Reviews current governance problems in education and details the range of possible governance models for post-industrial schooling. After describing problems that governance must address, the paper describes various possibilities for school governance in the future. Five types of control processes are considered. Ideological foundations of an…

The Intifadeh, Palestinian, uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, has become a catalyst for educational change. Palestinian methods of coping with an educational system controlled by outsiders include informal, community-based education; alternative instruction based on existing textbooks; and long-term planning as part of…

Review of four articles on nonmetropolitan trends suggests that (1) access to adequate education and other services should be ensured regardless of locale; (2) urban-rural dichotomies are politically useless; and (3) rural schools and communities should pursue locally defined goals. A coherent comprehensive rural policy is needed that values…

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…

The paper draws on findings from three case studies on the changing role of Local Education Authorities (LEAs) in England and explores the degree of LEA effectiveness, their contribution to school improvement, and the nature of their leadership. The context for the study is one in which, over the years, the powers and responsibilities of LEAs have…

A structural and philosophical reform of Peruvian education was instituted in March 1972, using as its basis a local community education nucleus model. This article presents the reform experience, relates it to its historical antecedents, gives some information on evaluation studies in progress, and traces some projections for educational…

The fundamental job of school board members is to view themselves as moral and cultural leaders and to transform the needs of groups to a higher and more noble framework. Lists the National School Boards Association's statement on the governance role of the local school board. (MLF)

The state of New South Wales (NSW) ceded the Canberra area to the Commonwealth in 1911 as the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), but maintained responsibility for education in the region until 1974, when the territory became responsible for its own educational system. ACT's Independent Education Authority came into being in large part as the…

This ethnographic account of community development relates the successful efforts of Shiloh County (a pseudonym for a small, rural political subdivision in the American South) to achieve local autonomy while using external resources to meet local needs. The study describes the political influences of family, religion, neighborhood, community and…

"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…

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)

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…

Describes the structure of the Chinese rural school system and its operational ties to the communes, which provide the "productive labor" component of Chinese education, various resources and facilities for schools, and governance of agrotechnical education at the middle and secondary level. (SJL)

In 1969 after an intense political campaign, three Mexican Americans won seats on the board of trustees of the Cucamonga (California) School District--the Chicano Movement's first successful effort at community control of a school board. Political organizing strategies, community-initiated self-help projects, the new board's educational reforms,…

The Annenberg Rural Challenge is a national effort to revitalize rural communities and schools and their long-standing values of community, democracy, and care for the natural environment. This collection of five essays presents a number of themes that are central to the Rural Challenge's philosophy. "Bringing It All Back Home: Reclaiming the…