The purpose of this paper is to examine how the government subsidizes education for those who need a certain level of support to access education, and to clarify how such subsidies affect the publicness of education. By focusing on the four subsidies; school expense subsidies, special needs education, high school tuition fees, and private school subsidies, which cannot be covered by the existing financial framework for public schools, we analyzed the system of subsidies for each expense and the actual condition of subsidies by local governments. As a result of the analysis, the following two points were clarified. The first is the impact of fiscal measures on educational subsidies. The existence of the state expenditure led to an increase in the education subsidy. Second, it has become clear that there are cases in which the standard amount of fiscal demand is guaranteed while the local allocation tax is used as a financial resource, such as for private school subsidies. Based on these conclusions, the conditions for providing educational subsidies to ensure the publicness include the existence of restrictions on local governments, as typified by national legislation and traditional customs. In order to ensure the publicness of education subsidies, the central government must design a system that restricts the actions of local governments, although this would run counter to decentralization. The first challenge for the future is the need to consider how to structure the burden of education subsidies. Second, most of the analyses on the actual state of education subsidies provided by local governments were based on average data. Case studies will be needed.

Local educational administration is a front-line system for coordinating personal requirements for policy implementation and rights protection based on government responsibility regarding education. In postwar Japan, the coordination was made by the Board of Education system. However, today, decision-making on educational matters is not restricted to the Board of Education. The following three points need to be clarified in order to think about how to secure the public nature of education. First, decision-making on education takes on an official character given from positions of responsibility. Second, it is in pursuit of common interest. Third, issues are considered in an open place accessible to everyone. This paper shows the conditions for shaping the public nature of education over the politics of citizens and professions in the context of local educational administration.

Postwar Japan designed a system to give the official authority of educational administration to the Board of Education, which maintained independence from political power. In addition, to explore the desirability of education, it was necessary to separate educational practice and administration from general politics and administration. However, when trying to form “the public nature of education”, the politicization of education should be aimed at while preventing the progress of the privatization of the educational subjects and policy. The politicization of education means promoting understanding of education. It requires a system of coordination of multiple, multi-layered decision-making units, which is different from the movement of aggregating individual opinions and aiming at homogenization.

This decision-making unit is not limited to the existing administrative divisions such as the prefectures ‘or municipalities’ government. Especially in rural areas, we should seek unique units to sustain, develop and grow in the community and school education in a long-term span. In all this, it is essential that professional leadership seeks relevance that is different from legitimacy based on the will of the people. A group of professionals with leadership needs to have a long-term perspective and cross administrative divisions. The expert group is considered to include all faculty members. When making decisions about education, they should not only listen to the voices of stakeholders but if they decide it is necessary for education, they should take actions to demonstrate and guide their own leadership. The action is a manifestation of intention based on the accumulation of practical experience and research findings in the place of dialogue.

This paper examines the issues concerning public support for private organizations providing opportunities for truant students, considers the limitations of previous studies, and suggests an alternative viewpoint. In this study, we focus on the characteristics of the concept of “public,” which means “common” and at the same time connotes “diversity” from the meaning of “openness.” We also focus on another aspect of “public,” which is used to justify giving or receiving public funds and support.

In the first chapter, we analyzed the current conditions of truant students and private organizations giving educational services based on some national surveys in Japan. We estimated that the actual number of truant students was larger than indicated in national surveys. We also noted that those private organizations accepted many high school students and young people over 19 years old.

In the second chapter, we analyzed previous studies about issues related to public support for private educational services and found two significant points. The first point was that they had tried to change the image of public education through focusing on the aspect of “diversity” in the meanings of “public,” and tried to justify public funds and support for many types of private educational services. They had also required a quality assurance system and funding system in order to nurture private organizations, not to suffocate them. The second was that they had confronted the challenges of standardization required in the process of quality assurance as publicly-funded activities. In many examples, quality assurance required many documents to be written and rules stipulated by governments to be obeyed. Then they brought about transformation of original ideas and activities in private organizations. This standardization also caused a division among private organizations in terms of whether they could receive public support or not. Considering these points, we found the limit of public support for private organizations based on the logic of “public” education, which inevitably requires having the minimum aspects of “common” education. If we recognized various types of education as public, we could not do it in case of activities that are not aiming for education directly.

