A preferred vision for administering secondary schools: A reflective essay

With increasing concerns in education, attention has been focused on the roles and duties of the educational administrator, both in the operation of the schools and in the provision of that leadership. This is essential for maintaining the viability of public education in a dynamically changing society. The training of educational administrators has drastically changed, indicating a major shift in emphasis among those who assist to set the patterns of administration. Whereas the training of administrators previously emphasized the technological problems of school management, the new movement has stressed the values of administrative theory. The applications of the behavioral sciences to the problems of educational administration, the social context in which educational administration takes place, and the analysis of the school organization as a social system, are all important values of this new movement. The new movement has also emphasized the analysis of the mutual relationship of diverse roles within the organization and the interpretation of educational administration within the broader sphere of public administration. Regardless of the emphasis upon the development of 2 theory and the study of administration, the problems of the public schools persist. The administrator in the public schools is faced daily with the task of assisting the teachers and the community in the solution of complex problems that arise out of both the operations of the public schools and the needs and mobility of the broader society. The theory of administration might help the administrator to define his or her problems better and understand the structure of the social systems with which he or she must deal, but it does not necessarily help him or her to find the most appropriate strategies for maintaining the school as an agency fully responsible to and responsible for the educational needs of contemporary American life