The aim this paper is to clarify the definition of "accountability in education"and to investigate functions and tasks of the Executive Agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies(NDPB)of the public education in the United Kingdom from the perspective of accountability.1)The definition of accountability in education varies according to the context.The term of accountability means not only to explain one'sacts but to perform one's purpose.But in Japan, we usually think about the former and tend to ignore the latter.There are three models of accountability in education:the public contractual, the professional and the market model.At the public contractual model, it is understood that schools must use public funds accurately.Professional model means that professions are responsible to explain their acts.And at market model, schools and universities must face on the pressure of choice of parents and students.2)Executive Agencies in the U.K.are separate administrative units independent to Government and Ministers to modernize the delivery of public services recognized as"the Open Government."The structure of Agencies varies considerably, and annual reports, called Next Step Report, are published to take accountability.The Department for Education and Employment has only Employment Service as the Executive Agency and there is no such organization in the education field.And public universities in the U.K.have the status of a corporation by the charter historically, and they don't have the executive function of the DFEE and are not Executive Agencies.3)The NDPB, formerly called the QUANGO, the quasi-non governmental organization, is not a government department but a public body operated independently of each Minister.The Government and Departments delegated a part of function of them to the NDPB.The QUANGOs were criticized about the lack of accountability and The NDPBs are responsible to publish annual reports.There are four models of NDPBs.Executive NDPBs carry out widely administrative, executive functions of Government and Departments.They include BECTA(British Educational Communications and Technology Agency), HEFCE(Higher Education Funding Council for England), QCA(Qualifications and Curriculum Authority), TTA(Teacher Training Agency), and so on.The functions and purposes of Executive NDPBs vary from primary to higher and further education, from teacher training to curriculum planning.Advisory NDPBs provide independent and expert advice to Ministers, They include 7 NDPBs advising for the DFEE.Tribunal NDPBs have quasi-judicial functions and include RgI(Registered Inspectors)Appeals Tribunal and SENT(Special Educational Needs Tribunal).And there is no Board of Visitors related to DFEE.4)Recently, two independent bodies in higher education and teacher training are established.QAA, Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, carries out the autonomous education audit to improve the quality of education in higher education by peer review.GTC, General Teaching Council for England identifies itself as the self-regulatory professional body and adviese to DFEE for teacher training policy.These autonomous bodies would create new ideas of public education and policy.

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As result of the current policy of the Japanese government, every state school is expected to be much more autonomous and diversified than ever.Although it is, in particular, an overwhelming at the compulsory education, it lacks in managerial skills in accordance to their own policies.In such a trend, private schools are worthy of referral because of their autonomous aspect and the fact that they were in constant need of improving their quality.In fact, they have gradually flourished and are recognized as a part of the nation-wide educational system.However in general, private schools were obliged to be subsidized by the local or central government for the lack of their own funding, and that the nature of private schools was to justify this policy.This tendency of private schools resulted in their dependence on public bodies and so they are apt to take on qualities of a state school as a whole.Thus, the autonomy and public nature of the private school has become a very serious problem to be resolved which makes it worthy of careful discussion in accordance to the social custom.In this paper, two aspects of private schools, its public nature and autonomy are examined, respectively.First, its public nature is discussed according to the interpretation of the Japanese Constitution(article 89), financial aids and control by public authorities.In this context the author points out that the private school is essentially a sort of private enterprise and this means that independence of private schools should be pursued much more rather than being subordinated to the public bodies.It should be managed fairly like other enterprises to respond to social needs, and the governors as well as the principals need to strive for efficiency and a higher standard must be kept.Second, the way how such self-control of the private school is developed is examined in reference to the experiences of independent schools in the UK.The governors and headmasters/mistresses of independent schools are responsible for their own school management and are expected to individually maintain and improve it.At the same time, they belong to a variety of nation-wide organisations according to their interests and needs, becouse they need the latest information as to the school management.Such organisations regularly provide a variety of training programs for their members to cope with their concem.Finally, some suggestions are presented as a conclusion of this paper;higher standards and qualifications should be incorporated for the selection of the governor;nationwide organisations of private schools should provide such training programs as in the UK;some regulations for private schools should be introduced to make their management easier;the representatives for the parents should be members of school governors since at least they should be consumers and fee-payers.