In the final chapter, in order to overcome the limit of “public” education, we focused on the viewpoint of “the right to exist” of students and young people who have many difficulties. They have received various kinds of support about the right to exist from private organizations, and this support sometimes includes educational activities. Focusing on this viewpoint, we could effectively encourage those organizations giving comprehensive support for students and young people who have difficulties, because we could derive public support from the two sides: one is the logic of public education and another is the logic of the right to exist. Justified by this logic, various types of organizations and activities could be recognized as public. But in order to make these organizations work as a safety net for all students and young people, we also needed to build one-stop services, which estimate the conditions of students and young people and refer them to the organization best suited to their needs and difficulties.

Against a backdrop of the diversification of values in Japanese society, this paper aims to evaluate the increasing popularity of public schools' attempts to guarantee publicness by implementing new procedures and justifying their outcomes. The paper makes the following two arguments:

Firstly, revision of the processes and procedures of school education, especially in student guidance, has the potential to promote publicness. For example, based on the relationship between publicness and the establishment of the Act for the Promotion of Measures to Prevent Bullying, this paper reveals:

1. increased official participation as a result of legal involvement in resolving issues related to bullying,

2. increased commonality as a result of recognizing the need for lawor guideline-based responses, and

3. increased openness as a result of bullying response procedures becoming transparent to the public.

It is argued that implementing such procedures is linked to increased publicness at a micro level in student guidance. In other words, it can be said that “procedure” occupies an important position as a condition in ensuring publicness.

Secondly, although there has been a noted rise in procedural justice theories in the field, some aspects of the procedures and operations regarding disciplining high school students lack transparency. Thus the guarantee of publicness remains questionable. More specifically, while official involvement is guaranteed, it is difficult to claim that commonality and openness are also sufficiently guaranteed. Today, procedural justice is viewed as important in educational settings; yet, the appropriateness of disciplinary results cannot be judged collectively. Therefore, establishing transparent disciplinary procedures that can be traced later is an important perspective in the guidance of students, and may well be useful in increasing trust in educational administration.

After the Potsdam Declaration, measures were taken to transfer military educational institution graduates (hereafter referred to graduates) to secondary and higher educational institutions. Some of them were certified as their “educational background” of having graduated from middle school, but the Naval Aviator Preparatory Course Trainees of Otsu class (hereinafter referred to Otsuhi) were not given this certification. Then They petitioned the relevant ministries to certify their “educational background”. This was an important issue which affected their life courses in the post-war period, but it has not been investigated previously. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the fact concerning the movement of former military groups and the measures taken by administrative agencies, focusing on the problem of certifying the “educational background” of graduates, and to consider its historical significance.

In the early 1950s, a system for certifying “educational background” was established. The Ministry of Education established the University Entrance Qualification Examination Regulation. In order to fill the gap between the former middle schools and the new junior high schools, it exempted the former middle school graduates and equivalent from some of the subjects for the University Entrance Qualification Examination. Such transitional measures concerning entrance qualifications for new universities played the role of certifying the students' “educational background”. In the same year, the National Personnel Authority decided on the Implementation Details such as the Starting Salary Promotion Rates, and Rates of Salary Increases. Based on the “educational background” of schools belonging the Ministry of Education, the National Personnel Authority connected it with the personnel system clearly. At that time, the treatment of officer training institute graduates was decided quickly, but decisions relating to other graduates were postponed. In the middle of the 1950s, when rearmament developed, the problem of certifying “educational background” was raised as an administrative issue by former military groups.

Since the new junior high schools and the former middle schools were already considered to be equivalent, the increase in the numbers of graduates of the new junior high schools kindled the desire for certification of “educational background” of graduation from the former middle schools. The “educational background” petition movement by the group of Otsuhi developed with the desire for certification of “educational background” as the junior high school enrollment rate rose, and the Defense Agency officials supported this. The group negotiated with the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and the National Personnel Authority. Trying to bring former military educational institutions with the original purpose of training airman closer to schools belonging the Ministry of Education with a fundamentally different principle resulted in dilemmas everywhere. In response to the issue, makeshift measures were taken, and the “educational background” of Otsuhi was certified..

