1.3 K-12 leadership and the educational administration curriculum  (Page 5/14)

The Preparation of Educational Administrators: A Profession

The topic of administration emerged at Columbia with a curriculum consisting of courses that would fitcomfortably into an educational administration curriculum today. The Columbia University course catalog of 1903-1904 illustratesthat a sequence of four courses—School Administration, Practicum, Seminar, and Practicum were offered. The first course in thesequence was School Administration. Its content looked at:

Forms of educational control, as national, state, municipal, and private; the growth of school supervision;functions of school boards, superintendent, principal; school buildings—construction, heating, ventilation, lighting, sanitation,and equipment; playgrounds; relation of supervising officers to school boards, principals, teachers, pupils, janitors, parents, andcitizens; school management—grading, promotions, examinations, records, prizes, and other incentives; courses of study from thestandpoint of the superintendent; the school as a social organization; libraries, museums, other culture forces, andcommunity co-operation. Students will have the opportunity of studying the administration of the Teachers College schools andvisiting schools in the vicinity. (p. 59)

The subsequent Seminar and Practicum courses addressed topics that included:

1.The organization and administration of the public school systems in the United States with special referenceto city school systems.

2.The present conditions in education at home and abroad.

3. Each student will be required to make an independent study of some state school system and to present to the class from time totime the results of his investigation. (Teachers College Bulletin, pp. 57-64)

Early training programs focused on the nature of schooling, the nature of education, and the work ofadministering an expanding educational enterprise. It is clear, however, that the technical core of educational administration waselevated by applying professional level knowledge to this increasingly complex educational system. The first doctorates ineducational administration were conferred in 1905 at Teachers College Columbia University and significantly, Elwood Cubberley,one of the recipients, would help to advance the field of educational administration through his work and writing.Cubberley’s book Public School Administration (1916), would become one the most widely used training textbooks and championed schoolsupervision as “a new profession, and one which in time will play a very important part in the development of American life” (p.130).

Educational Administration as a University-Based Program

Educational administration programs took a common sense approach to the knowledge of supervision, educationalleadership, administration and management. This could be viewed as an extension of local needs and the growing professional body ofknowledge that emanated from the industrial bureaucratization of education. This was especially evident in cities as layers ofbureaucracy and a system of education required professional oversight similar to that of a growing business.