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Politics and Education: A Series of 12 Essays.American Association of School Administrators,Washington, D.C.[71]52p.American Association of School Administrators, 1801North Moore Street, Arlington, Virginia 22209 ($2.00,Quantity discounts)

MF-$0.76 Plus Postage. HC Not Available from EDRS.Community Involvement; Educational Accountability;*Educational Administration; Educational Planning;Elementary Secondary Education; Federal Aid; FederalLegislation; *Federal State Relationship; InteragencyCooperation; Policy Formation; Political Influences;*Political Issues; *Politics; School Integration;State Legislation; *State School DistrictRelationship; Urban Education

ABSTRACTThis is a collection of essays that originally

appeared in the 1970-71 issues of "The School Administrator." All areconcerned with the general topic of politics and education, and eachwas prepared by a recognized scholar. Each essay focuses on a set ofcritical questions and issues around which national policy evolves.The series is intended to provide a thoughtful basis for study andunderstanding of the problems and issues inherent in the changingrelationships among levels of government. The essays include thoseoriginally published under the following titles: "The Politics ofEducation," "National Political Parties and Educational PolicyMaking," "Interest Groups and Federal Education Policy,""Relationships Between Federal and State Systems," "The States andUrban School Systems," "Community Influence Systems and LocalEducational Policy-Making," "Political Confrontation," "Planning andPolitics," "Community Involvement in Educational Policy-Making," "ThePolitics of School Desegregation," and "Local InteragencyCooperation." (Author/IRT)

************************************************************************ Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished ** materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes every effort ** to obtain the best copy available. nevertheless, items of marginal ** reproducibility are often encountered and this affects the quality ** of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions ERIC makes available ** via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). EDRS is not ** responsible for the quality of the original document. Reproductions ** supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original. ************************************************************************

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Politics Education

A series of 12 essays focusingon questions and issues around

which policy evolves

Published by theAmerican Association of School Administrators

1201 Sixteenth Street, N.W.Washington, D. C. 20036

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American Association of School Administrators

All rights reserved. No part of this documentmay be reproduced in any form without per-mission in writing from the publisher.

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The past few years have been exciting onesperhaps the mosteventful in the entire history of American education. Schools havebeen swept into a whirling vortex of cultural change that has madethem a more vital part of the culture and more visible on the local,state, and national scenes than ever before.

As education has become more clearly identified with the na-tion's well-being, the schools have become more visible in the politicalarena. Perhaps at no other time in our history has education occupiedsuch a prominent place on the agenda of the United States Congress.The growing awareness of the federal government's responsibility foreducation reflects a new and evolving national posture. This deeperinvolvement in community, state, and tiltional life has brought to theschools new challenges, but it has brought, too, perplexing problemsand issues that must be viewed and treated with new perspective.

Increasing amounts of federal funds are producing profoundchanges in the historical roles of the local, state, and national govern-ments, and each level of government is attempting to find its uniquerole in improving American public education. The partnership thathas served America so well must now be re-examined in the light ofchanging conditions.

Sensitive to the growing importance of education, as well as tothe persistent and emerging problems and pressures impinging onschool administrators, the Executive Committee of the AmericanAssociation of School Administrators authorized the preparation of12 essays, one to appear in each issue of THE SCHOOL ADMINIS-TRATOR for the year 1970-71. All are concerned with the generaltopic, "Politics and Education." Each essay focuses on a set of criticalquestions and issues around which national policy evolves. The seriesis intended to provide a thoughtful basis for study and understandingof the problems and issues inherent in the changing relationshipsamong levels of government.

Each essay has been prepared by a recognized scholar. TheAASA expresses to each author its deep gratitude for the time andenergy expended . The 12 essays should provoke thoughtful studyand hopefully constructive action.

We urge each member of AASA to study the essays carefully, todiscuss them with his colleagues, his board of education, his congres-sional representatives, and interested citizens to the end that Ameri-can public education will become an even more effective institutionthrough which the American people seek to reach their destiny.

4PAUL B. SALMON

Executive SecretaryAmerican Association

of School Administrators

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Number One

"There is a myth in Americathat education and politics exist sepa-rate from each other. If the world ofpolitics means something more thanthe choice between political parties,and if public education includes pol-icy making and administration, thenthe myth hardly describes reality inAmerican local school districts. Itdescribes reality at the state and fed-eral levels even less adequately. Themyth is a political one which func-tions as an element in the politics ofeducation, especially as a tool usefulto educationists. This :nay be onereason it has persisted so long. . . .

Despite this and the American habitof restricting the word 'politics' to itstwo party connotations, the politics oflocal school district elections [and offederal and state education acts andlaws] lies at the heart of policy mak-ing in public education. . .. " '

So Laurence lannaccone and Ibegan our recent book, and I find italso an appropriate way to begin thislead article in the American Associa-tion of School Administrators' serieson Politics and Education.

Not only has the myth benefitededucators, but it has also worked tothe advantage of local and state pro-fessional politicians. On the onehand, those in educational adminis-tration, particularly school superin-tendents, have benefited from thespecial knowledge of how these poli-tics work and have been exceptionallyskillful in playing this particular polit-ical game. At the same time, theyhave been able to avoid the more haz-ardous encounters of partisan partypolitics.

As an example of the hiddenpolitics played by school superin-tendents is their role in the selectionof school hoard members. In profes-sional literature the situation is illus-trated by the Jefferson School Districtstory in Organizing Schools for Eflec-live Education' and in Politics, Pow-er and Policy.3 It must be remem-bered that Jefferson is a fictionalizedcase, not a fictitious case.Jefferson School District really

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existed, and Superintendent Donnellylived and actually influenced a Com-mittee for the Selection of SchoolBoard Nominees in a school districtin the United States. This political in-fluence was powerful in the govern-ance of the school district. "For morethan twenty years the committee suc-ceeded in winning the elections for itsnominees, selected with the criteriaand friendly help of Dr. Donnelly." INever would Dr. Donnelly have rec-ommended that school board mem-bers be elected on a party basis. Hewould have fought to the death to"keep politics out of education" andprobably believed that his "activities"in school board member selectionwere geared to do this. But his "activ-ities" were surely political, hidden,sacred, and elite, excluding those in-dividuals who were not "fit" for boardmembershipusually including pro-fessional politicians.

On the other hand, the profes-sional politicians have been able touse education to further their politi-cal careers (e.g., the announcementof education grants, senatorial schol-arships, and their support for educa-tion bills even when full appropria-tion is not provided) and still avoidpolitical responsibility for the successor failure of public education. AsMasters has pointed out, educationalissues do not ". .. contain much polit-ical currency." 5 Such actions andbeliefs on the parts of politicians andprofessional educators alike avoidaccountability for education, allowingschool officials to point the finger ofguilt for poor education at the lack ofsupport provided by the appropriatepolitical bodies and permitting poli-ticians to claim that education is non-political and, therefore, not within

This article, "The I'olitics of Edu-cation," was prepared for TheSchool Administrator by Frank W.Lutz, director, Division of EducationPolicy Studies, Pennsylvania StateUniversity. It is the first in a seriesof twelve essays on the general sub-ject, "Politics and Education."

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their pros ince. Thus Richard Nixonpointed to the powerful "educationlobby"' and the inflationary trend ashe vetoed the billion dollar educationbill, but did not mention the military-,industrial lobby or inflation as hesigned the $80 billion-plus DefenseDepartment measure. Perhaps thisanomaly can be explained by thenature of educational politics thatrefuses to play the political gameforthrightly, clothed in the sacredgarb of the educational priesthood,clinging to and perpetuating the no-tion that he education of children istoo important to be left to the whimsof politics.

Local School Politics

In the past several years therehas been a renewed interest in thegovernance of local education. Per-haps the best research example of thistrend is the project sponsored by theDanforth Foundation that examinedthe decision-making processes of fiveurban school boards: Boston, Chi-cago, Columbus, New York, and LosAngeles. Three years in progress, thismajor study will be reported in bookform and at major conventions during1970-71. Operationally, the upsurgeof local school politics is demon-strated by demands for "communitycontrol" in large urban districts, dis-cussions of federated educationalunits to alleviate the flight from thecities, and the alarming increase indefeats of budget, tax, and bondreferendums needed to support localeducation. The defeat of school levieshas become so prevalent across thenation that a major network devotedan hour of prime time to the program,"The Day the Schools Had ToClose,'" describing a small Ohio townwhose school district could not mus-ter approval of a budget. Not onlysmall towns but also major cities suchas Philadelphia are threatening toclose because of financial crises. TheNew York City schools are plaguedwith many problems. In 1968-69, forexample, Mayor Lindsay cut one mil-lion dollars from the school budget

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without so much as an explanation."Whether or not the school district isdependent or independent from thecity government for its fiscal re-sources, tax dollars arc obtained bypolitical means. In dependent dis-tricts the referendum is a politicalact, and the attempt to influence anoutcomi! favorable to the school dis-trict is political, although often feeble.In Oregon, 45 districts had heldbudget elections as of May L In 14districts the budgets were not ap-proved. This 31 percent representeda new high in what a Portland papercilled "... the rebellion against prop-erty taxes." 7 In Oregon, as across thenation, the trend toward budget andbond defeats is increasing. In 1966only 16 districts had to resubmit theirbudgets. In 1967 and 1968, therewere 67 resubmissions. In 1969 ittook 501 elections to pass the 337district budgets, some districts had tovote as many as four times. No onecares to predict the fate of the budg-ets in the months ahead. The behaviorof the voter in school tax elections isone of the most interesting and criti-cal problems in education today.