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This paper analyzes the inplications of reconstitution, sometimes called the "reform of last resort, "in the terms of how it unfolded in Prince George's County, Maryland.Reconstitution adopts a model, reminiscent of the corporate world, in which schools that are considered"bankrupt"-indicating chronic failure in student achievement-become the targets of reform which involve the replacement of school staff.Educational reform stressing accountability based on measurable indicators and reliance on market competition is an increasing trend in many countries, including the United States and Japan.The particular version of educational reform outlined in this paper as it developed in Prince George's County, focuses heavily on tests as indicators of success.The specific case of a reconstituted elementary school in Prince George's County will be considered in this paper using data collected from three, one to two week interview/observation visits to Prince George's County during the period procceeding, and following the reconstitution from 1995 to 2000.The particular elementary school which was the object of the study is a predominantly minority school which was reconstituted in May 1997.Key personnel, including the superinntendent, local district staff, principals and some teachers were interviewed and school visits were made to relevant sites.The paper analyzes the process of reconstitution in the above-stated county and examines critically the practice of restaffing entire schools-based on thinking reminiscent of the logic used to justify mass layoffs in corporations-in the context of education.The tendency of this high-stakes reform to blame those at the bottom of the educational hierarchy, the teachers, for failure in academic achievement which can be described more as societal, rather than due to any one school or teacher, the tendency to underestimate the importance of the interpersonal element in education, and to rely on market mechanisms to rebuild schools which lack market competitiveness, are also analyzed critically.

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1)Clinical theories concerning education are the vital component through which theories of education are able to restore their ties with the educational practice and to particpate in the generation of the public sphere of education.But now the clinical theories, especially clinical psychology, are suspected of their privatization which might obstruct the generation of the public sphere.In this essay we examine these incompatible two views.2)Clinical psychology has taught us the importance of being"clinical"when constructing theories of education.Theories of education is the self-knowledge of teaching species for which the everyday educational situation is the starting point and the goal.In pedagogical anthropology, clinical pedagogy and university pedagogy, we can see that theories of education revive themselves towards being clinical.3)Clinical psychology has also taught us the importance of mutual regulation or mutuality between human generations.Mutuality as the essential component of the public sphere of education implicates that teachers learn through their teaching and the learners teach the teachers many things in the process of their learning.The public sphere of education consists of the mutuality between teachers and learners.4)Then, how does this sphere of education distinguish itself from the public sphere in general as the organization of associations in which heterogeneous people cooperate with one another?The ground of their distinction lies in the non-symmetry found in the sphere of education.Teachers must accept the non-symmetry as an inevitable way of their being and be responsible for their learners.The public sphere of education consists of the mutuality, which is actualized over the non-symmetry by teacher's responsibility to learners.5)Though clinical theories, especially clinical psychology, prevail in sphere of today's education, it is suspected of its exclusive closedness and privatization caused by its professionalization.Only through refutation against this reproach, through reconsidering mutuality, non-symmetry and educational responsibility, and through reconstructing itself towards openness, clinical theories of education will be able to participate in generation of public sphere.The reconsideration of the mutuality is the crucial point for constructing the theories of education and the generation of the public sphere of education.

