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Educational management is a field of study and practice concerned with the operation of educational organizations. The present author has argued consistently (Bush, 1986; Bush, 1995; Bush, 1999; Bush, 2003) that educational management has to be centrally concerned with the purpose or aims of education. These purposes or goals provide the crucial sense of direction to underpin the management of educational institutions. Unless this link between purpose and management is clear and close, there is a danger of “managerialism . . . a stress on procedures at the expense of educational purpose and values” (Bush, 1999, p. 240). “Management possesses no super-ordinate goals or values of its own. The pursuit of efficiency may be the mission statement ofmanagement – but this is efficiency in the achievement of objectives which others define” (Newman&amp; Clarke, 1994, p. 29).
This module has been peer-reviewed, accepted, and sanctioned by the National Council of the Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA) as a scholarly contribution to the knowledge base in educational administration.

The process of deciding on the aims of the organization is at the heart of educational management. In somesettings, aims are decided by the principal, often working in association with senior colleagues and perhaps a small group of laystakeholders. In many schools, however, goal setting is a corporate activity undertaken by formal bodies or informal groups.

School aims are strongly influenced by pressures from the external environment. Many countries have anational curriculum and these often leave little scope for schools to decide their own educational aims. Institutions may be left withthe residual task of interpreting external imperatives rather than determining aims on the basis of their own assessment of studentneed. The key issue here is the extent to which school managers are able to modify government policy and develop alternative approachesbased on school-level values and vision. Do they have to follow the script, or can they ad lib?

Distinguishing educational leadership and management

The concept of management overlaps with two similar terms, leadership and administration.“Management”is widely used in Britain, Europe, and Africa, for example, while“administration”is preferred in the United States, Canada, and Australia.“Leadership”is of great contemporary interest in most countries in the developed World. Dimmock (1999) differentiatesthese concepts whilst also acknowledging that there are competing definitions:

School leaders [experience] tensions betweencompeting elements of leadership, management and administration. Irrespective of how these terms are defined, school leadersexperience difficulty in deciding the balance between higher order tasks designed to improve staff, student and school performance(leadership), routine maintenance of present operations (management) and lower order duties (administration). (p.442)

Administration is not associated with“lower order duties”in the U.S. but may be seen as the overarching term, which embraces both leadership and management. Cuban (1988)provides one of the clearest distinctions between leadership and management.

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Source:  OpenStax, Organizational change in the field of education administration. OpenStax CNX. Feb 03, 2007 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10402/1.2
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