One should not be deluded intothinking that fiscal independence islikely to pros ide a haven from thepolitical requirements of acquiring asufficient share of the tax dollar toprovide quality public education. Theaction is again hidden from the publiceye and while some schoolmen areadept at this game, more often theyare out-maneusered by the profes-sional politician and other special in-terest groups. Pres iously cited ex-aniples at both federal and local levelsattest to this statement. There is

mountir4 ev idence that large teacherorganizations that are allied with or-ganized labor and willing to utilizethe strike to obtain their economicgoals have considerably more politi-cal clout at both local and state levelsthan the politically sacred schoolboard.

If local control of education is tosurvive, we must find inure effectiveways of mobilizing the electorate inlocal tax and bond referendums. In

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addition, we must discover ways ofpros iding a broader local tax basesuch as a federated school systemwould pros ide, while at the same timemaking community participation ineducational governance more practi-cal and public education more ac-countable to the clients it serves. Thecommunity control plans that havebeen proposed in a number of citiesmight do just this. These suggestionsarc not offered ls panaceas for theproblems of modern public educa-tion, but the issues that elicited themfurnish the reasons why the politicsof education is becoming an impor-tant area of study and practice. Whilemany books on community politicssince the 1930's considered educationas an issue," it was not until themiddle 1960's that books were de-voted to educational politics "and notuntil 1970 that a book was exclusive-ly devoted to the politics of a localschool district.'"

State Politics of Education

Perhaps bzcause education is afunction of the separate states, therehas been a greater interest in the statepolitics of education than in the localpolities of education. Excellent ex-amples of examinations of the statepolitics of education can be found inthe work of Stephen Bailey et al.;"Nicholas Masters et al.;" Laurencelannaccone," and Michael Usdan etal.," all completed during the lastdecade. In general these works havepointed to the relationships betweenstate professional education pyramidsand the state legislature, usuallyrurally dominated and nes er clearlyurban-oriented. The predominantfocus of these books is the problemsand processes of state financing ofeducation.

During his lifetime ProfessorPaul Mort of Teachers College, Co-lumbia University, exemplified theimportant "scribblers" role in stateeducation. In this role prominent edu-cators develop educational legislationfor the state. Other prominent statelegislation categories during the past

30 years include school district re-organization and professional certifi-cation.

Given the interface between thelocal and state issues and betweenelementary-secondary and higher ed-ucation, Usdan states: "in summary,the relationship between elementary-secondary and higher education issuch that it demands a united, wellcoordinated interlevel [political] ef-fort to minimize its own internalconflict and at the same time to insure

rightful share of scarce state re-sources. This study has not shownthat educational leaders arc yet ca-pable of offering such leadership. It isclear, however, that such has to be thedirection of the future. "'`'

More recently, financing andlocal control. and educational em-ployee concerns have become inter-twined in New York," creating newpolitical conflicts such as the decen-tralization issue and statewide publicemployee legislation.

Educational Politics at the FederalLevel

From the time the members ofthe constitutional convention debatedthe place of education in the federalconstitution and decided to leave itlumped with other issues in the gen-eral welfare clause, and, therefore,the general responsibility of the states,education has been an issue of fed-eral policy and politics T1,;s state-ment may at first appear inconsistent.Upon further examination, it be-comes very meaningful. Educatorshave long held that public educationis a local matter, not to be interferedwith either by state government or bythe federal government. Yet from theoutset the federal government hasbeen concerned with public educa-tion Only after considerable debatedid the founding fathers leave educa-tion solely within the general welfareclause, thus creating it as a state re-sponsibility but not a local responsi-bility. Each state shoulders this re-sponsibility in its state constitution.But the federal government has never

left it at that. While the specter offederal control is invariably raisedwith each new act, the federal gov-ernment has long been active in edu-cation. The Northwest Ordinance of1785, the Morrill Act of 1862, theSmith-Hughes Act of 1912, the GIBill of World War II, and subsequentKorean and Vietnamese bills are butexamples of federal-level legislationthat has dealt specifically with educa-tion. More recently, the Congress hasbecome increasingly concerned witheducation as demonstrated byNDEA, ESEA, and EDPA and theexpanding role of the U.S. Officeof Education in program develop-ment and policy determination atlocal levels. One response to thistrend has been the banding togetherof approximately four-fifths of thestates in the Education Commissionof the States in an effort to redirectsome of the federal influence throughthe state, thus preserving, in thc viewof sonic, more local control. Yet evenwith its enlarged role in education thefederal government has not been ableto accomplish a great deal. Desegre-gation is not nearly accomplished inpublic education, either in the Northor the South. Cities are victims ofperennial crises, and their schools arcin a state of deterioration. As pointedout by James Guthrie," in spite of thenational orientation of the President,the Congress remains, through its sys-tem of seniority and committee mem-bership, supported occasionally byeither de facto or de jure gerryman-dering, a rural-oriented body.

Other Political Issues in Education

Even from the above discussion,all too brief to cons ince anyone of themagnitude of the political nature ofeducation, let alone the theoreticaland operational issues involved, it isclear that politics, always existing be-low the surface in education, has nowbeen exposed to the view of thosewho care to look, To be sure, thatportion seen is like an iceberg. thelargest and most dangerous portionlies beneath the surface. Yet it is there

7

for all to observe, study, or practiceas they choose.

The concern for urban areas,particularly for urban education, hasincreased at every level of govern-ment. This concern has often mani-fested itsclh in politics and activitywithin levels and in the interrelation-ships between levels of political juris-diction. In a recent book, Toward Im-proving Urban Education,'' morethan two-thirds of the 15 authors dis-cuss the political aspects of urbaneducational issues ranging from thesuperintendent's role to the mayor sintervention in education; from theteachers' union to community con-trol; and from financiLl problems ofurban education to the dilemma of theurban building principal, each issueembedded in politics (albeit not al-ways party politics).

Conclusion

American society at all levels isbecoming increasingly secular andpluralistic. Its demands are morefragmented and its faith in the estab-lished systems of governance, includ-eluding school boards, less stable.Meanwhile education retains its oldand cherished myths that servedmuch better in an earlier clay. Thevast majority of boards of educationin the United States still operate inconsensual voting patterns providingno public evidence that any portion ofthe board represents the opinions, be-liefs, values, or needs of the minorityregarding any issue. This consensusfrequently emerges from nonpublicmeetings of the board during whichconsiderable disagreement may haveoccurred. Yet the public is not privyto these decisional processes. Theboard acts in the belief that thc ap-pearance of disunity on the boardwill undermine public confidence init. This may be true when the boardis operating in a Genninschaft Com-munity where values are sacred andmonolithiv- in nature. But our nationhas for the last twenty or thirty yearsbeen moving rapidly toward Gesell-schaft, pluralistic and fragmented

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opinions, AUCS and needs. Perhapsthe sacred behaNior of school hoardsthat lingers from yesterday's societydeteriorates rather than bolsters pub-lic confidence in the goNername ofpublic education today.

PostscriptAs this article is being prepared,

political action by students across theUnited States is being felt on prac-tically eNery college and uniNersitycampus. Classes are being boycotted,

1. Laurence Iannaccone and FrankW. Lutz, Politics, Power and Pol-icy: The Governing of Local SchoolDistricts (Columbus Dhio: Char-les E. Merrill Publishing Co.)1970, p. I.

2. Daniel E. Griffiths, et al., (Dan-ville. III.: The Interstate Printersand Publishers) 1962, pp. 225-97.

3. Iannaccone and Lutz, op. cit., pp.60-66.

4. /bid., p. 61.

5. Nicholas A. Masters, Robert H.Salisbury, and Thomas H. Eliot,State Politics and the PublicSchools (New York: Alfred A.Knopf) 1964, p. 275

6. Prepublication copy of the NewYork City School Board Decision-Making Processes book by FrankW. Lutz, Richard C Lonsdale, andHarland Bloland.

7. Tlw Oregonian ( Portland, Ore-gon. newspaper) May 3, 1970, p.

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sit-ins staged, windows smashed,buildings burned, students shut andkilled. The most radical politicalaction is occurring in education, andthis action will not likely be confinedto college campuses. It has alreadybegun in the high schools and eventhe junior high schools across the na-tion. Not only adults but also studentsare losing faith in established goern-ance oattcrns in education. In addi-tion, they are using the schools to pro-test their lack of confidence in the

Footnotes

8. For example, see Robert S. Ly ndand Hellen M. Lynd, Middletownand Middletown in Transition(New York: Harcourt, Brace andWorld) 1929-37; August B. Hol-lingshead, Ehntown's Youth (NewYork: John Wiley and Sons) 1949;Robert A. Dahl, Who Governs?Democracy and Power in anAmerican City (New Haven,Conn.: Yale University Press)1961; and Wallace S. Sayer andHerbert Kaufman, Governing NewYork City: Politics in the Metrop-olis (New York: Russell SageFoundation) 1960.

