The basic plan for promotion of education is the medium-to long-term guidelines for the national and local educational policy and administration. Based on the above, we focus on i) the relationship between the basic plan for promotion of education of national and local government, ii) using Osaka Prefecture as an example, to determine whether they had really any effect on the educational administration policy. According to the results of the examination of the survey data on the basic plan for the promotion of education, we discovered that there were similar items between the national basic plan and the local level ones. In addition, we have also found that the aim of the basic plan which presented clear educational goals and effective recognition of the education reforms has been achieved to some extent. Therefore, it was inferred that the basic plan of the national revel was transferred to the basic plan of local governments, and considerably influenced educational policy-formation at the local level. But there are no specific numerical targets in the national basic plan, so has not become eligible to receive funds from the educational budget. In addition, we found that the spirit of the national basic plan was not fully utilized in order to maintain and improve the standard of education. In the second half, in order to examine the influence, the development and status of the basic plan in local government, we carried out research based on the Osaka-based polite hearing. For Osaka, the development entity of the basic plan was in conjunction with the governor departments, so we found that there were some guideline benefits that resolved educational issues specific to the city, such as integrated provision for high school restructuring, public and private cooperation, protection of juvenile services. In other municipalities of Osaka Prefecture, the development rate of the basic plan had remained at low levels on the whole. However, in the municipality which has already developed it, we have discovered various cases. For example, the construction of PDCA cycle embodied by the development of "annual educational administration policy", being positioning as part of the comprehensive plan, and formulating the basic education plan ahead of the basic plan of Osaka Prefecture. There are circumstances in each individual municipality within the Prefecture, so each local government must respond accordingly to the individual circumstances. The following two points are summarize the investigation. Those are i) the effect of strengthening authority of heads of local governments do not extend up to the municipality, ii) basic plan of Osaka Prefecture has not affected most of the contents of the basic plan of the municipality.

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This paper analyzes the changes in the plans, policies, and budgets of higher education. The main knowledge is the following: 1. Higher education policies were often discussed after the proposals of the Council of Extraordinary Education in the mid-1980s. In those days, the population of high school graduates was increasing, but by the 1990s the population of graduates was decreasing. The Ministry of Education had made several plans to restrict the number of new university students and restrict the founding of universities in the big cities, but from the late 1990s the cabinet began to abolish many of these restrictions and to enable easier founding of new universities. In 2002 the Ministry of Education gave up its plan of higher education capacities. A 2005 Council of Education recommendation was that universities should be distinguished by their functions, focusing on research, professional education, liberal education, lifelong learning, and/or contributions to their regions. 2. On the contrary, the Ministry of Education requires some guarantees for the qualities of higher education. Recommendations in 2005 and 2008 by the Council of Education suggest that the universities clarify their admission, curriculum, and graduation policies. This meant that the universities were authorized to decide subjects, curricula, and so on by themselves, but it also meant that there would be stricter competition among universities. The main control retained by the government is to evaluate the universities every six years. 3. For fair competition, the universities need rules. The government decided to change the management system of the state universities. The state universities were allocated public resources but the usage was very restricted. From 2004 the state universities were reconstructed as granted universities and were permitted to decide the usage of public resources. But the amounts of the grants were reduced every year from 2006 to 2010. The management system of the state universities was thereby changed and now each university president has more authority. 4. The Ministry of Education is trying to change the roles of faculties and graduate schools. Graduate schools should be quantitatively expanded and graduates should get positions not only as researchers but also professional positions in private companies. The government believes that the expansion of post-graduate education is necessary to compete in worldwide research. In fact, the number of graduates has been increasing from ca. 90,000 in 1990 to ca. 270,000 in 2010. But many graduates can't find adequate positions. 5. The government has tried to reduce its expenditures these past 15 years. The budget for compulsory education policies has been decreasing year by year. The budget for state universities grants has been decreasing, too, while the subsidies to private universities was increasing a little in the first half of the 2000s. The data show that after the change of administration in 2009 the government provided fewer grants and subsidies for the running costs of universities, but provides more competitive subsidies to the universities that are improving the quality of research and education.