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The dismal performance of Brazilian education with high rates of illiteracy, school dropouts and repeaters is a result of the lack of serious political efforts from the State to organize universal basic schooling of quality.This state of affairs has only worsened in the 1980s with the privatization and decentralization of the education system.Subsequently the majority of the population is relegated to a limited-in quanitiy and quality-access to education and an education of quality is reserved to the small elite.Only the elite can afford private schooling, which allows them access to the prestigious public institutions of higher education.The Workers'Party(Partido dos Trabalhadores-PT)founded in 1979, has been at the forefront of the struggle against the conservative ruling elite and defends the expansion and improvement of public education with policies based on democratic-socialist ideologies.In the elections of 1989, the PT won its first major polinical victory, which was for the mayorship of the municipality of Sao Paulo.Paulo Freire, a party member since its foundation, was appointed to the post of Secretary of Education.With the unprecedented chance to transform school realities, Paulo Freire, during the short period of four years(1989-1992), attempted the construction of"Popular Public School"guided by three principles:participation, decentralization and autonomy.Based on these guidelines, four areas of action were defined:(1)democratization of school administration, (2)improvement in the equality of access, (3)improvement in the quality of education, (4)education for working youths and adults.To transform the bourgeois schools into Popular Public Schools, the authoritarian administrative structure needed to be changed into one based on democratic-socialist principles in which'power'does not belong to the few chosen ones but is shared with the whole community.To this end, a new model of school management was proposed in which the School Council was positioned as the key organ of the decision making process.The School Councils were established as deliberative bodies and were in charge of the development of the schools'pedagogical projects, organizational functioning and budgets.Further, their establishment was an attempt to transform school itself into a popular space.In this paper, I explore the governace reform policy advanced by the PT administration focusing on the experience in one municipal school, discussing the School Council's activities, difficulties and achievements in the four years of implementation.Next I discuss the curriculum reform program focusing on the implementation of the Interdisciplinary Curriculum via the generative theme or the Inter Project.The Inter Project sought the improvement of quality of public education in order to lower the high rate of drop outs and repeaters by enabling the construction of a curriculum that is more significant to the students.To achieve this objective, it was built on the principles of dialogic reflection and participatory action based on Freire's problematizing pedagogy and his notion of generative theme.The Inter Project challenged the teachers', the school community's and the parents'preconceptions towards education.Finally, I analyze the teacher professional development program that aimed at changing teachers'believes and attitudes as well as raising their professional qualification.When Paulo Freire assumed the position as Secretary of Education he knew that it would be hard to transform public sschools'realities in the short period of four years.Besides all the shortcomings, resistance and criticisms, it can be argued that it did succeed in making the foundation of a new politics of education for the schools that would serve as a base to build a new conceptualization of schooling.

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This paper intends to prove the factors that some private elementary schools in Tokyo could survive or be selected during 1934-1951.We focus on the dynamics of the prestige between some private schools in the educational foundation.We set up the hypothesis as follows.As the prestige of the top-school in the educational foundation goes up, there is an increase in the enrollment of affiliated elementary schoolchildren who also went on to its attached advanced school.The prestige of private affiliated advanced schools depended upon their"Chartering"the graduates'lifecourse and its legitimacy in the society.Chartering is the method of determinig how graduates were treated in society(e.g.employment or marriage)or what higher institution they went on to.The rising prestige of private higher or secondary schools caused an increase in the enrollment of affiliated elementary schoolchildren who also went on to its attached advanced school.We call those phenomena"the effect of private higher or secondary school prestige on their affiliated elementary school".As a result, the private educational foundation established an escalator education system that bridged the elementary education stage with its affiliated higher or secondary one.This kind of education system chiefly attracted new middle class people who expected higher education for their children.Due to this, 19 private elementary schools with a prestigious affiliated advanced school were able to survive out of 39 private elementary schools in Tokyo before the War(in1934).These schools include Keio Gijiku Yochisha, Homei Elementary School Affiliated with Japan Women's University, Seijo Elementary School, Gyosei Elementary School and Toyo Eiwa Jogakuin Elementary School.Compared to these private elementary schools that thrived, most of the selected private elementary schools(16 schools)were run as independent ones(13 schools)or had no prestigious affiliated higher or secondary education-system(3 schools).Those private elementary schools had little hope of"the effect of private higher or secondary school prestige on their affiliated elementary school."The parents, who sent their children to private elementary schools, hoped for a no-examination priority admission for the attached advanced school.Their desirable educational strategy was compatible with private elementary schools that survived, which resulted in the acquinition of the school diploma by using the escalator education system in the private school foundation.

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