Abstract
The effectiveness of local efforts in reforming the public education system is in large part indicated by the level of participation of the local expert in education as represented by the superintendent of chief administrative officer or the local school district. The local school district is the focal point for and the place where the nation's primary and secondary education takes place. If the local school district is unable to carry out good, sound education policies, then the entire system will have failed. The superintendent is considered to be the expert administrator: the one who carries out rather than formulates policy and whose opinion carries great weight in the day-to-day operation of the district. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the degree to which district superintendents, as the Chief Administrative Officer, participate in and are satisfied with that participation in the policy formation process as encompassed in five areas as seen in the California Education Code; those areas being school finance, personnel, educational programs, curriculum and instruction, and planning for school construction. With few exceptions, the superintendents involved in the study indicated a high degree of participation as well as a high level of satisfaction with their participation in their district's policy formation process. The study also provided the profile of the average unified school district superintendent which shows the unified school district superintendent to be white, male, and well educated, who has presided over the educational administration of their particular district, for the majority of their time as a superintendent. The study provided evidence that superintendents of small districts reported the least overall participation and were the least satisfied, while superintendents of medium and large districts reported higher participation/satisfaction, with superintendents of medium size districts reporting the most satisfaction with their participation. This study found ample evidence that the unified district superintendent experienced high job involvement and satisfaction, but raised other questions concerning the apparent domination of superintendent positions, by white males aged thirty-five to fifty-five, and the impact of the domination on a system that has a population which is at least fifty percent minority. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).