By regarding “military background” as “educational background”, a unified “educational background” system centering on schools belonging to the Ministry of Education was reconstructed. Former Otsuhi were discriminated in the late 1940s and developed resentment of post-war Japan. It was treated as if the issue had been cleared up by certifying “educational background” in the early 1960s. As a result, the issue concerning Fallen Naval Aviator Preparatory Course Trainees (Yokaren-kuzure) was disregarded.

This study aimed to reveal a) how homeschooling is regulated and publicly supported in Iowa and b) the significance and problems of its homeschooling system, by reviewing homeschooling provisions of the state law and administrative law.

Iowa, which has one of the most complicated homeschooling systems in the United States, offers multiple options for conducting homeschooling with different regulations and public support. Those who choose a less/ more restrictive option, get fewer/more opportunities to receive support from the state or registered district. Thus, Iowa's homeschooling system is based on “the principle of proportionality” between regulations and support. It incentivizes parents to choose options that make it easier for the state to assure adequate education for children through regulations and support, while giving parents the freedom to choose any option.

However, this system has the serious problem that parents can choose an option with virtually no regulation. Children who are homeschooled under this option can obtain virtually no public support for their education, and the state has almost no knowledge of which students attend under that option.

The comprehensive analysis of Iowa's homeschooling system, both in terms of regulations and public support system, shows that state involvement in children's education is not necessarily incompatible with the parents' freedom if the homeschooling system provides an incentive based on “the principle of proportionality,” as in Iowa, and imposes adequate regulations. This can help researchers and policy makers examine possible homeschooling systems where the state can both ensure the parents' freedom and guarantee opportunities for homeschooled children to receive adequate education.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify how the regional revitalization policy which the Cabinet Office has been promoting since 2014 is reflected in local education policies in Japan, and how the local educational administration is changing under the following law reform.

In 2014, the Local Education Administration Law was revised. This law reform has caused great changes to the board of education system, and has enabled mayors to participate in local educational administration or local education policy through participation in the newly ‐ established Comprehensive Educational Conference. The Comprehensive Educational Conference consists of the mayor and the boards of education, and the mayor has the right to convene that conference. Furthermore, in the new board of education system, the mayor has been authorized to make fundamental policies on local education. However, nobody has analyzed the influence of the policies in the administrative organ on local education policies through the mayor in the new system such as the Comprehensive Educational Conference.

Through the revision of the Regional Reform Law in 2016, the financial assistant policy for the regional revitalization was started in earnest. This revised law established a new grant for the regional revitalization and stipulates that the local governments make a “Regional Reform Plan” for the purpose of getting a grant, and applies for this “Regional Reform Plan” to the Cabinet Office.

This paper analyzes the fundamental principles on education made by the Prefectures, the minutes of the Comprehensive Educational Conference, and “Regional Reform Plan” on education which was made by local governments and granted by the Cabinet Office from 2016 to 2018. In addition, this paper focuses on the case of Nagano. The reason this paper focuses on the case of Nagano is as follows: Nagano is more advanced than other local governments in local education policies for regional revitalization according to the contents of the “New Human Resources Development Promotion Plan for Shinshu-Revitalization in Collaboration between Learning and Jobs” which is a “Regional Reform Plan” made by Nagano for getting a grant.

The findings of this paper are as follows. First, 21 prefectures have made the fundamental principles on education reflect the regional revitalization policy. Second, the Comprehensive Educational Conference of 32 prefectures is discussing cooperation between the regional revitalization policy and education policy, and the educational problem for regional revitalization. Moreover, in 23 out of 32 prefectures, the mayor has requested the Board of Education to cooperate in matters such as promoting regional revitalization and the educational problems regarding regional revitalization in the Comprehensive Educational Conference. It shows that the local education policy for regional revitalization has been promoted under the leadership of the mayor. Third, the contents of the “Regional Reform Plan” by Nagano which applied for a grant in 2016 are vocational education in some vocational high schools for development of human resources that contribute to promotion of the industries and meet the local companies. The educational work based on Nagano's plan has been added to the main education policy of the Board of Education.

To achieve the regional revitalization policy which the Cabinet Office has been promoting, local education policies for the regional revitalization are being carried out under the control of the mayor.