Study On The Power Of The Primary And Middle School Principals From The Perspective Of Governance

Education reform is a vital part of social reform. Principal is significant joint between education goverance system and school internal goverance system. As the legal representative of the school, principal is a bridge that conecting schools to the government and society. Principal power embodies educational goverance condition, meanwhile influences construction and operation of education governance system.Therefore, the author intends to research the power of the primary and middle school principals from the perspective of governance theory.Literature, questionnaire and interview methods would be applied to this study, in order to summarize the actuality of the content, status and supervision of the principal power by questionairing and interviewing China’s eastern,central and western principals,vice principals and teachers, and to compare the differences of cognition and expectation in different regions and different positions. Then analyze and discuss main issues in the study from the perspective of governance theory.Through analyzing questionnaires’ and interviews’ data, the author found problems in the principal power operation:Strict governmental control blocked principals’power operation; Laws and regulations are not so perfect that can’t security the principal power operation; Weak school organizations’ funktion and lack of counterbalance; Supervision mechanism is not perfect and lack of power constraints; Cognitive differences between principals and teachers,etc. The author puts forward from the governance perspective, improve laws and regulations; limited government; transformational leadership of principals; better coordination and interaction of schools with government and society, expecting to improve the reasonable and efficient operation of the power of the primary and middle school principals, and solve the problems that exist in school governance.