American School Board System and Teachers\u27 Collective Bargaining : Teachers\u27 participation in Administration and Altering Structure of Educational Decision Making

The aim of this paper is to investigate the formation of collective bargaining-a bilateral structure of decision making between teachers and their employers-the 1960s, and the new problems concerning the school board system which the advant of collective bargaining has brought about. The American school board system has been established on the institutional principle- "layman control and professional leadership-superintendent system" which has been regarded as a democratic principle. But, the institutional principle came under severe attack from teachers and community groups after the 1960s. Namely, teachers and the community claimed that "professional leadership-superintendent system" has created and supported the administrative bureaucracy and the old professional structure with the superintendent as leader. Especially, teachers claimed that the contemporary school board system had encroached on the professional autonomy of the teaching profession and teachers became nonexistent under the above structure. Consequently, teachers\u27 groups required establishment of a collective bargaining system to force employers to acknowledge the scope of the professional autonomy of the teaching profession and reform the old administrative structure. That is to say, collective bargaining set the problem to be solved. Instead of the old professionals making all the important decisions, the new professionals-teachers\u27 group should replace the old educational power structure through bargaining and a new relation between its new educational power structure through bargaining and community control bemade. But, the establishment of collective bargaining has made new problems concerning the current structure of bargaining and the rise of community participation: Does the current structure of bargaining offset the possibility and positive potential of community participation in educational decision making? To reexamine the school board system today, a new systematic structure of professional leadership and popular control-community and parents\u27 involvement in educational decision making-should be studied