Who are "school managers"? "School administrators" and "school leaders" are similar terms to school managers. In the broadest sense, school managers mean principals, vice-principals, head-teachers of instruction, of grade, etc. and clerks, as well as school supervisors and superintendents of central offices. In addition, they include parents and community people who participate in the decision-making of schools. Principals and vice-principals are called school administrators, too, because they have authority and responsibility to manage their schools. A term of school leader is very often used recently. School leaders mean school managers who show good leadership to improve their own schools with their staff. A type of their leadership is characterized as "instructional leadership." "School-Based Management" (SBM) system has been introduced. The above all persons may be school managers in the SBM system, because they are all involved in it. However, a concept of school manager should be interpreted narrowly in the SBM system. A purpose of the SBM system is to fulfil "school improvement" in each site. Instructional leadership is essential to do it. Therefore, only people who can show instructional leadership to improve their own schools in the SBM system have to be said to be school managers. Those school managers are equivalent to school leaders. Advices and aids from superintendents and supervisors are necessary to make improvement in each school. But, superintendents and supervisors should be not included among school managers or school leaders, because they are supporters for improvement in each school, not performers belonging to each school. School managers have to have the accountability for results of their management. Parents and community people cannot legally take the accountability for their participating in decision-making. In conclusion, school managers in the SBM system are school leaders who strive to make improvement for their own schools by showing instructional leadership and take the accountability for their management. Concretely, they are principals, vice-principals, head-teachers, and clerks.

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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.

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Developing school leader education is main topic not only in educational policy but also in university management now. The role of school administrators such as principal and vice-principal is building school autonomy to implement school-based management policy or local management of schools policy in line with decentralization. But as short of school administrators will be forecasted due to age composition like "wine glass", educational administration is struggling with this tough situation by improving school administration training program in times and contents. Besides new program for preparing school administrators is starting to perform for middle leader including 11-15 years of teaching experience in Osaka Prefecture. Most of administrators and professors in colleges of teacher education think from the standpoint of the specialization of university that it is new role and mission to educate school leaders in new professional school of education. Therefore developing school leaders is hot theme in theory building and educational practice. Considering on building educational system for learning community for school leaders, three points of controversy are need to discuss at a minimum. First, how to connect theory with practice of school leadership? At the same time performance-based education or competence-based education is a dominant point of view in the school leader education, two-way activity of theory into practice and practice into theory are indispensable to interact and connect each other. In other words theoretical knowledge and reflective knowledge are connected in content and methodology. This work is upgrading and expanding by collaborating between researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers. Secondly, how to collaborate university and school board of education in school leader education? Because of maintaining university autonomy and keeping adequate distance from educational administration, I think that Level 3 in my framework-coordinated organizational cooperation is better than level 4-united organizational cooperation. Thirdly, how to authorize school leaders in qualified license or salary and fringe benefit? This is a difficult question for college of teacher education that negotiates with school board of education. The most important for the professional school of education is to educate the leaders of school leaders by developing effective curriculum and excellent faculties.

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In addition to school councilors system from 2001 academic year, new system for the promotion of popular participation to school management has been introduced by the revision of the law for local educational administration in 2004.That is the introduction of school council system in appointed school as locally controlled one by the board of education in the city where the school is located. The newly introduced system has given the parents and community the decision-making power for some area in school management. For example, the right to approve the basic philosophy of curriculum organization of each school or the right to submit the proper teacher candidate for employment in each school. Such right has not been given to school councilors under the present system introduced in 2001. The empowerment of parents and community in school management could be realized through newly introduced system and it could devote the democratization of decision-making process in each school. But it shows the fear of the conflict between principals and parents etc. on the other hand. The shift to school governance under popular participation instead of monopoly of the decision-making process of school management by school faculty compels us to reconsider their role and quality and to organize the program for training them, especially school leaders. But if we could conquer various problems faced with the emergence of school councilors system in appointed school as locally controlled one, we could open up the probability of restructuring the relationship of schools with parents, community and children as positive participants of schooling.

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The purpose of this paper is analyzing functions of present form of board of education. Much has been written about weakened board of education by means of survey research, but virtually, no participant observation has been done in this field. The distinctive attributes of this study are threefold. First, this study is conducted by means of ethnographical perspective to analyze the functions of board of education. Second, it is done with utilizing the economical theory of Routine by Nelson=Winter, Finally, it is presented with applied categorization of Routine among regular meetings. The result obtained by analysis is as follow. It indicates one of root causes of weakened board of education. It is tacit approval that committee should not raise objection against contents of deliberations. This can be happened because proper deliberations are settled by the secretariat even before the final decision. This phenomenon can be elucidated with focus of the formation of Routine structure.

