The author argues that the state level should have a major role in establishing a core curriculum but that local flexibility is needed to adapt school policies to varied needs and to better utilize staff at the school level. (MT)

Discusses various educational reforms undertaken by states and ways of financing such reforms. Discusses state-local relations in curricular policy, state versus local roles in bringing about school effectiveness, and the need for educators to move now, while education is the number one state issue. (CMG)

The gradual shift to state control of schools has spawned unintentional results, including a negative impact on teacher autonomy and professionalism. Although states' major role should be establishing a core curriculum, local flexibility is essential for adapting school policies to varied needs and utilizing staff abilities. Local school boards…

During the 1970s the states greatly increased their role in educational policy innovation at the expense of local school districts. Previously, the states had varied widely along the spectrum of centrist versus localist control; they had been strongest only in such traditional areas as attendance, accreditation, and school facilities regulation.…

Literature on public school curriculum development since 1950 is reviewed to determine who is determining curriculum policy-making. There is an increasingly political approach to curriculum questions on the part of the general public. (Author/VW)

This paper outlines the complexity of the politics of education and the difficulty of dealing with 19,000 districts and fifty States, each of which is relatively unique. A case is made for increased research efforts in this field. (LLR)

A restructuring of federal, state, and local relations is ceding considerably more control of education to the states. State mandates are now far more common than technical assistance and focus increasingly on the core of instructional policy, leading to a standardizing effect as local discretion declines. (DCS)

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…

Commissioned papers on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have recommended new roles for NAEP, but its system of governance, as conceived in the 1960s, was not designed for all these functions. The NAEP Policy Committee, revised in 1978, never envisioned the current interest in a linkage system relating local and state…

Affirming the basic value of the emphasis in much recent literature on the need for increased school effectiveness, the author argues that more attention should be given to the problem of "school climate" and to a resolution of the tension between state-mandated uniformity and school-level autonomy. (JBM)

Local control is emphasized in this examination of the roles of state, federal, and local governments in education policy and change. Federal and state role priorities should be to provide resources and stimulation for the major decisions and changes at the school site. The role of the state in school district governance, which has steadily been…

Prospective research on the politics of school finance is linked to current major policy issues in this paper. Two main sections discuss the politics of revenue raising and distribution within school districts. New developments include a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and of policy instrument research with financial…