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This article has four purposes; first, to delineate how education policy and the policymaking process changed after the turn of government in December, 2012; second, to note what the political and institutional factors influencing policy changes in times of a change of government; third, to examine the changes in the Japanese policymaking system in Japan since 1990s, and fourth, to show how these changes cause problems of education policy and policy-making. My conclusions are as follows. First, under the LDP's administration, education policy has almost completely changed from the DPJ's. Contrary to DPJ's policies, LDP wants comprehensive education reforms, for example, in the school systems, the education board system, etc. Under the LDP's, the Prime Minister has more influence over education policymaking than under the DPJ. Second, a change of government doesn't always cause policy change; several political and institutional factors influence it. In theory, the degree of competition between the two main political parties and the likelihood of another reversal in the near future has impacts on policy stability. As for institutional factors, first, the House of Councilors, role as a veto player is crucial. Second, in LDP administrations, there has been ruling party review of government-sponsored legislation before it is submitted. These factors delayed policy changes until 2013. However, the LDP's government since the 2013 upper election is free of the influence of these political and institutional factors and we can predict education dramatic policy changes under the current LDP administration. Third, the policymaking system has changed since 1990s, when central government policymaking emphasized consensus between political actors. Arend Lijphart, a political scientist, categorizes democracies into two types; majoritarian or Westminster democracies and consensus democracies. Japan had adopted consensus democracy until the 1990s, characterized a weak cabinet, and the multiple-seat constituency system. In the beginning of the 2000's, however, politicians began to change the policymaking system, with a strong cabinet, and the single-seat constituency system. As a result, the policymaking system in Japan has partly changed from a consensus democracy to a majoritarian democracy. This change has impacts on education policy; a majoritarian democracy can make policy changes more easily than a consensus democracy can. As a result, education policy stability and continuity decreased from the end of the 1990s. LDP administrations have implemented education reforms frequently since the 2000s, and many school boards and schools administrators have been confused. It is the school board system that has maintained policy stability and continuity. Contrary to local governments, the central government has not adopted the school board system. Instead, consensus democracy had ensured policy stability. The change from a consensus democracy to a majoritarian democracy, however, decreased stability and continuity in education policy. If we agree that education policy needs stability and continuity, we must consider ways of maintaining them under a majoritarian democracy, for instance, through independent administrative commissions, a council system, etc.

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Though Japanese statesmen were apt to refrain from using the word "national strategy," it has been used frequently in political documents since about 2000. The Japanese government recognized the importance of "state reform," and determined to decide on a national strategy for the overall reform of the sate and to set up the council that would take charge of this mission. It is not accidental that these occurred almost simultaneously. The necessity of the neo-liberal reform of the state had been recognized by some of statesmen and bureaucrats in the late 1990s. Under the welfare-state regime, the economic freedoms of the monopoly capitals and the wealthy had been restricted in order to secure the minimum conditions under which the every people enjoy the healthy and cultured life. And the equal opportunity for free education is available to all people. On one hand, the securing of this equal opportunity had been requested as a human rights, while it was also the necessary condition for developing industrial capitalism, to supply the large quantities of high-quality labor forces. But, under the current conditions of globalization and international competition, many countries have been confronted with difficulties in maintaining their welfare-state regimes including the equal opportunity of education, and reforming their school systems based on the "choice and concentration" doctrine. The newly established council was named the Council on Economics and Fiscal Policy, and the Prime Minister is designated the chairperson. It functioned as the headquarters to formulate the national strategy, based on the neo-liberal ideas such as marketization, privatization, deregulation and decentralization. The educational policies formulated by the council are as follows. 1) The deregulation of various school standards, such as curriculum standard, school establishment standards, and teacher's licensing, etc.. 2) The application of the "choice and concentration" doctrine to educational funding. 3) The competition, management by object, evaluation. 4) The marketization of education, such as school management by for-profit private companies, school voucher systems, and charter schools, etc.. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology was assigned the task of accomplishing all these polices. But the Ministry has opposed the marketization of education since the 1990s, when the Deregulation Committee suggested the school choice policy, so the marketization of education was not carried out as planned by the Council. The reasons why the Ministry objects to the marketization of education must be examined later. Decentralization is another element of the national strategy. The more the decentralization reforms proceed, the more the governors and mayors will try to intervene in the school management and the administration of the board of education. This is another question.

