Newark, New Jersey has been at the forefront of school reform from the civil rights era through more recent efforts to resist neoliberal school reform approaches during the 2010s. Drawing on interviews with activists, policymakers, and school reformers, this paper documents the history of community organizing as a strategy to improve conditions in…

When the state of Texas took control of the Houston Independent School District (HISD) in the summer of 2023, it marked the end of a multi-year legal battle between the district and the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the beginning of a community-led campaign to re-take control of the district. Since, students and community groups have rallied to…

In this article Jennifer de Forest details the 1958 Harlem school boycott and the resulting court case, "In the Matter of Charlene Skipwith." de Forest demonstrates how the Harlem Parents' Committee mobilized dissent in Harlem and led a boycott that effectively used the Supreme Court's 1954 decision in "Brown II," which…

Since 1967, a series of legal actions initiated by parents and ratepayers has led to a major revision of part of the Education Act of 1944 and to judicial reinterpretation of other sections of it. (Author/IRT)

Questions whether the interests of children are served by the active intervention of collective bargaining in program development and the educational processes. (Author/JF)

Two of the major challenges facing urban schools today are: (1) how they can offer productive educational programs for an ever-changing student population, and (2) their ability to broaden the base of community participation in the operation of schools. (DM)

Amish parents who refused to enroll their children in high school (because of religous tenets) violated the Wisconsin Compulsory School Attendance Law. The court ruled the law unconstitutional as it applied to these parents; this opens issues for current community control. (DM)

The districting policies of and the past resistance to integration shown by the Los Angeles School Board cast doubts on decentralization as the alternative to integration of that city's schools. (DM)

The merits of integration in the area of education are highly controversial. (DM)

The Native American Legal Defense and Education Fund, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is directed toward cases which involve education, civil rights, equal employment opportunities, Indian land problems, health services, and tribal sovereignty. (KM)

Asserts that community control is not an all-or-nothing situation, but that centralization can co-exist with decentralization. Argues for states to have the responsibility for insuring desegregation and equitable funding and for communities to have control of personnel, curriculum and budget priorities. (Author/AM)

This review of current legal practices with respect to censorship in the areas of obscenity and pornography contains a history of anti-obscenity legislation; a review of the efforts of the United States Supreme Court and lower courts to define obscenity; a discussion of publisher Larry Flynt's battle against the "community standards"…