Values and educational administration

Abstract

The recent emphasis upon administrative theory has underscored the problem of the place of values in educational administration. In the literature of educational administration, two quite different emphases have emerged. One stresses the descriptive analysis of values and places its major focus on discovering the actual effect of social and individual values in the administrative process. The other emphasizes the philosophical treatment of values as ideals. Some writers have discussed this difference in emphasis in terms of the is-ought dichotomy.1 They have quite properly observed that administrative theory must be concerned only with the and cannot provide answers to moral questions or set ideals. That this point had to be made for purposes of logical clarity cannot be doubted. However, recognition of the differences between descriptive (is) statements and normative (ought) statements marks a beginning and not an end. Both endeavors, the attempt to describe the place of values in the administrative process and the attempt to develop systematic philosophical approaches to values as ideals in educational administration, now stand far short of accomplishment. Both are needed and they are not necessarily conflicting as long as we keep our terminology straight. They are just different. In this paper some of the problems needing consideration in each of these areas are presented. This is done to clarify and illustrate the different tasks falling to those concerned with the investigation of either area. First, we shall look at problems involved in the descriptive