When the state of Texas took control of the Houston Independent School District (HISD) in the summer of 2023, it marked the end of a multi-year legal battle between the district and the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the beginning of a community-led campaign to re-take control of the district. Since, students and community groups have rallied to…

The Fuentes case demonstrated how the community's rights could be subverted by a purposeful faction; the Canarsie case showed how unchecked local control could damage children's rights. Successful decentralization requires the central board to assert its authority to prevent the arbitrary exercise of local power. (EH)

This article provides data on the decentralization of seven large U. S. school systems, explaining when and how it came about. (Editor)

Article explores the question of local school control and whether or not it has ever existed in the American public school system. (GB)

Veteran principals are among the victims of "community control," Chicago style. Presents a chapter from the "Krug Report" published by the Chicago Tribune, with observations, inpressions, and educated insights based on many interviews, visits, and long-time contacts with schools. Attempts to help the public better understand…

The future stability of the Los Angeles school district as a single entity is questioned. Various problems that add instability to the system's present decentralization plans are discussed. Among them are achievement and academic performance. (Author/AM)

Political developments with respect to two public school systems are examined in terms of two theoretical models. When viewed from the analytical perspective used here, similarities between the two cities with respect to progress in decentralization begin to emerge.

Article presented a number of responses to a survey of wherein rests the responsibility for governing schools in America. (RK)

Article appeared in a slightly revised form in a book entitled: Schools Against Children: The Case for Community Control," edited by Annette T. Rubinstein, and published in April, 1970. Recounts the conflicts surrounding the 1968-69 policies and operations of a demonstration school district in Harlem. (RJ)

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…

Discusses resource reallocation, community control, and tuition vouchers, and how each affects the role of the state, the community, and the family in the education process. (SP)

Reprinted from the booklet, An Even Chance, by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., with the cooperation of the Center for Law and Education, Harvard University, 1971. (VW)

Analyzes why, as the process of decision-making has been centralized by school bureaucracies, and as professional educators have gained power, public education has become a closed social institution neither accountable nor responsible to the citizens it serves. (JM)

A sequential model of events that commonly precedes the emergence of demands of community control is proposed. Responses of district authorities to the control demand is then interpreted within the framework of several theoretical models.