This article analyses patterns of post 2000 governance in Israel’s education system. Drawing upon literature on educational regimes, governance in neo-liberal societies (for example, the UK and the USA), law-based educational reform and policy analysis, this study sets out to inquire how Israel’s system was governed with minimal legislation for 60 years. The main theme that emerges is that, although the forces that govern Israel’s landscape are similar to those in many post-industrialist western countries, the processes are quite different due to lack of decisive school reform, thus offering potential for a diverse setting, but with increasing distance from former equalizing and de-segregative vigour that portrayed the system in the past.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand how primary school principals in Israel cope with the gaps between authority and responsibility in their work, deriving from partially implemented decentralization processes, and how this relates to school-based management (SBM) and accountability principles. Design/methodology/approach Using the qualitative method, 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted with school principals from one district in Israel. Thematic analysis was used in order to identify themes in the interviews that enable creating codes for the characteristics of authority and responsibility and for the principals’ strategies. Findings Gaps were found between authority and responsibility, with particularly low levels of authority alongside high levels of responsibility. Coupled with the demand for accountability, those gaps led principals to adopt three strategies – active, partly active, and passive – to help reduce the tension resulting from them. The SBM definition has links to the specific strategy that principals used. Originality/value The results indicate the importance of clear definitions of authority and responsibility in principals’ work. The current study deepens the understanding of the gaps between these concepts as key for understanding accountability at decentralized schools; tensions that principals cope with as a result of those gaps; and the strategies that enable principals to ease the tension for the benefit of all those involved in the principals’ work.

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This article describes how school decentralization and restructuring policy in Israel is viewed by principals of autonomous schools. Like many western countries, the Israeli school system is going through reforms that include decentralization policies and school empowerment. Autonomous schools (Israel's version of restructuring) are the center of decentralization policy. In Israel, unlike some other countries, decentralization is characterized by informal changes, seldom accompanied by legislation, and therefore not followed by open public debate. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study among 50 principals of autonomous schools in Israel that explored the principals' insights or ‚mindscapes’ ( Sergiovanni, 1995 ) concerning decentralization and restructuring policy in Israel. The findings shed light on the possibilities and hardships that these principals face and on the complexity of implementing decentralization policies.