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 article examines the Buffalo, New York, experiment of community control at the local school level and why it succeeded when other similar experiments failed. (MF)

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)

Discusses the arguments for and against expanded public participation in educational policy making and considers examples of several forms of public participation drawn from the U.S., France, Italy, England, Sweden, the German Federal Republic, and the People's Republic of China. Also explores some of the probable consequences of expanded public…

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…

The monograph describes the Community Learning Center (CLC) model and process, which resulted from a University System of New Hampshire project conducted in six small New Hampshire towns between July 1973 and June 1974. The development involved a non-school, learner-controlled base, headed by groups of citizens called "core groups," who…

Client systems are groups of students or citizens with a stake in the institution of education, who depend upon it, and who are motivated to take some action in its regard. Teachers comprise a third system with a professional interest in education. Each system is a complex of subsystems or subgroups with contradictory as well as complementary…

A school board member describes how the actions of legislators, judges, and lay groups are draining control from the local level. (Author)

Two results of minority pressure for community involvement in educational decision making are (1) administrative decentralization and community participation, and (2) administrative decentralization and community control. However, regarding "community control," controversy abounds over whether elected public officials and professional educators or…

The use of popular theatre to overcome community development problems in underdeveloped countries through adult education is introduced and its relationship to the concept of participatory research is explored. Material is arranged in four sections. The first of these presents an introduction to popular theatre and participatory research. Stemming…

Indian-controlled education programs may be evaluated by involving community members/leaders; administrators/teachers/students; federal-provincial education officers. The advantages include heightening community awareness of strengths/weaknesses in education programs, allowing community control over nature/duration of evaluation, providing ongoing…

Faced with a legal mandate to equalize educational resources available to its public elementary schools, can the Board of Education of the District of Columbia respond effectively to the public pressure for decentralization of its decision-making systems? The answer may be determined through the responses to two further questions: to what extent…

This paper examines the functioning of the Public School Safety Commission that was established in a large west coast city to study the problem of violence in the city's public schools. The commission was established by the board of education in the spring of 1974 and issued its final report in July 1974. Over 60 community organizations,…

A comparison of the racial composition of parent, community, and teacher representatives elected in autumn 1989 to Local School Councils (LSCs) in Chicago to the racial/ethnic mix of the populations they represent indicates significant racial disparity on a city-wide basis. Statistical data were analyzed from 503 of a total of 540 schools (about…