Introduction

Education decentralization has been a prominent feature of educational reforms across various nations, under the assumption that local problems require local solutions (McGinn & Welsh, 1999). However, in many countries, decentralization has been paradoxically accompanied by centralization in school governance and decision over curriculum and instruction, especially by the implementation of standardized accountability measures, which increase teacher and principal responsibilities and decrease their autonomy (Jeong & Luschei, 2018). Also, while some educational reforms that have relied on decentralization have had a positive impact in some schools, many others have struggled to develop the necessary capacity to improve (Wohlstetter, Malloy, Chau, & Polhemus, 2003). As a way to address this issue, researchers have highlighted networking as a good strategy to build teachers’ and principals’ capacities through collaboration between schools, promoting a systemic vision of educational improvement (Bryk, Gomez, & Grunow, 2010; Chapman, 2013; Muijs, 2010; Muijs, West, & Ainscow, 2010; Rincón-Gallardo & Fullan, 2016).