The contraditions within the systems of school support and school policy-making make it difficult to find a manner of governance of the social studies program which is protected from extraneous influence and yet avoids creating a buffer between the schools and the democratic forces to which they are responsive. State and federal governments previously have been reluctant to assume control of the schools, leaving this power to educators in local school districts. Increasing state financing and concomitant growth of state authority at the expense of local school administrators are likely to prove significant in the particular curriculum area of political education. The type of political education favored by state authorities is that which produces the subject citizen, as opposed to the participant citizen, and maintains the status quo. The structure of school control needs to be based on models which remove political education from direct state control and which broaden participation in its governance. Models for the governance of political education include: the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and "parochiad" bills. (Author/KSM)