According to the concept of congruence in the system (Cheng,
1987c; Cheng, in press (d); Nadler and Tushman, 1983), there are
two kinds of congruence that can contribute to the discussion of
maximizing school effectiveness. One is the category congruence,
indicating the extent to which categories of school effectiveness
are consistent. High category congruence indicates that the higher
the effectiveness in one category, the higher the effectiveness in
the other categories; or, the lower the effectiveness in one
category, the lower the effectiveness in the other categories. Low
category congruence represents a negligible relationship among the
categories of school effectiveness. It means that high
effectiveness in one category does not necessarily mean high
effectiveness in the other categories. Furthermore, category
incongruence indicates an existing reverse relationship between
categories. The higher the effectiveness in one category, the lower
the effectiveness in the other categories. In general, we are
interested in maximizing both effectiveness and efficiency on the
five functions not only at the individual level and institutional
level, but also at the community level, societal level and
international level. If it is true, then category congruence may be
important in thinking about maximizing school effectiveness.
The other kind of congruence is the model congruence, referring
to the extent