9. Robert S. Cahill and Stephen P.Hencley, (eds.), 77w Politics of&Wallow In the Local Commu-nity (Danville, Ill.: The InterstatePrinters and Publishers) 1964; andRalph B. Kimbrough, PnlurcalPower and Educational Decision-Making (Chicago: Rand McNallyand Company) 1964.

10. Iannaccone and Lutz, op. cit.

II. Schoohnen in Mints (Syracuse.

N.Y.: Syracuse University Press)1962.

12. Masters, op. cit,

other governing institutions of theUnited States. Whether or not theissues and problems have been gen-erated by the schools, the schools willbe required to provide elTectie re-sponses. The issues are political, thedemonstrations are political, and theresponses required must be politicalin nature. There is not a more ap-propriate time for the members ofthe American Association of SchoolAdministrators to concern themsek eswith the "Politics of Education."

13. The Politics in Education (NewYork. The Center for Applied Re-search in Education) 1967.

14. Education and State Politics (NewYork: Teachers College Press)1969.

15. Usdan, op. cit., p. 189.

16. Laurence Iannaccone, "The StatePolitics of Education" in TowardImproving Urban Education. (ed.)Frank W. Lutz (Columbus, Ohio:Charles A. Jones Publishing Co.)1970

17. Patrick W. Carlton and Harold 1.Goodwin (eds.), The CollectiveDilemma: Negotiations in Educa-tion (Columbus, Ohio: Charles A.Jones Publishing Co.) 1969. AlsoFrank W. Lutz (ed.). Toward Im-proving Urban Education (('olum-bus. Ohio: Charles A. Jones Pub-lishing Co.) 1969.

IS The Public Schools in a FederalVise," Toward Improving Urbanhdu(ation. op. cit.

19. ibid.

Number Two

It is not the purpose of thisarticle to discuss the merits of theparty system in American politics.But it is worth noting at the outsetthat between 1958 and 1968, themost significant Clngressional actionin education had virtually nothing todo with which party was in power.

It was a decade of dramatic andtragic events, each of which may betraced directly or indirectly to a g tn-eration of social complacency :aideducational neglect.

Consider October 1957, whenthe Russians launched the first man-made earth satellite. This eventshoved aside the current partisan de-bate over federal funding of schoolconstruction and led to relativelyquick passage of the National De-fense Education Actlegislation de-signed to end a dangerous shortageof trained manpower in the fields ofscience and engineering.

"History will smile sardoni-cally," said Robert M. Hutchins ayear later. "at the spectacle of thisgreat country's getting interested,slightly and temporarily, in educationonly because of the technical achieve-ments of Russia, and then being ableto act as a nation only by assimilatingeducation into the cold war andcalling an education bill a defensebill."

Or consider November, 1963,when the assassination of PresidentJohn F. Kennedy virtually neutral-ized partisan bickering over sociallegislation. The flood of social pro-grams enacted in 1964 and 1965must be attributed in part, at least, tothe public wish to memorialize afallen leader.

It should be noted, further, thatby the end of the Eisenhower period.the roots of alienation and discordhad been firmly planted. The failureor should we say lackof socialpolicy since World War II had led tovicious cycles of poverty, weakenedthe holding power of public schools,and spawned a generation withoutfaith in its own future.

We still live in the shadow ofSputnik, and we are still preoccupiedwith the race riots, assassinations,

and student protests of the Sixties.The nation is still divided over themeans of solving domestic problems,although there is general agreementon objectives. Tlie national plat-forms of the major parties in 1960,1964, and 1968, showed awarenessof the mounting social crisis (seecenterfold), but few of the grandiosesolutions promised have been en-acted. Of these, few have beenfunded adequately, if at all. A lookat sonic of the major legislative ef-forts during the past decade willindicate why this is so.

General Federal Aid Stymied

A general aid-to-education billcame close to passage by Congress in1960 but was killed when the HouseRules Committee, by a 5-7 vote (D5-3, R 0-4), refused to authorize aHouse-Senate conference that mighthave compromised differences on theprovisions of the bill. Between June,when the Rules Committee voted.and September I. when the 86thCongress adjourned, supporters offederal aid were unable to generateenough pressure to force final actionon the legislation.

The Senate had passed a billauthorizing expenditures of $1.8 bil-lion in grants to states for schoolconstruction and for teachers' sal-aries, the payments to be spread sothat poorer states would receive moremoney than richer ones. The Housepassed a bill providing $1.3 billionin grants for school constructiononly, with no provisions to equalizepayments. It also included a provi-sion that schools receiving aid underthe program must be open to stu-dents without discrimination.

1960 was the first year since

This article, "NatiowI PoliticalParties and Educational PolicyMaking," the second in a series on"Politics and Education," was pre-pared for The School Administra-tor by John M. Lumley, assistantexecutive secretary for governmentrelations and citizenship, NationalEducation Association.

9

1950 in which the Senate had passeda school construction bill and thefirst time the House had ever passedone. The Senate bill was passt.d by asubstantial vote margin, but passagein the House was by a slim major-ity.

Ben had the legislation notbeen blocked by a coalition of Re-publicans and Southern Democratsan the Rules Committee, its provi-sion of direct grants to school dis-tricts was expected to run into a

Presidential veto. Mr. Eisenhower in1959 had pror)sed an education billthat represented a change of ap-proach from his earlier programs.Rather than direct grants, as re-quested in the past. the Presidentproposed that the Government helppay the costs of long-term schoolconstruction bonds over a period of10-35 years. This was dubbed a"bankers' bill" by Democrats andnever came close to passage. But theWhite House repeatedly warned ofits opposition to the alternativeaprogram of direct grants that would

be more short-run, but more costly ineach year of its existence.

In addition to financing policy,the Administration and the Demo-crats disagreed about whether aneducation bill should provide aid foiteachers' salaries. The Democrats(allied with many education inter-ests) said 't shouldthat in manyareas need for higher salaries wasgreater than for more classrooms.and that states should have the op-tion to spend the money. The Presi-dent did not believe that the FederalGovernment "ought to be in the busi-ness of paying a local official."

The salary aid question devel-oped into a major campaign issue inthe 1960 Presidential race. Vice-President Nixon sided with PresidentEisenhower and said aid for teachers'salaries would invite dangerous fed-eral control over what is taught.Senator Kennedy called for salaryassistance as passed by the Senate,pointing out that the Federal Gov-ernment had actually been aidingteacaers' salaries under the impacted

areas program (PL 874) since 1950,that about 60 percent of the nearly$2 billion that had been appropri-ated under the program went forsalaries, and that there had been noLump laints of federal control.

On February 20, 1961, Presi-dent Kennedy sent to Congress aneducation message in which he re-quested grants of $2.3 Knott oventhree years to be used by states pri-marily for school construction cadincreasing teachers' salaries; $2.8 bilion for a live-year program of loansfor college facilities constiuctionindgrants of $892 million for four-yearfederal scholarships.

The President's message saidthat no elementary and secondaryschool funds were allocated for "con-structing church schools or payingchurch school teacher salaries," andthat this was in accordance with "theclear prohibition of the Constitu-tion."

Catholic church leaders count-ered with a statement that the schoolaid bill should include private school

Republicans, 1960The GOP declared that "each

person possesses the right to educa-tionit is his birthright in a freeRepublic." The party pledged fed-eral support for school construction,stimulation of actions to update andstrengthen vocational education,efforts to make adequate library fa-cilities available to every citizen,continued support of programs tostrengthen basic research in educa-tion, extension of the federal studentloan, and graduate fellowship pro-gram, consideration of meansthrough the tax laws to help offsettuition costs; and matching grant tohelp states assess school needs.

Democrats, 1960Lambasting Republicans for

"eight years of neglect of our cduca-

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tional system." the Democrats pro-claimed a national fiscal crisis. "Webelieve," they said, "that Americat.,,n meet its educational obligationsonly with generous financial support,within the traditional framework oflocal control."

The Democratic platform prom-ised federal support for such press-ing, needs as classroom constructionand teachers' salaries, all phases ofvocational education foi youth andadults, educational television, andestablishment of Youth Conserva-tion Corps for underplivileged youngpeople.

Republicans, 1964The 1964 GOP platform

pledged "maximum restraint of fed-eral usions into matters more pro-

Excerpts from National

ductively left to the individual." Theparty promised selective aid to highcieducation, strengthened state and lo-Lai tax resources, including tax creditsfol college education, resistance toinverse discrimination, vvhethei by

the shifting of jobs, or the abandon-ment of neighborhood schools, forreasons of race," and establishmentof "realistic priorities" foi federalspending, in education, job training,vocation,) r h bilitatIon, and educa-tional research . . . "while resistingDemocratic efforts to spend waste-fully and indiscriminately."

Democrats, 1964"Demands on the already in-

adequate sources of state and localrevenues place a serious limitationon education," said the Democratsin 1964. New methods of financial

loans or it should be defeated. Presi-dent Kennedy, in a confrontation hehad hoped to avoid, told a pressconference he believed that "across-the-board" loans, as well as grants,to private schools were unconstitu-tional.

