Alternative schools enhance teacher, parent, and student involvement in programs, but face problems such as: (1) homogeneous student populations; (2) forced early specialization; (3) competitive recruitment; (4) struggles for program control; (5) too many goals; (6) evaluation; and (7) the need for truly innovative strategies. (Author/MJL)

Pamphlets, bibliographies, resource collections, newsletters, visual displays, and limited telephone hotlines are examples of outreach approaches to inform the community about gifted education. (CL)

Discusses the theoretical orientation of Alinsky's community organization strategies, which recognize the fragmented, partial, and multiple levels of community social structure; that communitywide identification is a conscious response to perceived adversaries; and that the task of community organization is to represent the community in…

Steps in establishing a community-supported foster group home are described. Efforts to begin the group home, now in its fifth year of existence, included community education, community organization, and work with individual community members. (Author/DB)

Provides insight into a general education approach that encourages full community participation in education. Discusses the historical role of festivals and play in cultural transmission, general education, and community definition. Describes Ohio State University's Renaissance Festival and the community's involvement in making the festival an…

This paper proposes bargaining as a useful conflict resolution skill for community developers. Key bargaining concepts and practice principles from the fields of international conflict resolution, the social action model of community organization, and political science are discussed. (Author/CT)

A sagacious school board will ensure that its school system meets the needs of the whole community by adopting a policy supporting use of school facilities for adult education programs and activities. (Author/JM)

Defines participatory research, describes its origins, and outlines the major issues, including the question of the researcher's role, the question of power, and the contribution to social movements. (SK)

Examines the motivating forces and characteristics of participatory research, presents a brief outline of social theory, and discusses the issue of knowledge as the single most important basis of power and control. (SK)

Focuses on the fundamental issues of criticism of participatory research: responses to the critique of traditional research; conceptual clarifications; the role of values; uses and misuses; and questions of class relationships. (SK)

The teaching of data processing in the secondary school is examined, including teachers (certification, work experience), textbooks (selection, concentration), community (advisory committees, career exploration), students (recruitment, aptitude tests), instruction methods (simulation, audiovisuals, field trips), course content (machine technology,…

Two new components of the Center for Community Education Facility Planning project are the provision of planning assistance to community groups and the development of a public relations campaign to reinforce cooperative planning efforts. (Author/MLF)

New York City's community school boards are too weak and buffeted by too many special interest groups to effectively represent parent interests or serve as successful agents in the decentralization process, though at least one board and the parents it represents show that stronger action is possible. (Author/PGD)

Reports the results of a nationwide survey of the organization of school systems with 50,000 or more students. The study examined whether each system was centralized or decentralized and, if decentralized, the structure of the decentralization, the reasons the district is decentralized, and the extent of community participation. (IRT)

Citizen groups can help school boards by independently gathering faculty and administrator opinions without being a threat to either group, something that board-sponsored inquiry groups cannot do. (Author/IRT)