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the appropriate way of considering 'Competence' in preparing headteachers as a Reflective Practitioner. Recently the concept of competence has gained the attention as a basis of education and assessment. Competence is an ability to perform in the workplace resulting in successful outcomes. This concept comes from the recognition that acquiring academic knowledge and skills is not enough to perform effectively in the workplace. On the other hand, the reflective practitioner model has hold an important place in teacher education. So, whether and how can the concept of competence and reflective practitioner coexist? This paper is structured as follows under this question: Firstly, two main competence approaches in the U.K., Occupational Standards Approach and Personal qualities Approach were outlined, and two problematic assumptions were pointed out drawing on Eraut, M.; those were, 1. reductionism, 2. mastery learning; these neglect (1) the possible use of resources which individual people have, and (2) the possible change of situations. Next, in order to overcome these from the viewpoint of the reflective practitioner, the significance of the Dreyfus' expertise model, which focused on the quality dimension of competence, was proposed. Then, a problem of the model was pointed out; because of an assumption of the persistence of the same situation, it neglects the necessity of continuing learning to develop competence in changing situations and contexts. Then, to compensate that, an idea of 'capability' was emphasized, which was a source of the development and creation of competence. To sum up, what became clear was that the concept of competence and the reflective practitioner can coexist, and in considering reflective practitioners' competence, the viewpoint of lifelong learning, both dimensions of scope and quality of competence, and the idea of capability come to essential. Finally, some issues to be considered in future were noted.

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In this paper, the collection of informal information which principals and assistant principals perform is analyzed. Interview investigation for all the compulsory education schools (eight elementary schools, four junior high schools) in one city was conducted. Based on this result, the relation between ties which principals and assistant principals have, and the information acquired there are analyzed at first. And next, the relation of the ties and the career path which principals and assistant principals have is investigated. Two points became clear as the results of these analysis. First, it turns out that principals and assistant principals are holding information exchange and consultation using each ties apart from the formal information acquired from the board of education or inside of the school. And second, principals and assistant principals form the ties through experiences in various schools and communities. Therefore, it is greatly concerned with each career path what ties they have. This shows that if the number of schools of an area or the method of teacher personnel affairs changes, the state of teachers' networks will become also different. In the conventional research, it has aimed at improvement in the individual capability of principals or assistant principals, and improvement in the problem solution capability that makes each school a unit. However, the networks of principals or assistant principals show that there are means to improve their schools or them besides improvement in individual capability. A future subject is comparing the area where the conditions of educational administration differ, and measuring the influence of an institutional factor to the networks.

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The purposes of this study are to construct an organizational development program aimed to facilitate collaborative decision making among teachers, and to verify the effects and availability of the program. The characteristics of the program are to create and share the tasks of school based on teachers' autonomy and collaboration. The basic constituents of the program are 1) improvement of teachers' interaction, 2) modification of organizational structure to develop the interaction, and 3) internalization of function to facilitate the collaborative processes among teachers. The program were introduced into a small school. Though the program conflicted with customs of the school and teachers' roles, it was modified and redefined to adapt to the school. As a results, the program was internalized in the school. Main results of the program were the following. 1. Teachers' collaborative process to clarify the school tasks corresponded to the characteristics of pupils of the school, were facilitated, and 2. Teachers' commitment and sharing of the school tasks were increased. These results showed the practical availability of the program. Based on the processes and results of the program, a fundamental model of autonomous improvement of school organization and its conditions were proposed.

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The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act, enforced by the Bush administration in January 2002, aims at the overall improvement of the students' achievement in the public schools across the United States and expects the drastic progress in the school reform activating the accountability system centering on the states' standardized tests with various administrative assistance and sanction based on the results of the tests. However, this accountability system using single and absolute goal named as AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) to judge the improvement of schools is thought to make a lot of schools with many poor and minority students "fail" to meet the goal and receive various sanctions that the law defines for the "schools in need of improvement". In this paper, on the basis of the case studies of the implementation of the NCLB act in New Jersey, I examines how the difference in the racial and socioeconomic composition of the student body of each school reflect on the process in which the state judges the success and failure in the improvement under the standardized test and identifies the target of the sanctions. One main finding from the analysis of the results of the state's Grade Eighth Proficiency Assessment (GEPA) and the distribution of the middle schools in need of improvement is that most of the schools whose majority of the students is in "economically disadvantaged" status have been identified as in need of improvement by the state. Moreover, the strict application of the subgroup rules, which aims at the closure of the achievement gaps among social classes and racial groups, also has made it more difficult for the schools with many economically disadvantaged students to avoid being identified as in need of improvement because of relatively more benchmarks for their minority subgroups.

