Acknowledgments Certainly the time has come to examine performance contracting in depth. Educational resources are limited. The need for effective educational planning is great. Unless we go beyond gross descriptions and general recommendations to establish the role of performance contracting in the context of educational planning and to blueprint its integration with other resource allocation techniques, its potential costs may be obscured and its potential benefits unrealized. Thus, The School Executive's Guide to Performance Contracting is a timely publication. It is the culmination of the cooperative efforts of scores of people. While the American Association of School Administrators assumes full responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation in this report, it gratefully thanks the many people who gave generously of their time and energy to participate in the AASA-AERA conference on performance contracting, funded by the United States Office of Education. The Association owes its gratitude for the highly pertinent and up-to-date annotated bibliography to James Mecklenburger, Indiana University. Special appreciation is extended to Stanley Elam, editor, Phi Delta Kappa, and William J. Ellena, deputy executive secretary, AASA. These men, in cooperation with the American Educational Research Association, conceived the original project and were responsible for the preparation of this report. Performance Contracting The pressures for change in public schools have never been greater. Taxpayers want more for fewer dollars, while school personnel bargain for increased wages. Governmental agencies and minority groups demand that minority-group children receive equal (not necessarily identical) educational opportunities; parents and community groups want to be involved in the planning and operation of schools; and pressures for accountability multifaceted and real. Performance contracting has been suggested as one feasible solution to many of these problems. are We believe that performance contracting allows schools to experiment with and validate new learning systems with low risk and costs. We do not believe it has demonstrated total cost savings in overall school budgets, although it may do so in specific areas. We support the application of the concept by school districts with adequate evaluation so long as it is perceived as a means for effecting positive change. 1972 AASA Resolution Preface Herman Melville in Moby Dick painted a vivid picture of Captain Ahab down in his cabin late at night seated before his screweddown table with a battered roll of yellowish sea charts spread before him. In the shifting gleams of light from the heavy pewter lamp that swayed with the motion of the ship, he traced lines and courses on the wrinkled chart that would lead through the maze of ocean eddies and currents to the habitat of the great sperm whale. So intent and so completely absorbed was Captain Ahab in his task that the furrows of his leathery face seemed to become part of the tracing on the chart. Every true leader must pause from time to time to check his bearings and to chart a course. The superintendent of schools is no exception. Through consultation with his associates he must establish purposes, fix goals, and decide upon a course of action. Without such planning his efforts and the efforts of those to whom he is responsible as a leader may be nothing more than aimless wandering that leads to nothing and to nowhere. As a program is planned answers are sought to such questions as: What purposes or goals should set the course of action? What problems or issues should be given priority? What will be attempted? What will be done? Where is the point of beginning? The answers to these questions will be rooted deeply in the maze of forces and issues that face the school from every side and that come to the superintendent's office for consideration and decision. These forces and issues constitute the climate in which the school operates. They give character to curriculum content and to instructional methods, and they must be reckoned with in the policy formation of every school district whether it be large or small. Recent years have seen increasing attempts to apply modern management techniques to the problems of educational administration. Educational planners, in particular, have made continuing efforts to adapt for school systems certain modes of resource allocation-such as Planning-Programming-Budgeting that originally developed in industry and government. Unfortunately, hard-pressed school administrators sometimes have seen such alternatives as panaceas, have applied them indiscriminately, and, consequently, have undermined their potential benefits. School systems may be reacting in a similar way to the newest and most provocative of these approaches-performance contracting. Performance contracting has aroused the interest of the educational community for several reasons: • First, it seems to hold some answers to the persistent 7 |