2005 Volume 47 Pages 13-23
The aim of this paper is to consider how the municipal boards of education should control their public schools and how the roles of school executives should be changed. Until recently, educational administration tended to emphasize strict control over school management by regulating the inputs and processes of school systems. However, as educational reforms are carried out based on the principles of decentralizaion, deregulation, and privatization, it has been suggested that the control over school management should depend on the evaluation of individual educational institutions. As the principles of educational administration and its social environment change, we can suggest new functions or roles of boards of education and schools executives. First, school executives need to set up new value criteria (school visions) so that public schools adjust to their environment both internally and externally so as to survive and develop. They must provide strong leadership in such directions as education, management, and politics. Moreover, they must also fulfill their responsibility for explaining to what extent their school visions or goals have been realized. Second, the boards of education need to fulfill especially their functions of policy and school evaluation as well as public school support, in addition to policy-making, while delegating their powers of practical school management to the public schools. Third, rather than abolishing the present system of the boards of education, it is better to maintain and reinforce this system by fully equipping the central offices with specialists in the field of educational policy-making, policy and school evaluation as well as appointing young people and women to the boards of education. It is more logical to say that local educational administration could be expected to function more effectively. Finally, the boards of education should strengthen their partnership with local municipal government, while exerting their independence.
