Keppel Named to Group Heading Study of Public School Direction

Francis J. Keppel, dean of the Graduate School of Education, has been appointed to the executive committee of the newly-founded National Council of Administrative Leadership, a group formed to strengthen administration of public schools.

The committee was chosen at a meeting at Columbia University early this week of representatives from 32 universities who formed the council in an "effort to improve training" of public school administrators, Keppel said yesterday. The committee will meet in Chicago on December 17, having as one of its first objectives the organization of a five-year study on how to judge educational administration.

An early step of the council, Keppel said, should be the reorganization of the training programs for administrators. The Graduate School of Education did this five years ago, when it initiated a program in which 20 or 30 selected students spent 14 months learning proper administrative procedures. Most candidates for administrative posts take courses only one day a week, which is inadequate, Keppel asserted.

The council intends to raise public school administration to the "level of statesmanship," and to improve the selection and recruitment of candidates for administrative posts.

Other aims of the council are to improve basic instruction for executive posts, to guide the "professional development" of the administrator, and to aid professional schools in meeting modern needs. In regard to the last goal, Keppel cited the "very substantial growth" in technology which requires improvement in the "quality of schooling."