Contents of this manual center on and develop action check-lists for parents concerning the following topics: how to help your child do better in school; how to make sure all children learn to read--sample questionnaire: parent survey of reading achievement; how to use state and federal funds to force educational reform in your school; how to take…

This book is an outgrowth of the summer institute in urban education conducted by the Division of Urban Education of Fordham University's School of Education in 1970 and 1971. Contents include the following papers: "Education in a Changing World," John Holt; "Changing Power Relationships in Education," Albert Shanker; "Education in an Urban…

The Black Child Development Institute is guided in its analysis of legislation by an organizational commitment to building child development institutions which meet the comprehensive needs of black children, families, and communities. Its premises are threefold. First, child development must encompass the black child's cognitive, physical, social,…

If blacks are to have any hope of success in producing favorable social and political change, they must be extremely wary of having too narrow a focus. Blacks cannot waste time in the search for ideological purity, closing out those who happen not to agree on every detail of a specific program. Blacks, together with the other oppressed groups of…

The contents of the second volume in the "Pegasus Series on Decentralization and the Urban Crisis," of which Alan Altshuler is General Editor, are organized in five chapters. Chapter one, "Background to controversy," comprises discussions of such topics as the failure of integration, liberalism and race, Negro responses, and the issue of…

Education directly determines life, liberty, and happiness for that segment of the population which can afford better educational facilities. For economically and socially disadvantaged people, education only perpetuates inequality. Financial inequality results in some school districts spending more money per student than other school districts.…

A collaborative enterprise to provide adult education center programs dissolved due to mismanaged interagency cooperation. Problems included unwillingness to relinquish control, lack of candor, poor selection of partners, lack of planning, failure to implement, and failure to evaluate. (SK)

This paper measures the effects on student outcomes of decentralizing educational responsibility to communities and schools. In El Salvador, community-managed schools emerged during the 1980s when public schools could not be extended to rural areas because of the country's civil war. In 1991, El Salvador's Ministry of Education decided to draw on…

This book documents the debate among the Inuit of Nunavik (northern Quebec) over the purposes, strengths, and weaknesses of public schools in their 14 arctic communities. The book begins with a summary of the history of education in Nunavik, including traditional Inuit methods and purposes of education. The 14 communities comprise the Kativik…

Between 1870 and 1930, a "second great transformation" in the Northeast and Midwest was characterized by centralization of the economy, expansion of state power and professional expertise, and a rising urban consumer culture. Communities in the rural North faced a number of challenges: diminishing local control over schools and roads,…

China's "minban" (people-managed) schooling was an important instrument for delivering educational and political values to poor areas during Mao's era. Despite national policy aimed at eliminating poorly-qualified minban teachers by 2000, rural communities have been reluctant to dismiss such teachers, given the rural teacher shortage and…

Effective strategies for assisting Canadian Native communities to develop school boards included encouraging an unhurried adaptive learning process, providing guidance to achieve consensus, and allowing for an incubation period. Impediments to development included community members' avoidance of leadership roles, cross-cultural misunderstandings,…

This article addresses ways school board members can work to engage the community in school-improvement efforts. Some suggestions: Commit your time and talents; demand clarity and simplicity; listen; use the grapevine; work with the media; and be honest. Includes an extensive list of recommendations within a "community relations checklist." (WFA)

Reports results of a study testing the hypothesis that an inverse relationship exists between level of intimacy between perpetrator and victim in incidents of violence and likelihood of arrest. Notwithstanding relevant elements of probable cause, such as the presence of weapons, witnesses, injury, and the offender, results supported the…

Reports how husband's mental state, antagonism between the disputants, and victim injury affected officers' inferences and referral decisions to battered women shelters and outpatient mental health centers. Officers' age and perceptions of: husband's mental state, wife's credibility, wife's intent, husband's responsibility, and victim injury…