Public discussion of American education centers on crisis and decline. In response to these sentiments, citizens are fast abandoning all forms of local control over schools. Schools are controlled by increasingly distant experts. Some people think that this new direction is necessary because the schools have failed academically. On the contrary,…

This document reviews the consequences of urban community involvement in school decision making. Areas concerning educational decisions, shared as goals by lay communities and school people, are considered to be: institutional responsiveness, affective and material community support to schools, educational achievement, and the democratic principle…