Thus, to the bill's anticipatedfoes in the Houseconservative Re-publicans and Southern Democratswas added the prospect of a sizeablenumber of the House's 88 Catholicmembers. Most of the Catholics wereNorthern Democrats who had votedfor education bills in the past, butthe bitterness of the 1961 controver-sy could force them into a positionof having to vote against the Presi-dent's bill unless private schools alsowere assisted.

Failure of the bill carried with itthe construction and fellowship pro-posals and a bill to make substantiveamendments to NDEA. All that sur-vived in the session were simple ex-tensions of NDEA and the impactedareas program.

Every proposal for federal aid

to education failed in 1962. Generalaid for construction of public ele-mentary and secondary schools, notto mention teachers' salaries, wasdoomed from the outset, still smart-ing from the religious school con-troversy that scotched it in 1961.Although the Administration re-newed its request for such aid in1962, no forceful attempt was madeto enact it. The Administration alsoasked for college aid and for pro-grams to deal with special educationproblems ( such as adult illiteracy,handicapped children, medical anddental education, migrant workers,and aid to the arts). None of theseprograms were enacted, but Congressdid send to the White House a billproviding construction grants foreducational television and a sizeableincrease in the budget for the Na-tional Science Foundation.

Beginnings of a Turnabout

"This session of the Congress

will go down in history as the Educa-tion Congress of 1963," PresidentLyndon Johnson said December 16,as he signed the Higher EducationFacilities Act. This was one of fivemajor bills enacted in 1963, whichtogether authorized more than $2billion for federal education assist-ance requested in January by Presi-dent Kennedy.

Most of the programs that wereenacted received bipartisan support.Public school aid, however, whichhad always aroused strong opposi-tion, never came out of committee in1963. The President attempted togain support for this program by de-parting from the old across-the-boardapproach and earmarking funds forareas of critical need and for startingand maximum teachers' salaries, butthese efforts were unsuccessful. Healso replaced past requests for fed-eral scholarships with three recom-mendations: expanded NDEA stu-dent loans, federal insurance forcommercial loans, and a study groupto assess the needs for scholarships.

Party Platforms, 1960-1968

aid must be explored, including thechanneling of federally-collectedrevenues to all levels of education,and, to the extent permitted by theConstitution, to all schools."

The platform called for a widevariety of educational opportunitiesfor young people entering a labormarket with fewer and fewer placesfor the unskilled.

The 1964 platform also stressedincreased spending for preschooltraining as well as junior college.college. and postgraduate study.

Republicans, 1968A key GOP proposal in 1968

was the creation of a national coin -mission to study the quality and rele-vance of American education. Thisproposal was coupled with specificprogram objectives, including ex-

paneled, better programs for pre-school children; establishment ofstate, local, or pri\ ate programs ofteacher training, expansion of post-secondary technical institutes toenable young people to acquire sat-isfactory skills for "meaningful em-ployment"; an industry youth pro-gram, coupled with a flexible ap-proach to minimum wage laws foryoung entry-level workers duringtheir training periods.

The 1968 platform also calledfor state plans for federal assistancewhich would include state distribu-tion of such aid to nonpublic schoolchildren.

Democrats, 1968Democrats in 1968 declared

that every citizen has a basic rightto as much education and training as

he desires and can masterfrompreschool through graduate studiese\ en if his family cannot pay for hiseducation. The platform pledged at-tainment of this goal while safe-guarding state-local control over thenation's educational system.

Specific aims include expansionof preschool programs to prepare allyoung children for full participationin formal education; improvedteacher recruitment and training pro-grams for inner city and rural schoolsand the Teacher Corps; andimprove-ments in vocational and adult pro-grams.

The platform also pledged fullfunding of ESEA Title 1 ( programsfor the disadvantaged ), enlargementof the federal scholarship and stu-dent loan programs, and efforts tocase the home owner's tax burden.

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Only expansion of the time-testedstudent loan program was enacted.

Another 1963 strategy innova-tion by the Kennedy Administrationwas to put all of the requests to-gether in an omnibus bill. The ideawas to build the broadest possiblebase of support for the program andunite all of the interested lobbygroups behind one bill. The variousgroups' rivalries and interests had ledto divisions in support which helpedto defeat individual bills.

The omnibus bill was greetedwith some misgivings on CapitolHill. The House and Senate commit-tees vvith jurisdiction over educationlegislation held hearings on the pro-posal, but eventually broke it intoseveral parts.

In addition to the college facili-ties bill Congress in 1963 passed amajor vocational education bill, aone-year extension of NDEA (withincreased student loans), a two-yearextension of the impacted areas pro-gram, and funding for training teach-ers of the handicapped.

The BreakthroughESEADespite the repeated failure of

general aid measures in the Eisen-hower and Kennedy years, a seriesof bills to meet urgent national needswas passed. Spurred by the successof these bills and by heightenedpublic awareness of social injustices,the Johnson Administration set outto plan a broad attack on povertyand ignorance.

The climate was right, and therhetoric appealing. The Presidentappointed a series of task forces todevelop a series of legislative pro-posals for 1965. The task force oneducation, headed by John Gardnerof the Carnegie Corporation, came

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up with proposals which led to thedrafting of the Elementary 'and Sec-ondary Education Act.

The Gardner task force and theleadership of the Office of Educationmet with agency heads, key congres-sional figures, and representatives ofNEA, the AASA, the NationalCatholic Welfare Conference, andother professional and social organ-izations. The outcome of this jointeffort was authorization of the firstbroad-based school aid in the na-tion's history.

President Johnson's victory NV asmade possible after he abandonedthe traditional proposals for teachers'salaries and school construction, ask-ing instead for specialized aid furdistricts with high concentrations oflow-income families. Private schoolswere permitted to share in some ofthe federally aided services, such asshared time projects, educationaltelevision, and loans of textbooksand other teaching materials. Thebill also authorized funds for supple-mentary centers and services, in-creased educational research, andprograms to strengthen state educa-tion agencies. Subsequent amend-ments added provisions for educa-tion of the handicapped, bilingualeducation programs, and dropoutprevention projects.

ESEA has been a highly visibleand generally popular program, al-though judgments vary as to its effec-tiveness in equalizing educational op-portunity. Funding has been a per-sistent problem, largely because ofthe expenses of war in SoutheastAsia, partly because of reneweddisagreements over policies in pub-lic school finance.

Mr, Nixon Meets the Educators

The educational priorities of the

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Nixon Administration were madeclear in the President's revisedbudget for Fiscal 1970, which cut theJohnson education request by some$370 million. The response of theeducation community was immedi-ate. in April 1969, NEA broughttogether 70 education organizations,including AASA, to influence theCongress on behalf of the nation'sstudents and teachers. The Emer-gency Committee for Full Funding ofFederal Education Programs was theresult of this effort. The Committeewas soon to be called, by its oppo-nents, one of the most potent lobbieson Capitol Hill.

The Emergency Committeeflooded Washington with thousandsof teachers. administrators, schoollibrarians, and students to persuadeCongress that the schools neededvastly more trolley than the Admin-istration had requested. Rallyingbehind Rep. Charles S. Joelson(D -N.J. ). the educators succeededin adding more than $1 billion to theAdministration budget. The Presi-dent vetoed the appropriation bill,but agreed to a final compromise thatput the education budget for1969 '70 about $800 million overhis initial request.

The point was thus made that aunited teaching profession could, ifit %v ished, exert a great influence onthe setting of national spendingpriorities. And it is really up to edu-cators to cons ink..e. political leadersthat the great mass of American peo-ple want more money spent on edu-cation. For once public educationhas been made as much a federalresponsibility as national defense orhighways, more money than was everdreamed of will be spent on it.

Number Three

"To prepare us for completeliving is the function which educa-tion has to discharge; and the onlyrational mode of judging of any edu-cational course is, to judge in whatdegree it discharges such function."

Herbert Spencer, in the quota-tion given above, has provided an ap-propriate touchstone for our use inassessing and evaluating the role ofinterest groups in the formulation ofpublic policy at the federal level.

Before it can be applied, how-ever, it would be well to review someof the basic conventions of the demo-cratic process of decision making.Just as war is too important to beleft to the generals, so too, in themind of the American citizen, isdeeply entrenched the conviction thateducation cannot be left solely to theeducators. It is an area of concernto all, and for that reason, despitewhat we will, actions in this area areessentially political actions. Whetherwe like it or not, proposals originat-ing in the academic disciplines aresubject to examination and revisionby the laity, acting through themechanisims of our political andgovernmental institutions.

Given these parameters, accept-ing these "rules of the game," howcan the varied voices of the profes-sional groups be so orchestrated asto carry conviction and thus gain ac-ceptance of the specific proposalsbeing advanced?

The formal decisions in our so-ciety are clothed in the terms ofauthorizing statutes, such as thelanguage of PL 89-10, the Elemen-tary and Secondary Education Actof 1965, as amended. These laws arethe end result of a process of repeatedexamination and clarification bytechnicians and officials in both theExecutive and Legislative branchesof government, and by all who haveparticipated through testimony givenduring the public hearings. These ac-tivities characterize the committeestage, which is the major step in bothHouse and Senate, of the legislativeprocess. The statutes, when enacted,are declarations of public policy at-

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testing to the fact that a constitution-ally valid need exists. The need, then,has a legitimate claim upon the pub-lic resources to the extent of the dol-lar limit contained in those sectionsof the act which authorize the ap-propriation of funds.

