School Autonomy: A Comparison between China and the United States

This study examined and compared school autonomy in China and the United States. Based on the international PISA 2012 school data, the authors examined three aspects of school autonomy. We found that in comparison with the United States, (1) principals from China were less likely to have responsibility over eleven school decisions (hiring teachers, firing teachers, salary increase, budget formulation, budget allocation, disciplinary policies, assessment policies, student admittance, textbook selection, course content, and courses offered) and were similar in having responsibility over teacher start salaries, and (2) teachers from China were less likely to have responsibility over six school decisions (hiring teachers, budget formulation, disciplinary policies, textbook selection, course content, and courses offered), were more likely to have responsibility over two decisions (firing teachers, student admittance), and were similar in having responsibility over four decisions (teacher start salaries, salary increase, budget allocation, and assessment policies). We also found that schools in China had (1) lower responsibility for curriculum/assessment and lower responsibility for resource allocation and (2) a lower level of teacher participation/autonomy. The findings have implications for educational policy in China and the United States.