This paper was inspired by D. J. McCarty and C.E. Ramsey’s work on the impact of local power structure on local education (see McCarty & Ramsey, 1971), later on summarized and discussed by J. Spring in his book called Conflict of Interests (1993). McCarty & Ramsey’s work was completed prior to 1971, and Spring, after more than 20 years, did not investigate the validity of McCarty & Ramsey’s model on the relationship between local power structure and local education through empirical studies. Whether such model still applies in current time was left unaddressed. In Taiwan, the Decentralization movement has shift the governance of local education onto the hands of local government. To investigate the explaining power of McCarty and Ramsey’s model on local power structure and local educational governance and understand the current situation of educational governance in Taiwan, questionnaires were administrated to principals and educational administrators in seven cities in Taiwan. Specific questions to be addressed in the paper are as follows: 1. Who are the elites that govern local education in the selected cities/counties in Taiwan? What are their backgrounds? 2. What issues in education are of interests to these elites? 3. How would answers to the two questions mentioned above related to local power structure? 4. How can McCarty and Ramsey’s model on local power structure and educational governance be modified to better summarize and explain politics of education at the local level? McCarty and Ramsey’s Model According to McCarty and Ramsey’s model, local power structure is highly determined by the economic and political structure of the local arenas. Four types of local power structure are summarized to explain the role of superintends as well as educational development. The logic behind the table above is that local power structure will affect the interactions within and between the board of education and school district office, thus influencing the focus of local education. McCarty & Ramsey conducted extensive case studies on U.S. school district to support their logic. However, few studies continued the legacy of their study to explore local educational politics. Such fact should not surprise us since apolitical seems to be the nature of most educational studies. Taiwan has witnessed increasing influences from local politics on education due to the decentralization movement. Education is now under the control of local government. Such phenomenon provides a great chance to observe the relationship between local power structure and educational governance.

Seven out of twenty-three cities/counties in Taiwan were selected for survey research through document and literature reviews. These cities were selected based on the type of power structure described in the literature. Four of them were fractional, and the other three covers other types of local power structure. There were only 23 cities/counties in Taiwan. Not all of their local power structures have been extensively investigated in the literature to serve as the basis for case selection. As a result, it is sometimes hard to find more than one case for each type of local power structure. After the cases have been selected, questionnaires were administrated to principals through random sampling. Educational administrators were surveyed based on their positions. The questionnaire asked the respondents to list 15 persons whom they thought have great influences on local education. After naming the elites in local educational governance, the respondents were asked to list the educational issues these elites participate in. Data are then weighted and summarized to produce a list of local elites in education. Background of these elites were analyzed and synthesized to provide a sketch of local forms of educational governance. The types of educational issues that the nominated elite participate more were also analyzed and compared. The relationship between types of local power structure and forms of educational governance were then discussed.

General administrators, educational administrators, and councilmen are the three major groups of elite in local educational governance. The influences of interest groups or scholars on local education seem to be overestimated. Furthermore, the size of each angle in the triangle is determined by the local power structure. Pluralist community seems to be the only social context that educational professionals can take the lead in managing local education. As to other types of communities, councilmen and elected politicians and the city government that they lead seem to take the driver’s seat in educational governance. McCarty & Ramsey’s model needs some modification to accommodate the differences within each type of local power structure. Discrepancies between the U.S. and Taiwan in the system of local educational governance were also compared.