In 1987-88, some 150 American Indian students, parents, tribal leaders, and educators participated in seven regional dialogues on the reforms needed in American Indian education. Participants gave a clear message that Indians want direct control over educational institutions serving their children, curriculum reform to make cultural retention an…

The systemic reform exemplified by the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA) requires the coupling of top-down state mandates with bottom-up advocacy and leadership. This research on an Eastern Kentucky school district details the dynamics at the district's main high school, as people struggle to build both a community of learners within…

Growing social and economic inequalities and political impotency are the sources of functional illiteracy. The current educational emphasis on basic skills will not resolve these problems. Students must harness their collective forces to replace corporate control with democratic power. (Author/GC)

Since 1993, school reform leaders from Chicago (Illinois), Denver (Colorado), New York (New York), Seattle (Washington), and Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) have come together in the Cross City Campaign to work for the improvement of urban education. In each of these cities rhetorical pleas for decentralization and the investment of decision making in…

This paper explores the relationship between low income parents and urban schools. Parent participation in urban schools today is said to have been institutionalized in forms set in motion by the Civil Rights movement. Three types of response to the failure of schools to respond to the 1954 Supreme Court decision calling for desegregation are…

This book focuses on the question of how citizen participation affects the making of the school budget, the crucial controlling instrument of modern bureaucratic organizations. The four communities studied differed in size, social and economic characteristics, and form of government. Chapter 1 introduces the topic and begins the discussion of the…

Contents of this volume, one product of a collaboration between the Carnegie Corporation and Rand initiated in July 1969, include the following papers: "Emerging Issues in Education . . .," J. E. Bruno; "Societal Foundations for Change: Educational Alternatives for the Future," W. Harman: "Constitutional Aspects of Equality of Educational…

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)

Examines the relationship between centralization and public education. Suggests that compulsory schooling is key to the increasingly centralized and "managed" nature of society and that the nationalization of schooling has undermined individual rights to liberty and democracy. Advocates that communities be responsible for their children and for…

A case study of site-based governance councils in Salt Lake City (Utah) is described. The study was a test of whether building-based councils actually enable teachers and parents to exert substantial influence on school policy. The reason why research findings did not fit expectations is discussed. (SLD)

Describes the public education system in Norway. Discusses steering and decentralization, political and professional responsibility, and proposals for governing by goals. Identifies the EMIL plan, which calls for establishing goals and evaluating results from the view of the government and teachers. Lists political and professional…

This paper examines the determinants of systemic education reform in the American states. Socioeconomic, political, and cultural variables are all found to affect the level of systemic education policy in each state. Unlike many studies of policy determinants, urbanization is negatively associated with this particular policy. The political factors…

Change in rural schools is difficult to achieve because the diversity of these schools does not allow for one set implementation program. Small rural schools are an integral part of the rural community, and as such are as different as the part of the country where they are located. Change in rural areas is unsuccessful due to: the amount of…

Even though public school districts are structured with the expectation of responsive governance, most school boards are not particularly responsive to their constituents. School boards from politically contentious districts tend to be more responsive, but they have even less success challenging the dominance of the superintendent than do less…

When local school board members in New York City assumed office on 31 local school boards in 1969, this should have resulted in more responsive local boards with sufficient power to control local policy; but this was not the actual result. Specific examination of the decentralization bill, the politics of the election, and the election procedures…