The Institute for Responsive Education and its study team are looking at ways to widen the scope of collective bargaining to provide room for communities to participate in policy formulation in their schools. The traditional management-labor approach was designed to resolve differences about wages, fringe benefits, and the rules, rights, and responsibilities of employers and employees, not to resolve differences about the rights of children, parents, and taxpayers involved in the educational process. As more and more educational decisions are made in bilateral, behind-closed-door negotiations, there will be even less opportunity for constructive ideas from students, parents, and others in the community than there are now. Furthermore, collective bargaining seems to be moving toward greater centralization in large school districts, making it even more difficult for the people concerned about an individual school--teachers, staff, parents, students, and community residents--to be adequately represented. We need to break out of the confines of the narrow, bilateral approaches to educational decisionmaking in general, and the closed-door collective bargaining patterns in particular. (Author/WM)