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Regardless of the regime change, the policy continuity is maintained. For example, as a policy with continuity, we point out the "decentralization" in the first place which is associated with the autonomy of the local authority and its expansion. In educational policy areas, as the basic plan for promotion of education of local governments consists of security measures to ensure accountability, so local governments are obligated to inflict effort to develop the basic plan at the local level. They have already established or are planning to establish this in many municipalities. However, there is no evidence that these plans are fully functioning as a development standard of educational policy or the maintenance and improvement measure of education. In some municipalities, therefore, a new issue also has arisen such as intervention of heads of local governments to the development process of the basic plan for promotion of education by the local regulation. In addition, based on the economic and fiscal structural reform guidelines of administration under the previous regime, National Universities were reorganized into the National University Corporations. They are approaching the area where the second mid-term goals and medium-term plan has also past the halfway point now. But verification on some points has still not sufficiently been made to determine whether there was influence by the transformation of higher education policy due to the change of government during this time. It is believed that regime change can exert a considerable influence on education policy itself, and to define the quality and level of education of service thereafter. Upon the change of government, it is important to investigate what transformation has occurred in educational policy formation process, how educational sector maintained and adjusted policy environment of essential (= continuity) to educational sector stability, continuity, and neutrality. In recent years, a kind of national strategy has been adopted and formulated as a pioneer basic policy to budgeting, and broken down into the individual policy as a guide. Then, as seen in a pre-school education policy, a centralized policy has been promoted by cooperation with adjacent policy areas. National Strategy Office is provided in the Democratic Party regime, and a basic policy such as pre-school education was taken over, so it is also noticing that there is continuity during policy formation process. It is also considered to be an important issue to verify that what regime change effected this structure by elucidating the structure of the policy-making process rooted in such "comprehensiveness". I think that it is important to consider each issue seriously when the regime change has begun to take root. In addition, it can be said also to be a great opportunity to consider how to promote smooth policy coordination during regime change. In view of the above, the Editorial Board of the annual report the Japan Educational Administration Society asked four members to write about the following four phases. Those are i) educational policy formation and implementation of local government, ii) higher education policy and incorporation of national universities, iii) regime change and transformation of education policy formation process, and iv) the national strategy and adjacent policy area. We focused on the above four themes, and attempted to research their relationship with educational administration and the transformation of educational policy formation process.

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This study is intended to elucidate the function in local educational administration of management support. Two research themes are addressed here. First, to elucidate whether it is needed, also who provides what kind of support and how effective school improvement is on functionalists school management. The second is to elucidate personal specification and qualification necessary for personnel of support activities. I examine School Improvement Partners (SIPs) in England as an example. SIPs is a person who advises the headteacher and the school governing body about the school improvement from a specialised viewpoint. It was made mandatory for the purpose of SIPs raising the effect of characteristics and effectiveness of school improvement in 2006. Concrete activities are advised about the present conditions analysis of the school, goal setting, the setting of the priorities of the school improvement. SIPs is authorised by National College for School Leadership (NCSL). It's application requirements is to have been a headteacher or have worked as a consultant for more than at least two years. The personal specification pursued in SIPs prescribed by NCSL is comprised of analytical ability, skills of judgement, ICT skills, knowledge/experience/expertise, personal qualities/integrity/behaviour. The person authorised by SIPs makes is contracted by the local authorities and engages in duties five days in a year per each school. The training of the 4-day professional development is imposed on SIPs after authorisation. 15 people were placed as SIPs in Cambridgeshire from 2009. SIPs of Cambridgeshire clarify the priority in self-evaluation and the improvement of the school, and advise heateachers about the content and plans for effective changes. In Cambridgeshire, SIPs are called "critical professional friends" for the school. Regarding the importance of SIPs and related problems, it is significant that schools can work on improvement activities while receiving continuous support by an outside expert. Second, the unitary support systems are rigorously maintained for schools. Third, support systems for the school governing body and the local authorities are maintained. On the other hand, it is difficult to secure talented people and personnel training. Secondly, it means that activity contents are limited to the activity days. Thirdly, independence of the employment form is a problem. SIPs named (Cambridgeshire) are considered one of "conduit" the LA, and the communication with the LA and the school. They are considered "critical friends". The autonomous improvement of the school is promoted by personal specifications such as analytical abilities or judgement skills in addition to the function called the support and the pressure to the school management in England, and it is said that SIPs contributed to planning nationwide education level improvement. In this regard, the introduction of SIPs has been highly praised. In Japan, the expansion of the role of the support for the school management of supervisor is expected is expand in the future. I think that maintenance or qualification authorisation of the route to promote experts of management support for schools may examine the system design that I put in the field of vision. SIPs gives the suggestion about the system design of personal specification development the training and professional development.