The public law further sets forththe terms and conditions withinwhich the Executive branch must op-erate as it expends the funds (whichare separately appropriated), to ac-complish the intent of the legislation.The authorizing statute, or substan-tive law, in effect, sets forth the maxi-mum claim which may be made uponthe Treasury of the United States tomeet a need which has been justifiedto the satisfaction of the elected of-ficials of our government, the Presi-dent, and the majority of the mem-bers of each chamber. The annualappropriations acts for the depart-ments and the agencies of the Execu-tive branch, by contrast, are thepublic laws which are, in effect,checks drawn to pay for the buyingof goods and services which theauthorizing legislation has establishedas proper uses for federal funds. Theannual appropriations acts, in asense, ration the available federalresources annually among the validcompetative claims which have beenrecognized as legitimate.

It goes without saying that theseprocesses do not occur in a vacuum.By formal action, 537 men andwomenthe President, the vice-president (in his capacity as presi-dent of the Senate) 100 senators, 435members of the House of Represent-ativesall to some degree must havebeen consulted and a majority of the

Charles W. Lee, executive director,Emergency Committee for FullFunding of Federal Education Pro-grams, Washington, D.C., preparedthis article, "Interest Groups andFederal Education Policy," for TheSchool Administrator. It is thethird in a series of 12 essays on thegeneral subject "Politics and Educa-tion."

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1

legislators must have given approvalto a course of action before it cantake effect.

Thus, formally, federal educa-tional policy can be Joe loped onlywithin the limits set forth by statute.It is important to note that both theauthorizing acts and the appropria-tions acts influence educational pol-icy; the former by establishing theouter limits of permissablc action,and the latter by restrictions placedon uses of funds, either by legislativerider or by a failure to fund certainprovisions of the authorizing statutes.

The Executive branch. throughthe recommendations prepared forthe President by the Office of Educa-tion, the Department of Health. Ed-ucation, and Welfare and by theWhit_ House establishmentparticu-larly that part concerned with thepreparation of the budgetplay amajor role in the advancement ofpolicy positions. But, under our sys-tem, it is the Congress which decides(with the concurrence in the end re-sult by the President), upon the edu-cational policy which shall controlfrom the federal standpoint.

Implicit in the proceduressketched above are certain points ofrelevance to the groups concernedwith the direction and scope of fed-eral educational policy:

In both the Legislative branchand the Executive branch, proposalsare, by a great many individuals,hammered out through a pre-css ofcompromise and conciliatioi. whichseeks to assure that the enJ resultis one that can be lived with . thatthe programs developed are operable.At every level through their nationalstaffs, interest groups can exercisegreat influence in providing rationallybased data.

Automatic mechanisims arebuilt into the legislation assuring that,once adopted, there will be periodicreview of the effect of the programsenacted. This is accomplished usuallyby giving a statute only a one year,two-year, or more rarelyt three14

year authorization before reauthor-ization most be sought. This meansthat feedback about program opera-tions must be organized and evalu-ated. The data collection activity ofinterest groups can be very helpfulas their insights from the field of ac-tivity contribute to testimony of-fered.

Access procedures are builtinto the process through the publichearings on both substantive andappropriations measures and throughthe right of any legislator to offermodifying amendments during floorconsideration of the bills. The estab-lishment of communications by rep-resentatives of interest groups withall legislators is necessary to assurethorough consideration of their sug-gestions by both chambers.

Since decisions in cur dentoc-raey are made by elected represent-atives who are not necessarilyprofessionally qualified in specificsubject matter areas, what factorsenter into their calculations to sup-port or oppose a particular concept?

Two kinds of information areavailable to the conscientious legisla-tor:

Formal information, includ-ing (a) the hearings record, in whichis set forth the justifications of theExecutive branch, the testimony ofa:1 other witnesses who have beenheard or who have filed statements insupport or opposition to the specificproposals, (b ) the committee reportwhich contains committee argument,section analysis, and comparisonprints of the changes in existing lawif the proposals were to be adopted,and, (c) the floor debates in theother body if the measure under eo-sideration has already passed as anact of either the House or Senate; and

Informal information, con-sisting largely of eommunications,written or oral, received by the legis-lator directly from his on constitu-ents who have taken the time andtrouble to apprise him of how they

1.4

view the proposed legislation.While by no means ought the

formal information areas to be down-graded, since by their very naturethey represent the distillate of muchrationality and endeavour on the partof knowledgeable and competentmen and women, I suggest that theinformal pattern is equally important,since politicians who remain in oflicelong enough to become statesmen doso because they have been very sen-sitive to the needs, wants, and aspira-tions of their on constituents, andhave done their best to satisfy thesedesires over the period of their legis-lative service.

So interest groupsin the con-text of this article I mean the profes-sional associations of educators, suchas the AASA, and their fillies, thebroad aggregates oriented primarilyto the public interest, such as theParent-Teacher Associations, theAFL-CIO unions, and the businessand industrial trade associations eon -cerned with products used in theeducational processwhile they seekto gain acceptance of their viewpointswithin the Executive branch and havethem adopted as part of the programof the President, should also be alertto, and actively work in, the arena ofthe legislative process in both its sub-stantive and funding aspects.

How can this latter best bedone? With this question we ap-proach the center and the heart ofthe matter. We are really env isioning,an information network with a two-way interchange. IVI,difinisms withineach association should be estab-lished or strengthened which wouldbring timely, detailed informationabout what is happening in the hallsof Congress to the field professional.This will enable him to analyze theeffect upon his own operation of theadoption of the proposed policy. Hethen might communicate directly hisreactions to his on three spokes-men in the Congress (one represent-ative and two senators), togetherwith his recommendations for suchchanges or modifications which inhis judgment are needed to aecomp-

lish the goal he desires with a mini-mum of disruption and delay.

Time is generally of the essence.A cycle of triggered response within24 hours, at the most, is highly de-sirable. Nothing is more frustratingto a congressman or a senator thanto learn that his own people are upsetabout a proposal two days after hehas cast his vote for it. He feels, andquite properly, that if opposition isnot voiced against a proposition in atimely manner, that he has been letdown and placed in a very untenableposition. Consequently, he is les's:ikely to give full weight to the objec-tions and exert himself to retrievethe situation. The adage on the rela-tive merits of an ounce of preventionand a pound of cure applies.

Communication is critically im-portant. Communication is the threadthat ties members of the associationtogether and gives unity to the as-so-ration Relationships depend on it,and concerted action on any problemor issue cannot take place without it.Good communication cannot be at-tained on an accidental or even anincidental basis, It must be carefullyplanned and consistently supportedwith an clement of flexibility that willtake care of emergency situations.

In the 1965 annual report ofthe Carnegie Foundation John Gard-ner said, "We have all seen men withlots of bright ideas but with no pa-tience with the machinery by whichideas are translated into action. Asa rule the machinery defeats them.It is a pity because men can playa very useful role, but too often theyare dilettantes. They dip in here orthere. They give bits of advice on adozen fronts. They never get theirhands dirty working with one pieceof the machinery until they know itwell. They will not take the time tounderstand the institutions and pro-cesses by which change is accomp-lished."

Not long ago Barbara Wardsaid "No humane or ethical societycan expect to survive if its peopleref;:e tl accept the consequencesof their . cts, To strike blindly or to

damage with indifference to the totalresults of our action are hallmarks orirresponsibility." Therefore, it seemsto me that professional associationsmust be ready to act, must know howto act and must be prepared to ac-cept the consequences of action.

It seems to me that state associa-tions of school administrators will bestronger and will function to bestadvantage when

General agreement is reachedon what the membership wants to do,can do, and is willing to do; when im-mediate objectives are defined clearly,long-range goals are established, andpriorities are fixed.

The diversity of interests,concerns, and needs that exist in themembership is regarded as a strengthand an asset rather than as a weak-ness and a liability.

Every member is activelyinvolved in the work of the associa-tion.

Every member has an oppor-tunity to assume some leadership re-sponsibilities.

The association is committedto jobs and purposes that call forresources and effort exceeding thepowers of individual members.

The association is continuallypushing forward for new frontiers.

Of all of the profound desiressought by men, few rival the Ameri-can man's passion for collective im-provement. Few desires have comecloser to realization, and it seems tome that one of the most pronounceddevelopments in the profession ofschool administration and potentiallyone of the most potent influences forthe improvement of the professionare state associations of school ad-ministrators. Men with a commonpurpose, men confronted by prob-lems and issues and aware of oppor-tunities, men abused and harassed byvested interests, and men imbued

15

with the desire to serve mankind havebanded together and have assumedthe burden of responsibility for whahappens to the profession. No longerneed each man fight the lonely battlein isolated outposts. Today state as-sociations in nearly every state ofthe nation provide the machinery, theavenue, the opportunity for men andwomen to have an active part inshaping the dream and the destinyof school administration in public ed-ucation.

Annual federal expenditures forOffice of Education programs alonenow total in excess of $4.4 billion ayear, a substantial part of which af-fects elementary and secondaryschool operations. If fully funded, thecurrent operative laws would requireslightly over $13.1 billion a year tobe expended annually.

