Due to Alaska's unique culture, geography and history there are various State and Federal laws affecting the education of Alaskan children, especially Native children. Under these laws, several kinds of school systems operate for rural Alaska communities--Bureau of Indian Affairs, Regional Education Attendance Areas, city and borough districts,…

To explore the issue of local control over public education, five major questions have been identified and followed by responses from a variety of sources that depict existing conflicts and diversity in opinion. The responses illustrate that resolutions of the local control problems are uncertain, not due to lack of direction by participants, but…

Public control of the schools has steadily eroded in recent years. Population growth and widespread consolidation of school districts, depoliticization of school board elections, adoption of the business model of professional school management, development of a multilevel school bureaucracy, and unionization of teachers all have combined to…

These hearings before the Senate Select Committee on Equal Educational Opportunity are organized in three parts, the contents of which are as follows: Part 1A and Part 2 comprise the "Introduction," with opening statements by a number of Senators, followed by the presentations of other witnesses. The focus of these two parts is on such…

This report is a summary of New York City's school decentralization law for the use of educational and community personnel. The New York City Office of Education Affairs of the Human Rights Administration (HRA) prepared and distributed the report as a public service in response to requests for explanation of the law. No editorial opinion was…

A 2-day institute examined the relationship between two central policy alternatives facing large city school districts: Decentralization and integration. Titles and authors of the 11 major addresses presented at the institute are as follows: (1) "Urban Schools: Issues in Responsiveness and Control," by John H. Fischer; (2) "Children…

The report is based on a questionnaire which was part of the Alaskan Native Needs Assessment in Education (Project ANNA). It was sent to members of 44 village school boards to determine the educational preferences of Alaskan Native adults. The method asked 6 open-ended questions: (1) What kind of high school does your village want your students to…

School decentralization in New York City has been avidly watched nationally by educators and governmental decision makers. School decentralization was regarded as a necessary reform, if not a panacea and has had a long history. For three decades, educational reports stressed the need to divide large urban school districts into smaller more…

This evaluation of the decentralized Open Enrollment programs conducted in the New York City public schools during the 1969-70 school year, with funds provided by Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, covers programs developed and implemented at the school district level. It was contracted by the Bureau of Research of the central…

Describes the struggles and triumphs of a Maori community in the Bay of Islands (New Zealand) as it took local control of its rural school and made it fully bilingual. A series of government reforms have made the Maori people responsible for administering the school with insufficient funds while the government maintains power over the curriculum…

The following 14 essays consider relationships among schooling, education, and the state; alternatives to existing systems; and educating minorities and the disadvantaged: (1) "Growing Up Blighted: Reflections on the 'Secret Power' in the American Experience" (C. Burgess); (2) "The Evolving Political Structure of American…

Participatory research began as a reaction to traditional social science research methodology, which tended to make persons into objects of study. It had its beginnings in Tanzania around 1970, when a group of farmers participated in research to assess and solve the problem of losses of grain harvests. The process grew out of the philosophy of…

This paper reports the results of a study of the implementation of multicultural education policy initiatives in Australia. An outline of the study's methods follows brief discussions of the emergence of multicultural education as a policy issue and the context of multicultural education in Australia. To assess the impact of multicultural…

Utilizing material in the ERIC network, this paper briefly investigates the theory, history, and current state of community schools. Planning guidelines for alternative uses of school facilities are discussed and some examples are given of effective shared facilities. Financial requirements for starting a community school and possible sources of…

There are three major phases in the process of community development projected for the San Joaquin Valley's west side. The first phase involves agricultural experiments using different kinds of crops, agricultural techniques, and ownership arrangements. Beginning when enough people have returned to the land to create a demand for an expanded town,…