This account of the demise of English school boards suggests that the revised form of school governance established by the Tory-sponsored Education Act of 1902 provided a suprising liberal impetus to English education. (JH)

The paper investigates various organizational models of cable TV ownership and control, legislation in Canada and the United States regarding cable systems, and the potential of cable as an information network for adult education. With a view to giving everyone access to the cable medium and an opportunity to participate, advantages and…

Communities with a flexible, open leadership structure may weather energy booms better than communities with old-guard leadership cliques, according to a study of community governance in two small Texas towns. Although similar in location, ethnic composition, population, access to transportation, economic base, and importance in the county,…

This book offers a comprehensive analysis and description of the political aspects of American education, utilizing both empirical data and case studies on the politics of education. Included are two case studies of recent school policies, which focus on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 and the school desegregation…

Elected school boards' skeptical eyes can guard against bad management practices and ensure that different voices get heard. Problems with board governance are a product of too little democracy. A democratic reform strategy would make board elections partisan, hold them on the same day as elections for more prominent state or national offices,…

Focusing on problem-solving organizational structures, this report traces the history of the community education project of the Austin (Texas) Independent School District, which sought to involve neighborhood communities in the education process. After a brief profile of Austin, the report describes how the project started in a poor inner-city…

After presenting an overview of metropolitan schools, described as not successful in providing an adequate education for economically disadvantaged students, the authors examine four critical issues: compensatory education, educational accountability, decentralization and community control, and desegregation. While compensatory education has not…

The plan proposed in this report gives elected community boards of education the responsibility and authority to meet particular educational needs of their communities, including in the special area of low academic achievement. The proposal is in the form of a guideline and covers such areas as selection of community boards; parent participation;…

This book is divided into four chapters. The first examines the concepts and issues related to understanding social systems and how the schools can be viewed as a social system. The differences between centralization and decentralization, as well as systems-analysis and management-control approaches are also explored. In the next chapter, we are…

The successes and failures in balancing state and local control of public community colleges are explored in this collection of essays describing effective and non-effective coordinating and planning efforts. Vincent S. Darnowski explores the Connecticut community colleges' struggle with a centralized state bureaucracy. Sidney W. Brossman uses the…

This study examined a school district before and after its school board changed from appointed status to elected status to determine if there were significant differences in the board's handling of constituent demands. School board minutes were examined and demands were analyzed for a six-month period under the appointed school board, then…

The steady drift toward state control of community college education is a growing issue of concern. This movement has not come from significant changes in the authority or responsibilities of the state community college boards or agencies so much as from a variety of other national and state precursors. This document attempts to establish the…

Drawing largely on data from Los Angeles, but with reference to other cities where appropriate, this paper attempts to clarify the distinctive positions taken by advocates of community control as opposed to proponents of administrative decentralization. While community control is essentially a political demand, oriented toward citizens influencing…

This paper presents the idea of formal neighborhood government as a beginning to discussion and debate. Only by clearing away the confusion over what changes are being asked for by the proponents of decentralization can the neighborhood government movement be placed in historical perspective. The justification for neighborhood government,…

This chapter traces the migration from farms to cities and the later movement from cities to suburbs and discusses the impact of the resulting big city environment on the governance of big city education. The author (1) suggests how local, State, and Federal governments can improve big city education; (2) discusses ways of planning for the future…