Given the increasing difficulty ofraising money from local and statetax resources, the federal share of thefinancing of the education of Ameri-can citizens can be increased from itspresent level of slightly more than6.8 percent of the total annual cost,about $64 billion, to a more equitablelevel of one-third or one-half of theamounts needed. While this mightmean an expansion of the authorizingstatutes and the creation of newmodes of channeling resources to thelocal areas, and certainly would meansignificant increases in the appropria-tions level, let us remember that anincrease of only $500 per child incentral city and rural schools, tobring them up to the expenditurelevel of our better suburban schools,if we heed the Riles Report recom-mendations, would cost $35 billionmore than we now fund from the fed-eral Treasury for all existing pro-grams. Money of this magnitude,however, ought not be considered asan annual expenditure item. Rather,it is a capital investment which willreturn dividends many times over thecost in the relatively near future.

We might well ask if we canafford not to make this type of in-vestment in the future of the country.It cannot happen, however, unless

15

dedicated men and women in eachCongressional District take the timeand the trouble to lobby in the pub-lic interest to obtain the money nec-essaty to buy the needed educationalgoods and sere ices to equip theirchildren to meet the challenges of oursociety in the next four decades.

Untapped and unrefined ore ex-ists only as a potential resource, tobecome useful in the service of thenation. Men, machines, money, andmanagement must be skillfully em-ployed to produce the tools and arti-facts that are the material basis of acivilized society. The situation ismuch the same with regard to the in-

16

tellectual resources of the nation. Al-most half of our population is at-tending school. Unless we are willingto provide the men, machines, money,and management needed to bringeach of these young citizens to a fulland productive life, to a full realiza-tion of the inherent talents and capa-bilities with which each is endowed,we will be forced to answer when weare called to account for our trustee-ship. We will have failed to prepareour children for complete living.

Politics is the practical exerciseof the art of self-government, andsomebody must attend to it if we areto have self-government; somebody

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must study it and learn the art, andexercise patience and sympathy andskill to bring the multitude of opin-ions and wishes of self-governingpeople into such order that some pre-vailing opinion may be expressedand peaceably accepted. Otherwise,confusion will result either in dic-tatorship or in anarchy. The principalground of reproach against anyAmerican citizen should be that heis not a politician. Everyone ought tobe, as Lincoln was.

Spenser. Herbert. Education. New York:Appleton and Co., 1896.

Number Four

Our three level federal systemin which powers and functions areshared among national, state, and lo-cal governments is in serious crisisand disarray. The Committee forEconomic Development in its recentreport, Modernizing State Govern-ment, acknowledged that there was"some validity in the facetious com-ment that our three-level federalismleaves the national government withthe money, local governments withthe problems, and the states with thelegal powers."

The crisis in federalism is par-ticularly acute at the state level,theoretically, at least, "the keystonein the arch of the federal systemthe bridge between local govern-ments concerned with communityproblems and a central governmentdealing with nationwide issues." Thestructural and functional weaknessesof the states have been a salient fac-tor in precipitating the crisis in inter-level governmental relationshipswhich currently exists. Many of thestates for a variety of reasons havevirtually abdicated responsibility forthe nation's burgeoning urban prob-lems. As a result, metropolitan cen-ters have had to bypass the states andturn to the federal government forassistance in confronting myriadproblems like housing, welfare, airand water pollution, education, andtransportation.

The immediate priority, if thestates are to become responsive tothe needs of a society in which threeof four Americans live in metro-politan areas, is to undertake on anational scale a massive and com-prehensive revitalization and mod-ernization of state government. It isperhaps easy to agree that Washing-ton, D.C. with its stifling bureau-cracies is not the fount of all wis-dom and that decision-makingshould be decentralized in a large,heterogeneous nation with more than200 million citizens. A critically im-portant concomitant of this view,however, frequently is not enun-ciated explicitly; that is the desperateneed to strengthen state and local

17

governments so that they have thecapacity to discharge the responsi-bilities which many who fear the ac-cretion of federal power want themto have. The strengthening of thestates is of particular significance ata time when there is growing disaf-fection with duplicative, confusingand proliferating federal grants-in-aid programs.

The weaknesses of state gov-ernment are of particular importancein a policy area like education wherethe states traditionally have had para-mount legal responsibility and au-thority. The state's legal primacy ineducation makes any lack of respon-siveness on the part of state govern-ment to the educational needs of anincreasingly urbanized society par-ticularly significant. Indeed, the statelegislature has almost complete powerover public education except wherethere are specific restrictions implicitin the state constitution. The weak-nesses of state, legislatures thus haveparticular Falieney to those whowould advocate greater state initia-tives in ameliorating the urban crisis.James Bryce, some 75 years ago, wasreported to have commented that theconvening of the state legislature "islooked forward to with anxiety bygood citizens" and "its departurehailed as a deliverance." These ap-prehensions unfortunately would stillbe well founded in more than a fewstates. The low visibility and lack-luster performances of state legisla-tures have been discussed frequentlyand the following from ModernizingState Government encapsulates someof their weaknesses:

Before 1962, state legislatureshad become increasingly unrep-resentative in compositiona

Michael D. Usdan, professor ofeducation, The City University ofNew York, New York, preparedthis article, "Relationships BetweenFederal and State Systems," for TheSchool Administrator. It is thefourth in a series of 12 essays on thegeneral subject "Politics and Educa-tion."

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1

condition that recent reappor-tionments have helped to cor-rect.

Such factors as extremely lowpay, severely limited legislativesessions, and lack of adequatestaff or supporting researchcompetence have led to lowesteem for legislatures and lossof confidence in the resultingproduct.Many legislatures are unwielf",in size, which detracts from .;prestige of membership in them.

Undue attention is often givento detailed examination of ad-ministrative operations, pettylocal issues, and financialaspects of minor state opera-tionsdiverting energies frommajor policy matters.The influence of pervasive andpowerful legislative lobbies isnotorious, even though thefrequency of bribery and un-seemly revelry has been exag-gerated.

Perhaps these endemic weak-nesses of state legislatures can beemphasized most dramatically bymentioning one estimate which in-dicates that it costs only about twiceas much money to operate the entireU.S. Congress as it does to run allfifty state legislatures.

The structural and functionalweaknesses of the states are ratherpervasive and extend into the execu-tive and judicial as well as the legis-lative branch of government. It is,of course, difficult to generalize aboutfifty complex and variegated jurisdic-tions but a cluster of governmentalmaladies are common to many ofthe states. The governors, for exam-ple, frequently have lacked author-ity commensurate with their respon-sibilities. Reflecting the fear ofstrong executives which dates fromcolonial times, many governors suf-fer from "balkanized" authority andmust preside uneasily and relativelypowerlessly over a fragmented varie-ty of quasi-independent or even au-tonomous commissions and boards.

Other weaknesses of the statescan be cited. Many state constitu-tions. reflecting late nineteenth Cen-tury norms that the government is18

best which governs least, arc inflexi-ble, confining, and overly detaileddocuments. These archaic state con-stitutions frequently impose totallyunrealistic fiscal constraints and arcextremely difficult to amend. Theyarc anachronistic deterrents to at-tempts to make states more respon-sive to contemporary needs. Thejudicial role of the states has beensubordinate to that of the federalgovernment as the result of numer-ous U.S. Supreme Court decisionsdating back to John Marshall's time.These decisions have consistently up-held the extension of federal author-ity and primacy. The national impactof federal court decisions on the vol-atile racial desegregation issue hasbeen profound. The great influenceof these decisions upon state andlocal educational officials requireslittle elaboration. As the result ofcourt decisions, the federal govern-ment since passage of the CivilRights Act of 1964 has intervened inunprecedented fashion in school mat-ters. Thcsc federal interventions havegenerated widespread political con-troversy. The issue of school desegre-gation has become, both in de juresegregated communities of the Southand de facto segregated communitiesof the North, one of the nation'smost explosive domestic problems.The federal government's judicialand executive initiatives and domi-nant role in this issue continue totransform dramatically federal-state-local relationships in education.

The status of the states vis-a-visthe federal government also has suf-fered because state political partieslack the visibility of their nationalcounterparts. State issues arc diffusedand the responsibilities of state of-ficials are heavily administrative incharacter. State government Licksglamor and thus fails to attract thepress and television coverage thataccrues to inure dramatic issues atthe federal level where the Presidentwrestles daily with the transcendentissue of war and peace. These factorsand others generate public apathyand diminish concern for "atomized"

18

an,i "erratic" state politics.Not surprisingly, these general

weaknesses of state government arereflected in the performances of stateagencies like education departments.Despite the considerable boost givento state zducational agencies by pas-sage of the federal Elementary andSecondary Education Act of 1965(ESEA), glaring weaknesses stillabound. Most state departments ofeducation are still understaffed andlack the personnel with the expertiseto discharge adequately responsibili-ties in areas like educational plan-ning. evaluation, training, researchand development. Perhaps the great-est challenge to state agencies, whichcommonly have been staffed byrurally oriented educators, is theestablishment of closer relationshipswith problem plagued urban schoolsystems.

