SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION IN THE UNITED STATES differs from that in most other nations in that it is less centralized. While it is common to speak of the Amer ican public school system, legally at least there is no such organ ization. Education in the United States, in all its branches, and from kindergarten to university, has been left by the Federal Constitution to the different States to provide and manage as they see fit. There is no national legislation relating to the subject, aside from that concerning the Federal aid granted to the States for certain specific purposes. One finds in the city of Washington a U.S. commissioner of education, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, who has a small office force, collects statistics as to the progress of education in the States and in other lands, answers inquiries and offers advice when asked to do so, but in reality an officer without power, even within the Fed eral district. Each State is responsible for the maintenance of a State system of public instruction. Still more, due to the large liberty in matters of instruction and control allowed counties, cities, towns and districts within the different States, there are wide variations in the schools maintained by the different local governing school boards. School administration then divides itself into three main headings—State, county and city.
State School Administration.—Throughout all the history of the relations of the Federal Government to the States, in the matter of public education, Congress, since the beginning of the nation under the Federal Constitution, in 1789, has dealt entirely with the governments of the States. Each of the States has in turn developed a State school system, and in time has built up a body of legislative enactments relating to education known as the State School Law, or the State School Code. Dealing at first with only the essential outlines of a school system, and elementary rather than secondary education, the school law for each of the States has, since the '9os, experienced a marked development and expansion. As a result one finds to-day, for each of the States, a large and important body of laws—naturalry more detailed in some States than in others—relating to the organization, admin istration, supervision and financing of a complete system of public instruction for the State.
The management of the schools of any city or school district within a State may be placed by law in the hands of locally elected school officers, and much liberty of action may be granted to these local officials by the State school code, but the schools nevertheless exist to carry out a State purpose, as expressed in the State Constitution and the State school law. The local gov
erning authorities act as agents for the State and can do only those things which the school law permits. Throughout all the educational history of America it has been the State that has ordered that children shall be educated, advantages extended, standards raised and taxation for education increased.
As the chief representative of each State school system one finds an appointed or in a few cases an elected State board of education, and an elected or an appointed State superintendent of public instruction or State commissioner of education. The plan followed in approximately one-fourth of the States is the appointment of a lay State board of education of from seven to nine members, for relatively long terms, to act as a legislative control and policy-determining body for the school system of the State, and for this board then to select and appoint a State com missioner of education to act as its chief executive officer.
The State board of education in the best organized States acts in the name of the State as a board for general control of the State school system in its larger aspects, and for the enforcement of the provisions of the State school law. It selects, on the recom mendation of its chief executive officer, educational experts to exer cise supervisory administrative control over the different divisions of the State school system—elementary schools, secondary schools, child welfare, vocational education, school buildings, etc. ; exer cises general oversight of the work in vocational education and vocational rehabilitation, maintained in part by Federal aid grants ; often controls in large part the training and certification of teachers; determines the broad educational policies to be pur sued by the State ; and enacts rules and regulations for the gov ernment of its executive officers and, to a limited extent, the schools of the State as well. Such a board of control is primarily a legislative body, leaving the execution of policies and the carry ing out of decisions arrived at to the executive officers it employs.