ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the potential of work in the field of 'school effectiveness and school improvement' to assist schools in providing better education for their pupils. It argues that they have made a specific, but limited, contribution. The chapter reviews the potential value of the ideas in helping practitioners think about, and achieve, better education. It extends Reynolds' thesis, arguing that studies of school effectiveness have very little to offer schools in general unless they are underpinned by an understanding of the processes of schools: of how particular processes lead to good or poor outcomes. The chpater explores W. Edwards Deming's ideas as one approach to creating organisational change which goes beyond merely describing changing organisations. It reviews the contribution that studies of school effectiveness might make to school improvement, and concludes that they are limited by the lack of an underpinning theory of how schools work.
