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…

The research had four objectives: (1) to describe home-school-community relations in selected IGE schools; (2) to explain the home-school-community relations and the implementation of IGE political terms using issue analysis and policy acceptance analysis; (3) to generate hypotheses from the data gathered through objectives 1 and 2, and relate…

The study evaluated two early intervention programs for rural preschool handicapped and developmentally delayed children to determine the degree of integration into the community and program-community interaction. Analysis of 6 months of observation in the two programs resulted in the following conclusions: (1) administration of early intervention…

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…

The movement for community control of schools allowed for the participation of parents in educational policy with regard to their local schools. This movement was aimed at increasing the participation of inner city parents in the schools. This movement has currently slowed down. In large metropolitan areas, the size of the educational system has…

This document reports on Phase II of a major project designed to study how school systems respond to the educational needs of the socially and economically disadvantaged. The report presents the Local Community Control model as the most effective means to change the school board's typical non responsiveness to the needs of the educationally…

Roles of women teachers and community control of teachers were studied in 1989-90 for 30 urban and 30 rural teachers in Lebowa, a unit of the Transvaal (South Africa). Under apartheid, female teachers were controlled by often-hostile committees and committee members who were frequently illiterate themselves. (SLD)

Acceptance or rejection of school policy hinges on the role played by formal and informal groups within the community power structure. Kimbrough's research suggests that formal groups are subordinate to the informal power structure in establishing policy, though formal groups make important contributions to decision-making. Some researchers…

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…

This paper examines the functioning of the Public School Safety Commission that was established in a large west coast city to study the problem of violence in the city's public schools. The commission was established by the board of education in the spring of 1974 and issued its final report in July 1974. Over 60 community organizations,…

Case study describes the efforts of Kuinerrarmiut Elitnaurviat, the K-12 school in Quinhagak, Alaska, to implement school reform initiatives that support the merging of school and community values and priorities. Despite nearly a century of outside acculturation efforts, the Yupik people of Quinhagak are attempting to integrate their language,…

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…

This dissertation, which won the Dissertation of the Year Award, examines how stakeholders in an Appalachian Kentucky high school addressed educational problems that they had targeted for reform. Set against the backdrop of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA), this ethnographic study describes the challenges of effectively coupling top-down…

A year-long ethnographic investigation examined how stakeholders in an Appalachian Kentucky high school addressed educational problems that they had targeted for reform while resisting state priorities and policies mandated in the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA). Contrasts KERA objectives with cultural themes prominent in this poor…

A questionnaire survey of 180 Texas school district superintendents sought to determine both their perceptions of how community power structures influenced school board decisions and their techniques for communicating with their local power structure. The study analyzed four power structure types--monopolistic, multigroup noncompetitive,…