poverty and race, both as a moral goal and for the job skill needs of the knowledge-based, global economy. It also emerges from decades of school systems who focus largely on process and equity: is there due process, do struggling students receive extra help, does the system treat everyone-faculty, staff, and students-fairly?
