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 substantially lessen public control of the schools. Two approaches to reforms that may help restore public control are now being considered: (1) reduction of the size or redefinition of the basic management unit of schooling in order to restore personal contact between administrators and the public and (2) introduction of market choices or measures designed to increase direct citizen participation in school decisionmaking. An experimental school voucher plan that allows parents to choose the school their children will attend is now being tested in the Alum Rock district near San Jose, California. Another plan being tried in Florida makes each school site responsible for its own budgeting and accounting and provides an elected Parent Advisory Council to advise the principal. Although it is still too early to evaluate either experiment, both of these reform efforts seem to promise ways to increase public control of the schools. (Author/JG)