The state of New South Wales (NSW) ceded the Canberra area to the Commonwealth in 1911 as the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), but maintained responsibility for education in the region until 1974, when the territory became responsible for its own educational system. ACT's Independent Education Authority came into being in large part as the…

If participation does not include an openness to the issues that are of real concern to the community and an opportunity to influence policy relating to those issues, it becomes an empty public relations gesture fostering apathy, disinterest, resistance, or counter-organization. (MB)

This annotated bibliography was compiled as a library research project at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Part I of the listing deals with decentralization as a structural feature of the local political system. Part II examines the process of local citizen participation. Parts III and IV focus on community control in the decentralization…

The past 50 years have witnessed a vast transformation of public education from tens of thousands of relatively independent, "grass roots," citizen-controlled school districts to centrally controlled, massive bureaucracies. Ten recommendations are made which would bring public education back under the control of ordinary citizens. (RM)

Examines Colombia's efforts to halt escalating violence and social destruction through political and educational decentralization aimed at bolstering participatory democracy. Discusses the efficiency and anticorruption goals of centralization policies of the 1970s. Describes lack of shared vision and other national and local barriers to…

Responds to criticisms of the community control approach to public education. Holds that community control was only unsuccessful because it was opposed by those interests who feared the consequences of participation by the poor, and that the idea should be given an opportunity to operate at the local level. (Author/GC)

Because the ultimate power to control school reform is in the hands of the superintendent or some other similarly positioned administrator, the reforms tend to benefit some student or constituency groups more than others. Judging from the personal characteristics of most superintendents and the political context of the superintendency itself, it…

This report explores the individual and social benefits of citizen participation in educational decision-making. This exploration combines democratic theory, historical and cultural determinants, practical experience and public opinion, and research and evaluation. Citizens participate politically in school affairs to effect changes in policy,…

Public control of the schools has steadily eroded in recent years. Population growth and widespread consolidation of school districts, depoliticization of school board elections, adoption of the business model of professional school management, development of a multilevel school bureaucracy, and unionization of teachers all have combined to…

In focusing on local school board response to citizen desires for change in public school operations and on significant issues changing education from the perspective of school boards, three principles must be kept in mind: (1) public schools are controlled by three arms of government at three levels; (2) the federal government has limited powers;…