COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION OF CORPORATION EDUCATIONAL WORK DR. H. M. ROWE, Chairman THE H. M. ROWE COMPANY MR. B. D. BENSON TIDE WATER OIL COMPANY New York, N. Y. MR. R. F. CAREY THE WESTINGHOUSE MACHINE COMPANY East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania MR. L. A. MILLER WILLYS-OVERLAND COMPANY Toledo, Ohio TUESDAY-MORNING SESSION ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION OF CORPORATION EDUCATIONAL WORK TUESDAY MORNING JUNE 5, 1917 SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT ROWE, Presiding CHAIRMAN ROWE: In the first place, the kind of administration and supervision you employ depends upon what you have to administer and what you have to supervise. The conditions that surround a given situation must determine very largely the methods that are suitable. When your committee began to investigate this subject, through correspondence with the various heads of schools, and those connected with this organization, we found it was difficult to find a type, or any one type, that would give us sufficient nuclei around which to build a system of administration and supervision for that particular type. Therefore, we were compelled to prepare what you must have observed to be a rather general statement, but when you stop to consider, I think you will see it could not well be otherwise. This report does not do anything more than lay down in a general way the underlying principles of administration and supervision. It points out in a brief way some of the differences between the administration of a corporation school and a school of almost any other type. It points out other differences, and as you have undoubtedly read the report you are familiar with them. There might be some differences of opinion, some questions for discussion, as to how this committee on Administration and Supervision might best function in connection with the other committees, embracing the educational features, since in nearly every instance the work of the several committees involves questions of administration and supervision more or less directly. I wish there might be some discussion as to the proper province of this committee. I shall not, however, enlarge upon that. REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON CORPORATION EDUCATIONAL WORK An exhaustive treatment of this subject would include very much that should receive major attention from other committees. For instance, the committees on public education, vocation guidance, safety and health, educational methods, office work schools, special training schools, and corporation continuation schools must include a consideration of intelligent administration and supervision in their discussions. In a more remote way the work of the committees on employment plans, allied institutions, trade and apprenticeship schools, and selling and distribution schools, are all subjective to the administrative and supervising functions, and therefore any report by this committee must either be very general in character or must of necessity overlap into the territories occupied by other committees. A reading of last year's reports of the committees having in charge the subjects named will reveal the extent to which any exhaustive detailed report would trench upon the reports of other committees, and perhaps no one committee's report is so conclusive on this point as that on Corporation Continuation Schools that was received just as this report was being completed. In this report, therefore, your committee has endeavored to do little more than lay the ground work for a series of reports in future years which may or may not go into more detail with reference to the functions of administration and supervision as may be later determined. In public education the terms administration and supervision are in a general way synonymous in the sense that in many instances they are so interwoven in their manifestations one way or the other that it would be difficult to clearly fix the line of distinction between them. The administrative function is, theoretically at least, lodged with the supreme governing power, which in our public school systems is the board of education, while that of supervision is lodged with the superintendent of schools and his assistants. Matters relating to buildings, equipment, finance, supplies, etc., and not infrequently to the employment of teachers, are usually looked after by the board of education, while the curriculums and other matters relating to courses of study, the placing of teachers, the grouping and classification of students, the selection of text-books, the outlining of methods of instruction, and the many other details of school management, are delegated to the superintendent and his assistants; and yet, there are many variations in the assignment and distribution of duties and responsibilities in different public school systems. In our study of administration and supervision in corporation schools the division of function seems to be less clearly defined so that in some instances they seem to amount to practically the same thing, being vested in a single individual, or in a group of individuals that act in a single capacity without any attention to the dual character of the functions performed. This committee of Administration and Supervision of Corporation Educational Work seems to have prototypes in its purposes and objects at least in some respects and to some extent in the Department of Administration and the Department of Supervision of the National Education Association except that the work of these departments of course relates to the affairs of the public schools and likely includes a much larger range of inquiry than could be expected of this committee at least for some time to come. In carrying on the work of this committee it is believed that much can be gleaned from the reports of the National Education Association that will assist materially in its study of administration and supervision of corporation schools, and that will also assist in reaching right conclusions in some of its problems. While there must be similarity in the administration of the affairs of public schools and the affairs of corporation schools, marked differences are quickly revealed. Boards of education administer the affairs of the public schools which are supported and maintained by and for the benefit of the general public for such general purposes as the public itself may determine. The affairs of the corporation school on the other hand are administered by the corporation which maintains it and which deter |