This document provides a brief history of urban school governance and summarizes some of the unique governance structures that have emerged in six American cities and one Canadian province over recent years. By 1920, ward-based systems in most urban areas had given way to systems with a high degree of centralization. These systems were more…

The Educational Priorities Panel undertook a study to find out how funds are distributed among community school districts in New York (New York) and how resources are distributed to individual schools within the system. For the first time, in 1992, the New York City Board of Education published detailed budgets for the 32 community school…

The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), Library of Congress, administers a free library program for those unable to read standard printed materials, reproducing and distributing works in braille, recorded disc, and recorded cassette. Previous studies of the distribution network had identified costs and…

This paper discusses the need for developing provincial/state, regional, and district partnerships to provide critical support for library media programs at the building level. It maintains that the experts who provide leadership at each level must be strong advocates for the integration of the library media program into all aspects of the…

This paper examines relationships between measures of educational interest group strength, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA); characteristics of state education agencies (SEA); and selected indicators of educational policy centralization. The more specific purpose of this study is the discovery…

Four of the 17 papers in this collection focus on library services for children; the remaining 12 are concerned with public libraries. The papers on children's libraries appear first on this list: (1) "A Study of Integrated Services" (Selma K. Richardson, United States); (2) "Partnership and Prosper: A Broader View of Children's…

A study is presented to determine (1) where people influential in public university governance believe various typical decisions are being made and (2) where they believe those decisions should be made. The kinds of issues that bring about most disagreement as to proper authority in governance and administration are identified. Centralization of…

This analysis of the changing balance in who controls the schools contends that local authorities have been slowly losing authority to the states. Moreover, within the local districts, the central offices are assuming more control in such matters as curriculum content and state testing programs. The paper begins with an overview of recent…

This paper describes some of the historical background for current practices in local curriculum development, the major participants and their roles in local curriculum development, some of the processes involved, and the major conditions necessary for successful local development. Using a broad literature base of both published and unpublished…

The 61 cooperative vocational centers in Minnesota are joint efforts of 2 or more neighboring school districts to provide secondary vocational education and to strengthen, extend and expand existing vocational programs. Begun as pilot projects in 1968, the centers focus on introducing students to a variety of occupations, providing career…

Implementation of civil rights guidelines in vocational education encountered problems because it broke down the half-century-old harmony of interests between government and the vocational education community. Since 1917, federal support for vocational education had led to a highly centralized, virtually self-monitoring system of schooling. In the…

The proceedings of the conference are summarized, including a symposium discussion following the formal conference. Contents include: two views of the present advisory structure for student aid (The Case for Maintaining and Expanding the Coalition for the Coordination of Student Financial Aid, by Robert H. Atwell, and The Need for Developing a…

At present, there are at least 13 major federal laws and at least 439 separate statutory authorities regulating various aspects of college and university behavior. In addition, various state coordinating and governing boards are making increasing demands for data from the campuses and are ordering colleges to drop high cost and/or low enrollment…

DEFINING CENTRALIZED PROCESSING AS ORDERING, CATALOGING, CLASSIFICATION, AND MECHANICAL PREPARATION OF LIBRARY MATERIALS, THIS STUDY WAS CONDUCTED (1) TO DETERMINE THE FEASIBILITY OF CENTRALIZED PROCESSING FOR ILLINOIS PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND LIBRARY SYSTEMS AND (2) TO MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PLANNING STATE CENTRALIZED ACTIVITY. GENERAL SURVEY…

A comparative study is presented from the results of a questionnaire on rural education submitted to 71 countries. Information is given on administrative organization, criteria used to determine rurality, rural-urban differences, special courses for rural areas, curricula for rural education, staff distribution and preparation, and centralization…