Editorial

Citation

Ross Thomas, A. (2006), "Editorial", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 44 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/jea.2006.07444eaa.001

Editorial

Our first article, by McCormick, Barnett, Alavi and Newcombe, synthesizes some of the research on governance by boards of independent schools, i.e. schools that are not part of broader educational systems and are not governed by bureaucracies. Governance involves responsibility and accountability for the overall operation of a school and a board thus has primary responsibility to pursue the interests of the owners of the school, its members, and the wider community. The relationship between board and school head/principal is both special and peculiar and the authors address such in detail. Similarly, many other facets of board governance are examined and, even though the authors use the independent school sector in Australia as prime basis for their study, their framework to guide future research will find international application.

Bauer and Bogotch next report on their continuing investigations of site-based decision-making, particularly with regard to its contribution to school improvement. Using survey data collected from 50 schools, the authors use path analysis to test the relationships among resources provided to site teams, their communication and decision-making practices, and perceived school outcomes. Results suggest that resources provided to support site teams, such as the devolution of decision-making power, result in improved stakeholder influence. Whether this influence results in better decisions or improved teaching and learning depends on the communication and decision-making practices that site teams employ within the framework of distributed leadership.

Parents' satisfaction with their childrens' schools is the theme of our next article wherein Friedman, Bobrowski and Geraci report on a survey of 27,600 African-American, Asian, Caucasian, and Hispanic parents in the USA. Regression analysis reveals that the ethnic parental groups share much in common as far as school satisfaction is concerned. Most influential are their ratings of school safety followed by school budgets and teacher effectiveness. Differences noted among the representative groups included, for example, Asian parents' significantly higher rating of school computer technology and African-American parents' greater emphasis on teacher effectiveness.

The preparation of educational leaders in university graduate programs is the focus of the next article by Rucinski and Bauch. Here the authors report, in particular, on their development of an instrument (REMAS) to measure graduates' perceptions of the use of reflective, ethical and moral dispositions and leadership practices. The instrument, they claim, has the potential to contribute to educational leaders' knowledge and learning and hence to the improvement of educational practices in schools. University program faculty may also develop teaching methods for helping students to become competent, reflective practitioners.

In our final article Brown provides a retrospective review of mandated segregation by race to hypothetical de-segregation by post-apartheid policies to de facto re-segregation by class in the “new” South Africa. Described in detail is the replacement of overt racism in the form of apartheid laws by covert racism and class domination in the form of school fees. Poor and marginalized groups are thus prevented from getting universal access to high-quality education.

Four book reviews complete this issue.

A. Ross Thomas