From Effectiveness to Excellence: Gap between Theory, Research and Practice in the School Management Excellence Program

The main purpose of this paper is to explain the gap in theory, research and practice in the school management excellence program, relying on the historical course of the school effectiveness movement since the 1960s until now. To achieve this goal, documentary research method was used. A review of historical events focusing on the school effectiveness movement suggests a quantitative and qualitative development of systematic activities to reduce the gap between theory, research, and practice. Effectiveness, excellence and improvement are the climax of these systematic studies throughout the history of educational reform. The main achievement of these studies is the creation of the school effectiveness knowledge, which, with evolutionary process, provided a clear picture of the effective school's image in convergence with excellence and improvement. Convergence and co-operation of experts, educational researchers and executives, as well as emphasis on the implementation of programs based on field-based research evidence is one of the most important implications of effective school studies. However, the adaptation of these achievements with the experience of educational reforms in Iran, especially the school management excellence program, suggests that there is no inconsistency between the observations made with the characteristics and considerations of the movement of effectiveness and the lack of effective and dynamic communication between the educational researchers, educators and policy-makers.