The Role of Local Boards of education in Education Reform

中央教育委员会（Chuou Kyouiku Singikai）敦促地方教育委员会打击三种。改革问题，即：(1)振兴其组织和管理，(2)建立教育委员会与学校之间的伙伴关系，(3)改善地方社区的教育功能。为了弄清楚地方教育委员会是如何以及在多大程度上参与这种改革的，我们在全国范围内进行了调查研究，向16个县的500个市教育委员会询问了相关问题。274个市教育局归还了调查问卷。主要研究成果如下：各教育委员会对整个教育改革的进展有许多不同意见。这些变化既与教育委员会所在的当地社区的特点有关，也与学校负责人的特点有关。在与改革力度相关的社区特征方面，人口规模与教育改革的进展程度显著相关。学校董事会所在的社区越大，他们参与的改革就越多。对于学校管理者的特点，明确了学历高。改革的进展与(1)那些既具有政治管理技能又具有教育专业知识的督学，(2)那些对社区教育问题有强烈态度并与市长建立密切关系的督学，以及(3)那些经常与选民互动并积极与市长和地方国会议员合作的督学，为社区的学校和教育合作。

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.