On The Role American School Board In Schools And Communities

With the advancement of educational reform, the determination of reform has been reflected from micro-level of instructional curriculum reform to macro-level of administrative system construction, especially the latter. With the passing of 21 st century, different places have been probing the construction of local educational system. On the Third Plenary Session of the 18 th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform explicitly put forward the implementation of school district system, which was imperative to act. However, who will be in charge of district management, who will make policy for district development, and what changes will the Implementation of school district system bring to schools and society, which are the questions we must consider clearly.As one important part of local educational administrative system, School district has been local independent operating system for more than 200 years. In the operation, the school board plays a very important role. As the policymaker for district development, the school board will make a blueprint strategically for the district. The success of contemporary education that America has achieved bears some relevance to school board. In spite of many questions, the tradition of local control of education makes it accountable for favorable development in district。Meanwhile, it also accumulates rich experience on how to satisfy the needs from schools and communities.Although China and America have different educational system, America is a decentralized country, which education belongs to local control and the school board is responsible for voters from the community, not the federal and state government;China is a centralized country, so the implementation of school district system is expected to arouse local enthusiasm of schooling. Therefore, drawing on experience reasonably on function the school board make in schools and community, which will better promote the district management in China.The thesis takes literature research and case study as main methodology. Based on general understanding about school board, current status and development condition of school board will be better understood. Later, the viewpoint of role theory in sociology is used to take a deeper analysis on the main participant in district business. Finally, role and function of school board in schools and community will be demonstrated through concrete cases, which is aimed to provide reference to district management. The structure of the thesis is mainly divided into six parts:The first chapter is the foreword, demonstrating research background and meaning, literature summaries about domestic and foreign research on school board, research content and research methods and relevant definitions.The second chapter states the history, characteristics and current organizational structure of school board through four facets: member composition, member election, member training and responsibilities.The third chapter discusses the role of school board from the perspective of role theory, which can lay a theoretical foundation for after-mentioned cases.The fourth chapter analyzes the concrete role the school board plays in schools and community from introduction, background, condition, content and evaluation, which arrives at a conclusion that they are the implementor of democratic policy-making, the coordinator of school resources, the cultivator of community awareness, the constructor of safe schools.The fifth chapter summarizes the importance of school board from the perspective of schools and community respectively, and raises three challenges for the school board in the future: deficiency of fiscal support, low-performing academic achievements, federal and state intervention.The last chapter mainly illustrates the questions and intervention towards school board, such as abolition of school board, appointment of school board and mayor takeover, but as the administrator of local education and vindicator of community interests, the school board plays a vital role. Absolutely the role it plays is not restricted in the above four. In the future study, more attention will be paid to other roles the school board plays, and deepen understanding on it.