As a field of study, supervision has gone through a tumultuous history and continues to struggle for visibility. Its principles related to teaching and learning are often discussed, yet the term supervision has been controversial more than once. For a variety of reasons, historically and conceptually, supervision has traveled incognito under…

Argues that studying the history of school supervision can aid understanding of current problems and future possibilities for supervision in schools. Presents a brief history of American school supervision in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (JG)

Public school supervision in the United States has been historically influenced by its roots in western Europe and unique characteristics of the American educational system. Much history of school supervision describes it as a series of disjointed and unrelated events. And supervision appears to simply reflect greater social and educational…

This paper reports on the final phase of a three-part study on the status of instructional supervision within several New York City public schools. In the first parts of the study the researchers found, through extensive use of surveys (questionnaires and interviews), that centralized educational reform had serious consequences for instructional…

Postmodernists have criticized modern conceptions of supervision as bureaucratic, hierarchical, and oppressive. This paper asserts that the postmodern proclivity to completely eschew expert supervision, evaluation, and judicious use of directive supervision is misguided, potentially limiting, and dangerous. The paper argues that collegial…

In the early twentieth century, supervisors began to move toward increasing professionalism in their positions. In the late nineteenth century, supervision was characterized by bureaucratic methods in a centralized school management system. Research reveals that after the turn of the century, there was a concerted effort by supervisors to…

Supervision based on collaboration, participative decision making, and reflective practice is the hallmark of a viable school improvement program that is designed to promote teaching and learning. Action research has gradually emerged as an important form of instructional supervision to engage teachers in reflective practice about their teaching…

A persistent problem for supervisors and curriculum workers has been the unresolved tension between the demands of the organization and the drive for professionalism. Emerging in the late nineteenth century, the problem was greatly influenced by the transformation of the school system along bureaucratic lines. Supervisors and curriculum workers…

Focusing on factors which shaped and influenced public school supervision, the paper investigates educational developments in the late 19th century. During this period the movement toward centralization in urban public schools gained considerable momentum. Educational historians have largely ignored the role school superintendents played in the…