School administrator

“ It is difficult to find any common link between the university professor, the head master of a great public school, an instructor in physical training, and a kindergarten teacher. It is not easy to bring together the head master of a preparatory school, working in complete independence, and the head master of a public elementary school, dealing with pupils of about the same age as those in the preparatory school, but controlled and directed by an elected public authority under the general supervision of the Board of Education. ”

“ Every public rural school, then, is a state institution and, as such, falls to some degree under the control of a branch of the state government, which is usually presided over by a state superintendent of public instruction or a state board of education. In practice the actual control over any particular school is exercised by school-officers, elected by the people of the locality or chosen by the state educational officials. The local school-officers are known as school-boards, boards of school-directors, boards of education, school-trustees or county superintendents. ”

“ Your Committee believes that in many systems of elementary schools there is injury done by too much formality in ascertaining whether the pupils of a given class have completed the work up to a given arbitrarily fixed point, and are ready to take up the next apportionment of the work. In the early days of city school systems, when the office of superintendent was first created, it was thought necessary to divide up the graded course of study into years of work, and to hold stated annual examinations to ascertain how many pupils could be promoted to the next grade or year’s work. ”

“ The managers of the school shall carry out any directions of the local education authority as to the secular instruction to be given in the school, including any directions with respect to the number and educational qualifications of the teachers to be employed for such instruction, and for the dismissal of any teacher on educational grounds, and if the managers fail to carry out any such direction the local education authority shall, in addition to their other powers, have the power themselves to carry out the direction in question as if they were the managers ”

“ The board must accordingly appoint teachers and a superintendent. These latter are selected because they have training and technical qualifications which the community needs in the schools. The technical officers have in an important sense an independent place in the educational system. It will be remembered that the teacher was the first one to whom the community delegated responsibility for the schools. Not infrequently the community finds its board of representative citizens on one side of a school issue and its technical officers on the other side. ”

“ The educational policy of the schools, the program, and methods should be looked out for by experts who are free from the details of administration. These supervising educators should not be appointed for districts but for subjects, and should move their offices from time185 to time from one school to another, so that they may really keep in touch with all the work in their subject, and so that no one school will be overstrong in one subject. ”

“ To ensure compliance with the rules, a field supervisor and a program coordinator, who are full-time public school employees, make unannounced visits to each teacher's classroom at least once a month. ”

“ The circumstances of the case naturally and quickly separate the duties of administration into two great departments, one which manages the business affairs, and the other which supervises the instruction. The business affairs of the school system may be transacted by any citizens of common honesty, correct purposes, and of good business experience and sagacity. The instruction will be ineffective and abnormally expensive unless put upon a scientific educational basis and supervised by competent educational experts. ”

“ As a matter of fact, members of a School Board are no more than dummies in the hands of an inflexible Department, and are appointed to carry out orders and regulations without the power of modification, even when quite unsuitable for a country village school. ”

“ The school administration is vested in a single head, the superintendent of schools, who is appointed by the board of education of three members. In charge of each school-building is an executive principal, whose duties are concerned with program-making, with supervision of the pupil’s schedules, with the general maintenance of order and discipline, and ordinary administrative work. ”

“ Though the Superintendents as such, have necessarily speaking, no teaching to do, still they ought particularly to secure the progress of every pupil in what may be called the essential studies, such as reading, writing, and spelling. For this purpose they either see that their pupils are going on successfully in classes in school, in these branches, or they may attend to them in the Section, provided that they never allow such instruction to interfere with their more appropriate and important duties. ”

“ But in whatever way the supervisor may utilize the opportunity that his position presents, his second great problem will come up for solution. The supervisor is the captain of the teaching corps. Directly under his control are the mainsprings of the school's life and activity,—the classroom teachers. It is coming to be a maxim in the city systems that the supervisor has not only the power to mold the school to the form of his own ideals, but that he can, if he is skillful, turn weak teachers into strong teachers and make out of most unpromising material, an efficient, homogeneous school staff. ”

“ In general, it is evident from a study of American school systems that emphasis has not been laid on central organization. Cities have employed a superintendent when they had a population of five thousand inhabitants and have expected a single officer to continue to perform all the duties of that office when the population has increased to one hundred thousand. A principal is put in charge of a high school of two hundred students and continues to have full responsibility for the school when it increases to eight hundred students. ”

“ The various officials who are created in the process of developing a representative system of school control often find themselves unable to determine the limits of their authority or responsibility. For example, it is almost impossible to determine where the duties of a business manager end and the functions of the superintendent begin. ”

