Abstract: The director of education bureau is the “key minority”in the administrative organization of basic education, and also the executor of the reform and development policy of basic education in our country, who determines the quality of the reform and development of basic education to a certain extent. With the help of NVivo12 software, this paper analyzes the text of 630 data of the directors from 1978-2022 in the Knowledge Network, and presents the basic situation of the directors’attention to the theme of basic education through the word frequency distribution. On the basis of coding, it extracts the changes of four themes: the development of compulsory education, the reform of institutional mechanisms, the implementation of educational policies and the information empowerment education. Changes in the focus of the director are influenced by subjective factors such as the personal experience, others in the education field, as well as objective factors such as political policies, economic development, regional status and technological development. The analysis shows that: 1. The theme that the director pays attention to the basic education is highly consistent with the national policy background, and the change of the policy environment provides external conditions for it; 2. The personal quality of the director provides the basic conditions for him to quickly pay attention to the problems in the field of basic education; 3. The director always plays a leading role, but the focus of the director cannot be achieved without the collective practice of principals and teachers; 4. There are differences in the pattern and manner of expression of the director's focus on the basic education reform. This study can provide reference for the current directors to lead the reform and development of basic education.