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In the United States, many efforts to develop educational programs based on research results have been made by universities and private sector organizations. By adopting these programs, school districts and schools receive support from the universities and organizations. This article discusses one of these educational programs, "Success for All" (SFA), a schoolwide program for students in Grades pre-K to 6 which organizes resources to ensure that every student will reach the third grade on time with adequate basic skills and build on this basis throughout the elementary grades, with no student being allowed to fall between the cracks. Efforts of this kind include an issue raised from the point of view of administration: governance. In efforts of this kind, meta-governance is set properly for governance to function more effectively. Governance is always open to the possibility of failure. Meta-governance is widely defined as the "governing of governing", and is to govern the network properly in order to avoid the possibility of failure of governance, or to cope with the difficulty of governance. Then, what meta-governance would be required in order to ensure effective governance? This article analyzes the form of meta-governance that aim to effectively govern the governance in the SFA program. The points that should be noted in terms of capturing the meta-governance are (a) to take into account the self-organization of the network without relying on the linear model "those who control/ who are controlled", and (b) to capture the meta-governance functionally, rather than substantively. Given these two points, meta-governance refers to (the infrastructure for organizing and encouraging the dynamic mechanism) the self-organization of the network. The analytical challenges to be addressed in this article are (1) to capture the infrastructure needed for a self-organizing network in SFA, and (2) to explore the reason why the SFA Foundation could function as meta-governor. The issue to be addressed first as meta-governance in SFA, is to incorporate the research knowledge into practice, because research knowledge is heterologous for education governance. However, research knowledge cannot be incorporated directly into practice in its raw form: it must first be translated into a practicable form (e.g. lesson plan, teacher manual). And in order to enhance the practicability, training for teachers is also required. However, since the teachers could rebel against unilateral impositions of research knowledge, it is necessary to employ additional measures to alleviate the psychological resistance of the teachers. In order to solve this problem, (a) the SFA Foundation requires the schools to hold in-school votes before adopting the SFA program, and (b) the foundation permits the teachers to adapt it. The foundation will approve a adaptation as long as it is intended to respond to school goals and is intended to improve the learning outcomes of students. Further, in order to maintain a proper balance between adaptation and fidelity, the SFA Foundation devises methods by which the facilitators attempt to keep the teachers on pace and limit the number of adaptations. Then, why could the SFA Foundation function as meta-governor? In order for the foundation to function as meta-governor, the presence of the code <effective / not effective> is required, and by this code, all the meta-governance organized under this code is meaningful. But more important and fundamental is that the position of meta-governor is not given from the outside, but that the function is held barely in the dynamic process on self-reference.

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"Efficiency" is the key concept of administrative management, but in the context of the research of educational policy, administration and finance in Japan, this concept has been given no clear definition and empirical operability. The aim of this paper is to examine it from the point of the view of the historical advances of both the concept itself and the methodology of its measurement in America. We pose three questions about it and answer those questions by tracing its history in America. 1) In the 20th century's social science, how have the concept and the methodology of its measurement advanced? 2) When and how were the advances accepted in the research field of educational policy, administration and finance in America? 3) How can we evaluate the state of art of empirical studies of efficiency in America? Our main findings are summarized as follows. First, the theoretical and operable concept of efficiency was given in the 1950's, in M. Farrell's thesis "The Measurement of Productive Efficiency". The methodology of measuring the Farrell's efficiency had been developed in the field of operations research and econometrics in the 1970's. Second, those advances were accepted in the field of educational policy, administration and finance, and they encouraged the growth of empirical applications to educational organizations in the 1980's. This movement reflected the needs of the era of accountability. Third, we can find the substantial contribution of those empirical studies on the grounds that these enable us to evaluate the efficiency of individual educational organizations in a rigorous quantitative manner, clarify the administrative responsibilities of the educational organizations in the context of decentralization, and provide practical tools for educational finance, especially for the fiscal equalization and adequate funding. On the other hand, there is room for further considerations in light of the characteristics of the activity and organization of education. We point out three crucial problems: 1) that the technical assumption of non-negativity and proportionality of scale of output is not suitable for some educational activities; 2) that the behavioral assumption of cost minimization as to input oriented efficiency is not realistic for educational organizations; and 3) that the present analyses of the determinants of inefficiency are not sufficient.

