Districts can encourage school improvement through policy statements that promote local autonomy and ownership. (MLF)

Seventeen individuals comment on school governance. All cite reasons for the decline of local responsibility in school administration. (MLF)

The two pillars--equal access to knowledge and public demonstration of results--will define the boundaries for decentralizing decisions about curriculum, instructional delivery, staff development, and evaluation. Several schools have already implemented team teaching, deeper course content, multidisciplinary curricula, portfolio student…

The traditional unfriendly rivalry between English universities and colleges and the local education authorities has been changed in East Yorkshire. There, two colleges and two LEAs have developed a jointly owned, financed, and administered scheme for managing degree awards to teachers. Mutual discontent with inservice training prompted the…

A survey shows that California's charter-schools movement is being shaped by the special features of the state's charter law--exclusive local oversight and ambiguous legal status. Each school must negotiate how it handles its local school board, teachers' unions, and lack of start-up funding and technical assistance. Most charter schools seek…

In many countries, education legislation embodies contradictory pressures for centralization and decentralization. In the United Kingdom, there is growing government control over policy and direction of schools; schools are also being given more responsibility for resource management. "Moving" schools within Improving the Quality of…

Gone are the days of minimal state and federal involvement in education. Educators today must understand the workings of government, politics, and public finance. (Author/MLF)

The Italian education system was built on Napoleonic and Prussian models, with considerable power vested in the central government and many formal and legal controls. In 1994, after a 20-year failed experiment with governing school councils, the Minister of Education proposed reforms based on notions of autonomy. The current minister also favors…

Based on individual educational and instructional programing and goal-setting strategies, the Wisconsin Program for the Renewal and Improvement of Secondary Education has improved student achievement, attitudes, and attendance in Wisconsin high schools. The program has worked largely because of its adaptability to each individual school's needs.…

Describes an Arkansas Department of Education program that involves teachers and gives stability to otherwise short-lived school renewal programs. (JM)

Implementation of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act has created new issues and challenges in the governance of education. (Author)

Reviews some of the forms school centralization has assumed, some of the problems following in its wake, and a few of the solutions undertaken to date. Optional (nontraditional) schools are singled out as a promising answer to governance difficulties. (Author/MLF)

A profound clash of values is occurring in public schools. Although specific disputes revolve around religion, creationism, sex education, values education, and educational reform, broader battle concerns public school's role in ensuring balanced, open curriculum that provides for free exchange of ideas. Will toleration emerge as critical national…

Discusses California's efforts to improve curriculum and assessment, including the new state frameworks in each subject area. California rejected existing math and science textbooks for being redundant and overemphasizing skills at the expense of meaningful application. New educational objectives are to prepare students for work, citizenship, and…

Current proclamations to reform schools with national examinations related to a national curriculum are a reflection of ignorance and destined to fail. We need to address educational improvement with seriousness and complexity and reconsider workplace structure, curriculum character, teaching practices, and the forms used to appraise our quality…