The modernization of state edu-cational agencies will be a difficultand tedious job requiring superiorleadership. Chances for successfullyconverting these departments, whichtraditionally have performed main-tenance or regulatory functions, intodynamic instrumentalities of educa-tional leadership and reform will belargely contingent upon the invigora-tion of state government in generaland the quality of leadership offeredby the chief state school officer.Methods of selection of these officialsthus become significant. Although in30 of the states chief school officersare appointed by either the stateboard of education (26 states) or bythe governor (4 states), 20 of thestates still elect their top educationalofficial. In 15 of these 20 states, thestate superintendent or commissionerof education is elected on a partisanpolitical ballot. In many of thesestates with elected chief school of-ficers, there is no civil service statusor protection for departmental staffand it can reasonably be argued thattop quality educators are loath tohave their careers determined by thevagaries of partisan politics. Withgreater federal moneys being dis-pensed in recent years to the states,

the arguments for having a non-partisan state educational agency donot require elaboration here.

I have dwelled at such lengthupon the weaknesses of what JohnF. Kennedy called "the shame of thestates" because a meaningful discus-sion of federal-state relationshipsmust be predicated upon a realisticassessment of the current capacity ofstate govcrnmcnts. The statcs un-deniably have been strengthened inrecent years, paradoxically, as theresult of the infusion of federal dol-lars and programs. The critical ques-tion, however, remains as to whetherthe nation with its urban centersrotting can afford the luxury of wait-ing for the states to be tooled up tocope more cffcctivcly with educationand society's other pressing prob-lems?

One transcendent issue is com-pelling a reassessment of the entirestructure of educational decision-making; this issue, of course, is

school finance. The crisis in schoolfinance permeates federal-state re-lationships. The financing of educa-tion, the largest functional category'of state spending, is the most criticalissue facing many state govern-ments. Money is a great source ofpower in government and the 16thamendment has provided the fcdcralgovernment with the powerful weap-on of the graduated income tax. Withthe fcdcral govcrnmcnt collecting twoof every three tax dollars and yetsupporting well under 10 perccnt ofthe bill for elementary-secondaryeducation, the fiscal burden has re-mained with local and state govern-ments. While the federal governmenthas preempted the more elastic grad-uated income tax, local governmentswhich still pay on a national average50 permit of the cost of public edu-cation are constrained by relativelystatic revenue sources. The propertytax, still the bellwether of school fi-nance as it was fifty and seventy-fiveyears ago when it truly reflectedwealth in a more rural economy, hasreached the saturation point in ,:pnycommunities. In recent ycars an un-

precedented number of defeats forschool budgets and bond issues havedramatized the need to reform ananachronistic tax and revenue struc-ture.

The fragmented and incffcctualpolitical structures and limitedsources of revenue which hamstringlocal governments make grassrootsfiscal reform extremely unlikely. Theformidable political obstacles, forexample, to imposing sales or incometaxes on a local, metropolitan orregional area basis are apparent.Many feel that only the state andfcdcral govcrnmcnts have broadenough tax bases to implement muchneeded tax and revenue reform toredress gross fiscal inequities ineducation and other social policyareas Indeed, there is substantialopinion that political configurationseven at the state level preclude mean-ingful fiscal reform. State politics likelocal politics, it is maintained, tendsto be tax politics while fcdcral poli-tics can more readily be program-matic It is more difficult, somecontend, for special powerful intcr-est groups to dominate tax policy atthe fcdcral level than it is to controlsmaller political units at the local andstate levels.

The school finance crisis at thelocal level is being exacerbated byrising tcachcr militancy which isfurther straining already saturatedproperty tax rates. Instructional costscompose better than 70 percent ofmost school budgets, and the recentaggressiveness of once relativelypliant teacher organizations is rapid-ly pushing local communities beyondtheir fiscal breaking points. Thetime-consuming and strenuous de-mands of the negotiations processand the inadequacies of most localboards of education to cope withthem may push the level of tcachcrnegotiations to the regional, metro-politan, state, or even federal levelfaster than 7,,niy imagine.

Several influential leaders re-cently have discussed the need forat least considering the possibility ofeliminating locally levied school

19

taxes, In the summer of 1968, form-er U.S. Commissioner of Education,James E. Allen, Jr., while still serv-ing as New York's chief state schoolofficer, floated a controversial "trialballoon" that the states assume theresponsibility for financing educa-tion. In Dr. Allen's view, local finan-cing of the elementary and secondaryschools erects "serious barriers" tothe solution of high priority urbanproblems like racial integration anddecentralization. Dr. Allen, as prc-dictcd, elicited "a high mark on theeducational seismograph" with hiscomments.

More recently, Michigan's Gov-ernor suggested that the burden forfinancing education be assumed bythe state.

In the past few years momen-tum has been slowly building up forthe states to assume total financialresponsibility for education. Afteryears of legislative frustration, somenow look to the courts for relief ofinequities. In a cast of great import,the Detroit Board of Education suedthe state of Michigan for violatingthe equal protection clause of the14th Amendment to the U.S. Con-stitution. Similar litigation is in

process in California and elsewhereand the implications of these castsarc indeed profound.

If at least a modicum of cre-dence is to be placed in the adagethat "he who pays the piper calls thetune," it is apparent that a necessarycorollary to increases in fcdcral andstate financing of education wouldbe the need to strengthen state edu-cation departments to assume newand greatly enlarged responsibilities.Until very recently many state educa-tional agencies, as we have indicated,have been ineffectual and under-staffed. Contrary to the views ofmany, fcdcral programs have notweakened state education depart-ments but have provided them witha large percentage of whatever staffthey may possess. In 1968, C. 0.Fitzwater, in State School SystemDevelopment, wrote:

In 1947-48 vocational cduca-19

tion and vocational rehabilita-tion accounted for more thanhalf the total department profes-sional staff in at least 33 states.Only five departments had morethan 50 professionals in otherfields of education and 19 de-partments had fewer than 20,

New Federal programs begunduring the 1950's accentuatedthe trend. By 1960 more thanhalf the professional staff in alldepartments combined were as-signed to federally subsidizedprograms; in 13 states the pro-portion was over 70 percent.As recently as 1962, only 10

departments had professional staffswhich totaled more than 100, 21departments had fewer than 50 pro-fessionals.

Many are concerned that in-creases in federal aid for education,the U.S. Office of Education budgetsoared from $700 million in fiscal1962 to $4 billion in fiscal 1967 (al-most a 600 percent increase in theyears), inevitably will result in theerosion of local and state preroga-tives in formulating educational poli-cy. These apprehensions reflect a

misunderstanding of our federal sys-tem. More federal aid, as the fore-going statistics on state educationdepartment staffing indicate, does notnecessarily mean a diminution ofstate power. Indeekl, federal educa-tional dollars like federal grants-in-aid have strengthened the states de-spite bureaucratic restrictions.

It must be stressed that powerin our federal system is not a zerosum game, where, for example, ifthe federal level gains authority, thestates must necessarily lose authority.Indeed, the history of federal grants-in-aid indicates that state authoritygrows as the result of this funding.Our three level governmental sys-tem, to cite Morton Grodzin's meta-phor, resembles a "marble" or rain-bow cake and not the separate

sections of a layer cake. Functions,in other words, are not discrete.

They are shared or mixed as eachgovernmental level influences and

20

interacts with the other levels. It is

important to note, however, that al-though federal programs certainlyhave expanded the administrativefunctions of the states, the nationalgovernment has been setting the

agenda on many policy questions.What of the future? Is the

gravitational pull of authority toWashington, D.C., irreversible? Canthe states begin to assume policyinitiatives as the linchpins of a threelevel governmental system and notbe mere administrative conduits foinational programs? Is it reasonableto expect relationships in the federalsystem ever to conform to TerrySanford's idealization:

The national government ispositioned to look at problemsand programs in broad, general,aggregate terms of nationalpolicy and purposes. Localcommunities see the world innarrow, particular, individualterms, and should. This is theirbeauty. The states, as regions

territorial entities are themeans by which these twopoints of view can be broughttogether in the service of thecitizens.

The growing centralization ofpower at the national level is ofconcern to all Americans regardlessof political persuasion. Some sharethe late Senator Dirksen's concernthat the continued attrition of thestates soon will bring the time when"the only people interested in stateboundaries will be Rand McNally."Even those who support the rapidexpansion of federal social legislationand feel that it is too late to reformthe states, fear the dangers of the"administrative monstrosity" whichresults from centralized bureaucra-cies operating programs affectingmillions of citizens. What then is thesolution, in a pluralistic society, tothe current crisis of federalism?

There are those who have ad-% ocated replacing the outmodedstates with regional authorities. Thestates, however, cannot be expected

20

to disappear. For better or worse,they are too much a part of the"warp and woof of our national polit-ical fabric." Reports of the demiseof the states, common during thezenith of the Great Society in themid-nineteen sixties, have proven tobe premature.

Since one must assume that thestates are here to stay, their renais-sance and revitalization becomes anational necessity.

Some of our major metropolitanproblems like air and water pollu-don and transportation admittedlytranscend state geographical bound-aries.

