This article examines perceptions of an effective school considering relevant literature, teachers’, administrators’ and students’ judgments. It discusses effectiveness as it applies to private school systems operating in Turkey. It gives abridged aspects of the current Turkish Education System: state; and private. This perception, Eastern European, Quasi-Mediterranean, draws commonalities with Western systems lying groundwork for comparisons of universal problems faced by educators. The study employed qualitative case study methods and procedures. Data were collected through interview schedules, document analysis and observation notes. Results show that the subjects perceive ‘effective school’ qualities as being school leadership, school culture/climate and quality human resources. Commonality can be found between the situation presented here and other developing school systems.