Chapter 21 -- Management and governance in midsized urban and suburban school districrts

Abstract

This chapter discusses the distinct nature of public education governance leads to a distinct kind of management and policy making; consequently, some understanding of the historical development of governance structures is necessary. Public administrationists rarely include education in discussions of public sector management. In fact the term government is rarely used in conjunction with public education. Education and local control of education have always been highly valued in the United States. The New England colonies set the precedent in the mid-seventeenth century that each town would provide a school for the education of its children. The constitutional changes that strengthened the educational role of the states during the mid-1800s reflected a related change in educational thinking. The shift in the role of the superintendent from teacher to manager parallelled a shift from a rural to an urban industrial society that placed new and different demands on public education.