In traditional societies education consists of being indoctrinated in the values of the culture. The fundamentalist Islamic academies of the Middle East fit into this category. Apart from learning to read, write, and calculate, the basic activity consists of memorizing passages from the Koran by rote. The teacher has a position of unquestioned authority, and independent thinking is discouraged.
In the pluralistic West public education has always been a cultural and political hot potato, simply because there is no consensus on what values it should inculcate in the students. Conservatives don't want their children to be curious, questioning life-long learners; they prefer that schools teach respect for conventional authority and unthinking allegiance to their parents' ideas. More cosmopolitan parents want their kids to fulfil themselves in their own unique way, and explore virtually any aspect of history and culture. The religious abhor the teaching of evolution and sexual education, while the liberals object to school prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. In the background opportunistic politicians are waiting to jump on any hot button issue they can exploit as false defenders of virtue.
At the center of these conflicting forces stands the educational administrator, whether he or she works in the administrative bureaucracy or is a secondary or elementary principal. The job has many practical requirements, but it is essentially political. On the one side the administrator is legally obligated to follow state and federal laws governing the operation of the school, especially in the realm of financing and curriculum. On the other he or she must balance the often conflicting desires and frustrations of teachers and parents, the other major stakeholders in the educational equation. The object of all these diverse interests are the children, who from the age of 5 to 16 are obligated by law to attend school, or get equivalent home sch...