From the systems viewpoint, educational planning is the mechanism through which the educational system makes its goals specific and adapt its priorities, resources, and operational patterns to the changing environmental forces of its particular society. The systems-oriented administrator is a change agent and innovative strategist who delegates responsibility for basic operations and places a premium on executive functions concerned with goals, planning, and coordination. Application of the systems approach to education includes development of alternative plans for optimum resource utilization, generation of models to clarify system relationships, and mastery of quantitative analytic techniques. Major components or subsystems include: (1) goals and priorities setting, (2) resources, (3) control, (4) client service, (5) educational manpower development, (6) environment relations, and (7) student manpower reentry and retraining. Newer tools available to the systems-oriented educational administrator include techniques related to planning control (PERT and PPBS) and serendipity, the art of discovering and utilizing the unexpected. (JK)