The movement toward school decentralization in Chicago is best described as a strategy of incrementalism. It has proceeded along separate fronts--administrative decentralization, district and school advisory councils, and a special experimental district. This paper describes the extent to which these developments have progressed. It also seeks to…

A comparison of the racial composition of parent, community, and teacher representatives elected in autumn 1989 to Local School Councils (LSCs) in Chicago to the racial/ethnic mix of the populations they represent indicates significant racial disparity on a city-wide basis. Statistical data were analyzed from 503 of a total of 540 schools (about…