| This dissertation is to be a history of the centralization of administrative control of New York State rural schools, particularly through the efforts of State Superintendent Victor M. Rice (elected 1854; served 1854-57, 1862-68) and Andrew S. Draper (Superintendent 1886-92 and Commissioner 1904-1913). Rice established the office of rural school commissioners, Draper that of district superintendents. This process of centralization is explained in terms of Weber's ideal type of rational bureaucratic administration. The study will include a case study of a rural district superintendent, 1916-1940, to portray at the working level the everyday duties of the district superintendent.;This study is to be based on primary sources, including the Laws of New York, Legislative Reports of the State Assembly, and personal papers of the case study district superintendent. Secondary sources will include Callahan's Education and the Cult of Efficiency and "The Superintendent of Schools: An Historical Analysis" and Tyack's The One Best System. Weber's Economy and Society, Blau's Bureaucracy in Modern Society, and Katz's Class, Bureaucracy and the Schools will be the most important sources for the dissertation's conceptual framework. |
