THE JAPANESE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Online ISSN : 2187-5278
Print ISSN : 0387-3161
ISSN-L : 0387-3161
Article 10 of the Fundamental Law of Education and School Board Restructuring
Yoshimi Tsuboi
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JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

1998 Volume 65 Issue 4 Pages 343-353,422

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Abstract

In the 1990s the National Ministry of Education has been trying to shift from centralization to decentralization. But the contents are only the redistribution of some educational administrative affairs from natioal level to prefectural and municipal boards of education. In other words the Japanese educational decentralization policy does not include any shift of decision-making power from school board to the school building level. We have protected teacher's professional autonomy by saying that teachers instruction in a school should be distinguished from administration by the school board. Actually this explanation is based upon the Article 10 of the Fundamental Law of Education which stipulates as follows: Education shall not be subject to improper control, but it shall ve directrly responsible to the whole people. School administration shall, on the basis of this realization, aim at the adjunstment and establishment of the vatious conditions required for the pursuit of the aim of education. According to the legal principle of the direct responsibility of education to the whole people, teachers' professional autonomy should be balanced with people's participatory right to education especially at the school community level. Many countries have already tried devolution of most decision-making authority to the school community leve. In America the community control movement in the 1960s emerged as a major challenge to the unrepresentative bureaucratic school goverment. New York City eventually created 31 elected community school boards in 1970. In the late 1980s Chicago also developed further a more decentralized system. Each school is governed by a Local School Council(LSC), an elected body that consists of six parents, two community representatives, two teachers, one student in high schools, and the principal. The LSC has the power to hire and fire the school principal and to approve a school improvemtn plan and the school budget. The LSC members share the authority and responsibility for making most decisions about the school. Although the principal is the school's educational leader, no one individual has exclusive control. The spirit of the LSC dictates that good decision-making requires the participation of every group in the school community. America has the valuable expeience of possessing a district school system from the time of Revolution until the mid-19th century. If the district school were violated by the educational government, parents could abolish the school and/or the government and establish a new school and/or educational governing body. Parents' revolutionary right to education backed by the ideal of popular sovereignty is fundamental to American educational self-government. When we evaluate the LSC system through these historical experiences, we realize the LSC system is the reproduction of the original educational governance style by means of returning the governance power from the central professional bureaucracy to the parents and community people. It is very useful to introduce two key concepts, "educational governance" and "shared control"in school board restructuring in Japan. Then we must pursue three tough reforms. First, people should have the right to choose board members and take back subject status in educational governance. Municipal boards of education should be truly representative governing bodies by using the elective system. Second, each junior high school community should establish a community educational council with all schoo community people involvement as a subsidiary administrative agency to the municipal school board. Third, at the school building level, each school should organize a school council with the principal and the representatives of parents, teachers, and students to deliberate on important school matters such as school curriculum, personnel, and budget.

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