Democratically elected school boards in the United States play a crucial role in school governance because they enable community voice in educational practices and programs. Research on locally controlled boards finds they can be undemocratic and unproductive. However, little research has been conducted in rural or small towns, where local control…

This paper applies principles of critical policy analysis (CPA) to examine the Texas Education Agency's (TEA) 2023 takeover of the Houston Independent School District (HISD). Engaging in qualitative analyses of four TEA-facilitated community information sessions held during the period immediately preceding the takeover, I examine the policy…

Purpose: In the wake of school board protests nationwide, it is essential for educational leaders, policymakers, and researchers to understand locally controlled educational governance. The stability of educational districts depends on superintendents navigating relationships with their school boards, yet little research exists that addresses…

This briefing note sets out key findings from our research based on tracking primary schools' responses to the crisis from lockdown onwards. The briefing is intended to help guide primary schools in supporting pupil learning going forward. Teachers' experiences of the COVID crisis have been hugely varied and influenced by the local circumstances…

California recently overhauled its K-12 public education finance system. Enacted in 2013, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) replaced California's 40-year-old funding formula. The LCFF increases district officials' fiscal flexibility; provides more resources to districts serving larger proportions of low-income, English learner (EL), and…

Presented at the Annual Convention of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (53d, San Francisco, February 28 - March 5, 1969).

ERIC abstracts on citizen involvement in the control of schools, announced in RIE through Novermber 1970, are presented. The key terms used in compiling this collection are "citizen participation,""decentralization,""parent participation,""parent school relationship,""school community relationship," and "school district autonomy." The following…

Argues that the principal cause of failure has been due to a lack of sufficient power to overcome the opposition of groups who depended upon and actively defended the historically centralized and professionally dominated system. (Author/AM)

A longer version of this article appared in the November, 1968, issue of NEW POLITICS

For more than 100 years the Native Americans of the U.S. have been dominated economically, socially, educationally, and culturally by the larger society in which they live. The U.S. government has set policies, primarily through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), without consulting Native Americans. The Ramah Navajo Community experienced…

Describes the kind of organizational structure parents must have if they are going to participate in some meaningful and productive fashion in the activities of the school: such participation must be based upon recognition of the problems a community and a school are experiencing as they attempt to plan political decentralization. (Author/JM)