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The purpose of this article is to examine the significance and possibility of urban district leadership under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), focusing on the current school reform efforts of the New Haven Public Schools in Connecticut. The New Haven Public Schools has developed their educational accountability system to create a district-wide learning environment (also referred to as the climate). Many advocates suggest that NCLB has neither improved public education nor increased the ability of systems to serve poor and minority children, in part because the federal government's stringent law holds educators accountable for the annual progress of students and prescribes sanctions and remedies for low-performing schools. Since 1968 the New Haven Public Schools has taken a collaborative approach of district-level strategies for improvement suggested by Dr. James P. Comer and his colleagues at the Yale Child Study Center School Development Program (SDP). Comer (1985) pointed out that "at least four levels of collaboration are critical" : 1) between educators and social scientists; 2) between colleges and universities and primary and secondary schools; 3) between the central office and its individual schools; and 4) among the participants at the building-level. Therefore, Comer suggested that "successful collaboration requires top-down (central office) and bottom-up (individual building) communication, planning, and program implementation." Comer (1993) also suggested that educational accountability is a shared responsibility, which requires that parents and school staff work together to establish school goals and design programs to meets these goals. Dr. Reginald Mayo, the Superintendent of New Haven Public Schools (1992-2013), has embraced Comer's philosophy since he became a principal in New Haven in 1976. Through Mayo's current district-wide school reform plan, his top priorities are "getting all the stakeholders to work together to solve problems using a Shared Leadership model." The main research questions are as follows: 1) What are the components of the accountability system? 2) How do district policy makers and school participants engage in their strategic planning and implementation processes? 3) How does the district-level evaluation system determine whether district policies support a comprehensive system that encourages student engagement? These current efforts show the new district leadership role throughtheir Shared Leadership model. Three major conclusions are drawn: 1) The district-wide focus on human development and collaborative approaches has affected students' motivation to learn. As a result, they have developed many co-leaders. They demonstrate Richard Elmore's idea of "reciprocity of accountability for capacity." 2) The district's annual Learning Environment Survey (LES) gives a voice to all the stakeholders-teachers, staff, parents, and students-and provides them an opportunity to share their concerns about their needs and the quality of the learning environment at each school. The LES also plays the important role of overcoming the limitations of standardized test measurements. The LES provides valuable information that supports dialogue on how to make the school a better place for learning. The Superintendent has used the LES feedback for "no fault" problem solving with the schools. 3) District leadership affects each school's implementation indirectly, through the mediated role of the District Comer Facilitator who affects implementation directly with reciprocity. The District Comer Facilitator is an important role model for mentors, teacher leaders, and professional developers.

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The U.S. federal government has been properly involved with higher education according to the national needs. For example, to ensure educational opportunity at postsecondary level and to deal with diverse students, the Education Amendments of 1972 was enacted. Previous studies have covered mainly two aspects relating to this Act: higher education financial aid policy and the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). However, these previous studies have two problems. First, they have not studied the enactment process, in which institutional aid was not basically placed as higher education financial aid in the federal government. Second, previous studies have not formally placed FIPSE type aid as one element of higher education financial aid policy at the federal level. Based on these problems, the author thinks that higher education financial aid policy at the federal level in the 1970s should be perceived as the establishment of FIPSE type aid and the reduction of institutional aid. This study aims, then, to examine the following three themes: First, the author considers what kind of demand was made of the federal government. Second, the author analyzes the enactment process at both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Third, the author considers the argument process at the joint conference of both houses, and analyzes the tendency after the enactment of the Education Amendment of 1972. The conclusions are as follow: 1. Institutional aid for all higher education institutions was not regarded as a proper role of federal government. 2. Contingent and restrictive institutional aid was surely enacted, but it was not practically appropriated. 3. FIPSE type aid was enacted and has continued to be appropriated in practice. Based on these findings, it could be possible to consider the following: First, FIPSE type aid was surely a small amount, but it has been consistently appropriated. Second, it had an impact on higher education in the U.S. because almost 2000 applications were made in the period of FIPSE establishment. Third, contingent and restrictive institutional aid was reduced and FIPSE type aid was introduced. Thus a qualitative transformation was made in higher education administration. For this reason, FIPSE type aid is an important research subject for higher education financial aid policy at the federal level.

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