At a time when schools must adapt to rapid change in the social and economic structure of the community, educational leaders tend to insulate themselves from political reality. The educational leader is responsible for balancing the two forces of politics and change, which pull at the school's resources in opposite directions. He must develop political insight and judgment because of the rising costs of education and growing confrontations with parent dissatisfaction, teacher organizations, and student unrest. Other major social forces and developments modifying the traditional school-community relationship include: (1) The Federal Government's increasingly active role in public education, (2) continuing poverty in the midst of an affluent society, and (3) cybernation, with its resultant decreased dependency on human labor. Recent attempts by educational leaders to resolve problems of decentralization and racial integration illustrate the educational administrator's intrinsically political response to the influence of special interest groups and the changing relationship between the school and the community. (JK)