The former superintendent of District 1 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan defends community control and his actions. (IRT)

Political developments with respect to two public school systems are examined in terms of two theoretical models. When viewed from the analytical perspective used here, similarities between the two cities with respect to progress in decentralization begin to emerge.

Public school systems in Chicago have seen relatively little movement toward school decentralization, despite turbulent periods of civil rights. Some explanations framed in theoretical perspectives for the apparent lag as compared with other cities are given. (Author/AM)

The movement toward school decentralization in Chicago is best described as a strategy of incrementalism. It has proceeded along separate fronts--administrative decentralization, district and school advisory councils, and a special experimental district. This paper describes the extent to which these developments have progressed. It also seeks to…

Physical-economic models of neighborhood change, popularly used by neighborhood planners, are beginning to give way to more politically oriented models. Such models do not call for blind community control, but for facilitating the development of neighborhood political capacities. (Author/RLV)

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)

An examination of debilitating conflicts among researchers, reformers, and practitioners and the ethnics with which they deal in the school decentralization/community control arena. (Author)

Contains a comment rebutting earlier articles (see EA 503 995 and EA 503 731) concerned with the controversy over the ways and means to achieve equal educational opportunity. A reply by the original author is included. (Author/DN)

"Politics" is used in a broad sense to refer to the social, economic, political, and civil forces that impinge on the publicly financed school system. These forces are generated both from outside and inside the educational system. It is the author's view that the big cities and the school systems of most of these cities are in just enough trouble…

Ocean Hill-Brownsville was one of the three projects established by the New York City Board of Education to experiment with the reality of community participation. In time, much of the early optimism of community planners was dampened. The Board of Education's procrastination and its unwillingness to develop guidelines prior to the initiation of…

This report describes the New York City public school system's experiences with decentralization since 1970. The report includes an introductory chapter explaining the conditions that led to the adoption of decentralization; analytical case studies of eight New York City decentralized school districts; and two concluding chapters on findings and…

The belief that structural change providing for the representation of minority parents in urban school districts would improve educational services for their children has led to an emphasis on school-system controlled or affiliated channels for participation. This emphasis, based on assumptions about parent participation in suburban districts, has…