The issue of community control concerns the future role of parents in a changing school environment. It is vital that parental involvement be channeled toward positive and realistic goals such as defining the needs of children and determining how to meet these needs. To give parents access to decisionmakers, school boards should consider holding…

This paper supports the contention that community parity is an essential condition for the successful implementation of all projects supported by the U.S. Office of Education. The paper begins with a summary of the reasoning underlying this position, followed by some recommendations designed to guide planners of future government programs in…

Court-ordered citizen monitoring of school desegregation does little to increase participation in school politics by minorities, women, the powerless, or the uninvolved. The greatest effects of increasing community involvement are likely to be a little more effective desegregation and much more power and participation for those who already have…

Contrasts community control with community participation in administratively decentralized schools. Lists large school districts in the U.S. which have been decentralized and discusses attitudes of school officials toward community involvement in public schools. Calls for more research on the effects of decentralization and community control on…

Discusses the history of community control of public education, examining: sub-regional communities (New York City's community school boards and Detroit's regional decentralization); school-based decentralization (preserving professional privilege in Salt Lake City and local school councils in Chicago); balancing bottom-up and top-down; whether…

Reviews the impact of collective bargaining on school policy and identifies the appearance of multilateral bargaining as a function of the decentralization movement and parent group demands for participation in collective negotiations. (Author)

A major component of the decentralization concept has been the focus on the participation of community, staff, and students in the process of educational decision making. On June 28, 1971, the Los Angeles City Board of Education mandated that a school-community advisory council be established in every regular elementary and secondary school in the…

The new capability of cable television (CATV) to provide relevant programming to local communities should be recognized so that inner city consumers can be provided with direct, personal information--warning, comparative prices, and the sense that someone cares. At least one channel should be devoted as a key to these services, with other channels…

Notes that if the school really belongs to the community, then administrators have no more right to put a kid out of his school than to put their children out of the house. Discusses the implications of this ideology. (Author/AM)

Community education is an educational philosophy, which holds that the school is responsible for all aspects of education. The promise of that philosophy lies in its potential for involving people in the identification and solution of their problems. (Author/JH)

There are many different forms of community involvement and citizen participation in the schools. But while the quantity is high, the quality and impact are lagging far behind. The author (who is president of the Institute for Responsive Education) advocates the reintroduction of democratic values into education. Through school-based management,…

Responses from inquiries to the superintendents of 32 urban school systems across the country provided the basis for classifying and evaluating modes of decentralization and extent of community control. Main features of the school systems' operations are reported under nine categories: (1) decentralized decision making with centralized…

Argues that ways exist to include parents and communities in educational decision making without sacrificing the gains which teachers' unions have won. Describes and assesses several strategies for opening up the bargaining process. (Editor/RK)

Current interest in control of schools is a struggle for economic influence rather than genuine educational concerns, and in urban areas is generally a struggle between black and whites. A systems approach, claims author, is an alternative for sharing control and responsibility. (DS)