“ For the town or city district is of small area, and the schools few and close together. If the number of teachers is large, the superintendent is assisted by principals of different schools, and by deputies. The teaching force is better prepared, and hence requires less close supervision. School standards are higher, and the coöperation of patrons more easily secured. The course of study is better organized, the schools better graded and equipped, and all other conditions more favorable to efficient supervision. ”

“ Providing assistance to local educational agencies for the development and implementation of professional development programs for principals that enable the principals to be effective school leaders and prepare all students to meet challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards, and the development and support of school leadership academies to help exceptionally talented aspiring or current principals and superintendents become outstanding managers and educational leaders. ”

“ Students will be appointed to the Normal Schools by the Superintendent, upon the recommendation of superintendents and school commissioners. These officers will be relied upon to properly represent to possible candidates the needs of the public schools for well-qualified teachers, and the necessity of professional and technical training on the part of all who intend to teach. No students can be admitted who have not already acquired a substantial elementary education. ”

“ I dare say more principals and superintendents have been found through their ability to handle student activities than in any other way. Too often teachers who are really capable of doing executive work object to this extra duty and thereby miss the opportunity of demonstrating their real capacity for leadership. They also lose at the same time one of the most fruitful and pleasant experiences in school work. I could give many illustrations of teachers who have “found themselves” through being associated with student enterprises. ”

“ The school spirit is abroad in the consolidated school district; people are thinking and talking school. It becomes the customary and fashionable thing to send children to school.
Better Supervision.—There is also much better supervision in the consolidated school; for, in addition to the supervision given by the county superintendent or his assistants, there is also the supervision of the principal, or head teacher. This is in itself no small factor in the making of a good school. Good supervision always makes strongly for efficiency. ”

“ For the pupil, organization means a degree of flexibility and individual instruction extraordinary for a public school. Except in the lowest grades, the pupils are classified by subjects as well as by grades, so that practically college methods obtain. Each pupil has 102his own schedule or program, just as the college student has. The executive principal corresponds to the college registrar in supervising these individual records. The pupil is promoted by subjects and not by grades, and may be promoted or demoted at any time by the supervisor of instruction, acting with the teacher. ”

“ In all day-schools the authority of the head-master is necessarily impaired by that of the father, and the discipline of the school by that of the home; but here this is more than usually the case. The parents even go so far as to trench upon the schoolmaster's domain, reserving to themselves the right of deliberately breaking the school rules, whenever it is convenient to them to do so. ”

“ Today's public school officials do not merely exercise authority voluntarily conferred on them by individual parents; rather, they act in furtherance of publicly mandated educational and disciplinary policies. ”

“ The superintendent elect has been a teacher elsewhere, and he is to be a teacher here also. His work will not, in all particulars, correspond with the work that he has left; yet the principles of government and education are in substance the same. The head of a school always occupies a position of influence; the characters of the children and youth confided to him are in a great degree subject to his control. Here the teacher is neither aided nor impeded by the usual home influences. This institution is at once a home and a school ”

“ The course of study has grown complex. The work of the classroom is absorbing, and yet its success depends on equipment and organization that need to be studied and intelligently arranged. The work of one school must be correlated with the work of the schools in neighboring communities. The public must have authoritative information about the fiscal needs of the school and about the outcome of the public investments in education. The demand has arisen for a new type of school officer—the supervisor. This officer is not a teacher but a manager. ”

“ The existing school organization is used to conduct the enterprise. For each 25 boys enlisted a supervisor is appointed, a male teacher of strong ability in the local school,—in towns where there are several supervisors, either the superintendent of schools or the principal of the high school. ”

“ It has too often been assumed that the management of schools was a matter for experts of which outsiders could not properly judge. Within certain limits this is true, but it does not distinguish between the scholastic and the administrative sides of school work. ”

“ School boards have not always purchased everything that I have requested, but I have found in the vast majority of cases that if the board has faith in the superintendent and feels that he knows what he wants, and what he will do with it after he gets it, he will not have much difficulty in obtaining what the school really needs. ”

“ If this plan is adopted, the school director should be required to give his entire time to the duties of his position, and be properly compensated therefor. He should be the custodian of all property and should appoint all assistants, janitors, and workmen, authorized by the board, for the care of the same. ”

“ To give effect to the idea, the prefect should be elected and children shew extraordinary insight in choosing the right officers. But that is not enough because only a few are set in authority; certain small offices should be held in rotation by every member of a class. The office makes the man as much as the man makes the office and it is surprising how well rather incompetent children will perform duties laid on them.
All school work should be conducted in such a manner that children are aware of the responsibility of learning; it is their business to know that which has been taught. ”

“ Experience will demonstrate to public school superintendents the strategic advantage of putting together all the things they need and of telling the community over and over again just what needs there are, what penalties are paid for want of them, and what benefits would result from obtaining them. ”