The Role of Local Boards of education in Education Reform

中央教育理事会要求地方教育委员会着手解决三大改革问题，即：（1）振兴教育委员会的组织和管理;（2）建立教育委员会与学校的伙伴关系;（3）改善地方社区的教育功能。为了明确地方教育委员会如何以及在何种程度上参与这些改革，进行了全国范围的调查研究，向16个都道府县选出的500个市教育委员会提出了相关问题。本研究以274个市教育局为研究对象，进行问卷调查，主要研究结果如下：教育改革的整体进程在教育委员会之间存在着许多差异。这种差异既与教育委员会所在的当地社区的特点有关，也与学校主管的特点有关。在与改革相关的社区特征方面，人口规模与教育改革的进展程度有显著相关。学校董事会所在的社区越大，他们参与的改革就越多。在校长的特质方面，本研究发现：校长的政治行政能力与教育专业知识兼具，校长对社区教育问题有强烈的态度，与市长关系密切，（3）经常与选民互动，并积极与市长和地方议员合作，为社区学校和教育服务的监督。

Central Council for Education (Chuou Kyouiku Singikai) urged local boards of education to attack three kinds.of reform problems, that is, (1) revitalization of its organization and management, (2) building partnership between boards of education and schools, (3) improvement in local community's educational function. To make it clear how and in what degree local boards of education are engaged in such reforms, nation-wide survey research was done , asking related questions of 500 municipal boards of education selected from 16 prefectures. 274 municipal boards of education returned questionnaires.Major research results are follows. There are many variations among boards of eductionconcerning the progress of education reform as a whole. The variations are related both to the characteristics of local community where boards of education are located and to the characteristics of school superintendents. As for community characteristics relevant to reform efforts, the size of population is significantly related to the degree of the progress of education reform. The larger the community where school board's are located, the more reforms they are engaged in. As for characteristics of school superintendents, it is made clear that high degree.of the progress of reform is significantly related to (1) those superintendents who are endowed both with political-administrative skills and with educational expertise , (2) those superintendents who have strong attitudes toward educational problems in their community as welt as build close relations with mayors, and (3) those superintendents who frequently interact with their constituents and actively work mayors and members of local congress to cooperate for community's schools and education.