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In Japanese primary schools shokuin-shitsu (staff rooms) is a very important place for school management, but few researches have been made on it. In this paper I analyze the way shokuin-shitsu was formed through the discourse on school management in Meiji Era from two points of view, i.e. the distinction of shokuin-shitsu from the other parts of school and the internal organization of shokuin-shitsu. From the first point of view, shokuin-shitsu was only a resting room at the start of modern school system in Japan. But later it was charged many school affairs whereas the classroom was only assigned teaching function. There was no need for the clerical staff's room, because clerical jobs were assigned to teachers. In one-class school shokuin-shitsu was combined with the teacher residence on the ground of family like intimacy and convenience of school management. It was not only said that teachers had to keep watch on pupils from the inside of shokuin-shitsu, but also that pupils could look into the room because teachers should be the model for pupils' behavior. From the second point of view, in the second decade of the Era it came to be said that shokuin-shitsu was the center of school governance and management and comfort such as chats came to be prohibited. The order of seats was organized based on sex, qualification and the length of service. Shokuin-shitsu was organized bureaucratically, but at the same time teacher collaboration and intimacy in shokuin-shitsu was advocated. Despite the fact that inside order of shokuin-shitsu was said to be the model of pupils' behavior, shokuin-shitsu was often in confusion and many writers criticized it. Trough the process of the formation shokuin-shitsu had contained many activities like preparation of classes, guidance of pupils, clerical works and so on. These activities were not combined with each other functionally but structurally coupled by sharing the field (shokuin-shitsu) and person (teachers). Teaching activities of teachers were also structurally coupled in shokuin-shitsu. As a result activities in schools were not combined in a functional way that might lead to form a kind of culture known as the teachers' culture today.

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It is important to succeed to meaning and worth of educational innovation continuously. However the process of organizational reaction to innovation depends on the situation at individual schools. Therefore, there are some schools where an educational innovation has fixed, and there are some schools where an educational innovation has declined. The purpose of this study is to find organizational factors which continuous adoption of educational innovation in elementary schools. In this study two elementary schools were selected to be investigated and interviewed; School A, School B. And fixing process of educational innovation were compared for each school's history. The main results of this study are as follows: 1. Methods of meaning succession in school management organization influenced continuous adoption of educational innovation. A few teachers maintained meaning of innovation in School A, whereas School B tended to establish meaning of innovation in organization. Because the meaning of innovation had established the organization in school B, it had affirmatively influenced the continuous adoption of innovation. 2. In the case of the Athletic Meetings by cooperation with School and Community, the sharing process of meaning of innovation to community-inhabitant through management practice is very important. Because community-inhabitant has participated in Athletic Meetings management, innovation hardly declines. Therefore, It is important for a continuous adoption of innovation, school and community build a systematic relation. In addition, in the case of the educational service by cooperation with school and community, it is important for each school to define the community, however, this point is a future assignment.

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In recent years some new-type plans of school management have been proposed and partly established by the Ministry of Education and Science. Their typical plans are described as "Community Controled School", which features the positive partcipation of parents and residents, and "Public School Managed by Private Sector". But the nesessity and validity of these new-type plans of school management are not seemed to gain sufficient consensus and support by much people on the nation-wide level. So at this symposium we intended to discuss and examine the possibility and some prospects of the new-type plans of school management in terms of the Collaborative School Management in certain Area (CSMA). Four speekers proposed their opinions on following topics; concept of CSMA, the partnership between school and parents/community, new challenge of certain city and the meaning and prospects of the individual school accountability. Through four proposal opinions and discussion about them, we are not able to accept positively the necessity and validity of new-type plans because the intentions and basic design of them can not be understood precisely and agreeded positively by much stakeholders, especially principals, teachers and parents.

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This study starts from an agreement that we should make a decision whether recent educational reform are right or wrong. As researchers, or as the members of JASEA, we must investigate the process of an enforcement the educational reform and confusion at schools today. And we must reflect our knowledge about realities of schools. Four school teachers reported about actual conditions of each schools. And one researcher presented a paper from the view point of changing social structure. After that, we discussed about the three points. 1. What are difficulties that school face up to? Furukawa (a principal of an elementary school) pointed out: Teachers regard students and guardians as customers. And a principal satisfied customers with giving there needs priority. Many participants spoke about the matter. Especially they referred that Japanese educational administration system was not completely as an open market, but it seems as community. For example, one cause of the school difficulties are these structural problems. 2. How should we claim in order to counter the school difficulties? It is not effective to claim that teachers are busy, but we need to make it sure what teachers and guardians must do to make better educational practices. 3. What should we aim in this study for the next two years? Three researchers questioned about this study plan to the planner. In the first years report, it was important for researchers and teachers to get common reality of schools. But after this, it will be necessary for us to get a common vision of educational reform in order to counter to the school difficulties.

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