With the reported interest ofthe Nixon Administration in revivingthe concept of revenue sharing andregional commissions as means ofredistributing federal revenue to theother levels of government, the statesmay now have another opportunity tobecome more assertive and substan-tive participants in the federal sys-tem. Indeed, in recent years therehave been generated some encourag-ing attempts to strengthen the vari-ous components of state government.More visible and concerted effortsare being made by foundations, acad-emicians, citizens groups, and legisla-tors themselves to modernize the

states. More specifically, in termsof strengthening the role of the statesin shaping educational policy, the

Education Commission of the Stateswas created in 1966. The Commis-sion, a voluntary, interstate, cooper-ative organization of growing signi-ficance, already has a membershipof more than forty states with toplevel political and educational leadersinvolved in its expanding activities.

The decade of the 1970's maywell see either a dynamic renaissanceof the states, or if they continue notto fulfill their responsibilities, a totaland perhaps irrevocable centraliza-tion of authority in the federal gov-ernment. American education willbe greatly influenced by the devel-opments which will occur.

Number Five

It used to be that city schoolsexemplified all that was thought tobe good about education. Their serv-ices were avidly sought by middleclass parents, and they acted as lad-ders for the upward mobiliy of mil-lions of children from lower classand immigrant families. Beginningin the World War II period, this fa-vored position began to fade. Manymiddle income families left for thesuburbs, and those that stayed be-hind moved in large numbers to ac-quire private and parochial schoolingfor their children. For the studentswho remaified, mostly the offspringof the poor, public schools were nolonger even neutral agents in assist-ing their pursuit of the Americandream. Rather, in all too many cases,inner city schools became forceswhich worked actively to discourageaspirations.

A number of nationwide socialand economic movements are in partthe cause of the decline in quality ofurban schools. However, a portionof the blame must also be borne bythe traditional tendency of state gov-ernments to favor rural interests. Thesocietywide causes are well under-stood by most educators, and, in anyevent, they are too complex to bedescribed adequately here. Therefore,we will concentrate in this article onthe linkage between state govern-ments and city schools. We first willanalyze several historical feature, ofthis set of intergovernmental rela-tions, then suggest some possiblepaths of reform, and conclude bycommenting upon the role school ad-ministrators have played in the con-flict between state and city.

The Way It Used To BeUp until the Depression and

World War II, central cities held a

favored financial position; relative toother geographic areas, they con-tained the largest concentrations ofwealth within individual states. Inmost instances, this financial basewas sufficient to provide adequatesupport for the public schools of thetime. However, rurally dominated

21

state legislatures were not in the leastreluctant to tap this plentiful resourcefor other needs. Cities were regal Jedas great financial cows to be milkedfor the benefit of the remainder ofthe state.

While funds were being siphonedgenerally from the cities, state schoolfinance arrangements were simultan-eously shortchanging urban schools.State aid formulas favored ruralareas. (Later, these same formulaswere to favor suburban areas aswell.) Simply put, cities paid pro-portionately more taxes to the stateand received proportionately less rev-enues from the state for support ofschools.

Being underrepresented in thechambers of state government, therewas little that city residents could doabout this financial discrimination.However, in some states, large urbanproperty owners banded together andmanaged to obtain personal accessto state legislatures. They succeededin gaining enactment of tax regula-t: ns concerning city property whichwere far more restrictive than therules which applied to noncity schooldistricts.' The end result of these leg -islative actions in behalf of the spe-cial interests of property owners wasto limit the access of city schools totheir own tax base.

In addition to matters concernedwith school finance, rural dominationof state governments resulted in sev-eral other forms of discriminationagainst city schools. For example, inthe historical periods when cityschools were grappling with educa-tional problems accompanying theinflux of large numbers of foreignimmigrants, many of whom could not

James W. Guthrie, assistant pro-fessor and director, Urban EducationProgram, University of California,Berkeley, prepared this article, "TheStates and Urban School Systems,"for Thin School Administrator. It isthe fifth in a series of 12 essays onthe general subject, "Politics and Ed-ucation."

21

speak English, and with re% isions ofthe school curriculum necessitated byexpanding industrialization and tech-nology. state education departmentstypically were staffed by individualswhose experience and interests restedwith rural schools where the prob-lems were of a different sort. Thus,city school districts were left to suf-fer with their own peculiar troubleswhile small town and rural districtsenjoyed almost exclusive access tothe supplementary services and sup-port of an organization funded by,and ostensibly designed to serve, allschool districts in a state.

The Way It Came To BeSo long as cities maintained a

healthy tax base relative to othergeographic areas in a state, and solong as urban populations were notdisproportionately weighted towardthe poor and the socially oppressed,city schools sunk ed and in manyinstances e'en flourished. Howe%cr,with the onset of World War I, oneof the largest human migrations inhistory began to upset this balance.Literally millions of Puerto Ricansand southern Negroes began to moveto the cities, particularly to cities inthe North. They were attracted bythe prospect of wartime jobs and thehope of escaping the squalor and dis-crimination which otherwise wouldhave been their fate. This remarkableexodus was stimulated greatly byWorld War 11 and the period of sus-tained economic progress which fol-lowed.

While the human tide from theSouth poured into the cities, a laby-rinth of ill-conceived national policiesregarding housing, transportation,and taxation encouraged waves ofmiddle class city residents to move tothe suburbs. Now, the image of thecity schools began to change. Whatwas once an adequate tax base be-came inadequate when faced with theintenske schooling needs of the newpopulation. School support problemsbecame even worse as the cities' tax-able resources began to erode. Whatwas once income-producing property22

began to disappear for freeways andnontaxable institutions such as pub-lic housing, hospitals, and universi-ties. The problem was further com-pounded when industry began to by-pass the city in favor of new sites inthe suburbs where the surroundingswere cleaner, the taxes lower, andthe workforce better educated.

This massive movement of peo-ple and resources into and out ofcities did little to improve the politi-cal power of cities vis-a-vis otherareas. The "one man, one vote" de-cisions of the early 1960's = began toredress the political representationdisparities which had previously fa-vored rural and agricultural interests,but these decisions did not aid cityresidents. For the most part, reappor-tionment accrued to the political ad-%antage of the suburbs. The 1970census figures seem to confirm thisad%antage, for the first time, thecommunities which ring central citiesnow surpass them in total population.( However, in a surprising fashionwhich we will comment upon later,this shift of population and politicalpower may ultimately help cityschools.)

It is interesting to note that pop-ulation and resource shifts betweencities and suburbs have not onlytaken place at the expense of cities'relative political power, but have a ,oaffected the allocation of politicalpower within city school systems.The outward flow of middle classhouseholds created a temporarypower vacuum. Without any coun-tervailing force, highly organized andmilitant teacher unions filled the gapand were able to gain substantial im-provements in salary and workingconditions. Now that poor white, Ne-gro, ind Puerto Rican parents arecoming to be politically more sophis-ticated and increasingly aware of the%Ate of schooling for their children,it will be interesting to obser% e

whether inroads will be made uponthe bargaining power of teacherunions. In part, the growing struggle

cr decentralization of city schooldistricts reflects this tension between

22

teachers and newly awakened mi-nority groups.

What the Cities Have DoneIn the absence of sufficient leg-

islative representation to gain stateassistance for :neir economic and or-ganizational difficulties, city schoolshave resorted to a variety of patch-work political tactics. Most of thelarge cities maintain one or morelobbyists in the state capital, whoare responsible for advocating cityschools' interests with the legislature,governor, and state board and depart-ment of education. Generally, theseindividuals are skilled at their trade,and they pros ide a clear-cut assist forurban school systems.

Their lobbying efforts are sup-plemented in most states by coali-tions of city school board membersand urban school administrators.Such groups may ha%e a full-timeexecutive director who promotes re-search depicting the city schoolsplight and who may himself act as alobbyist. Moreover, almost every bigcity school superintendent has closeties with key taw legislators repre-senting his city, and on school issuesthey are generally most sympatheticto the concerns of urban areas.

However, none of these special-ized political activities appear to beable to overcome the educational dis-parities and deficits which have builtup over several decades of legislativeneglect of urban areas. Despite thesuccess of city school system advo-cates in obtaining minor financial dis-tribution formula changes such as"urban factors" and "population den-sity multipliers." recent surveysdemonstrate that many states stillallocate more aid per pupil to sub-urban districts than to central cities.'

From Where Will Help Come?Existing federal school aid pro-

grams show little promise of solvingcity p1ohlcros. For example, despitethe existence of ESEA Title 1, it isnot clear that federal funds presentlyserve cities better than they do sub-urbs. Although inLompletc, these Lx-

ists evidence to the effect that federalfunds reach suburban students ingreater proportion than they do citystudents."

A much discussed prospect forfederal assistance to city schools restsin the proposed scheme for revenuesharing. The bill submitted by theNixon Administi ation contains a so-called "pass through" provisionwhich would earmark a percentageof the total allocation for use bycities. Such a provision would avoidthe tendency of state legislatures toslight urban areas. A difficulty withthe Nixon measure is that it simplyproposes to share too little money.If the President's bill were enacted,an unlikely event in itself, it wouldprovide only an estimated $500 mil-lion in the first year. gradually esca-lating by 1975 to an amount equalto one percent of the income gen-erated by the federal income tax (anestimated $2 billion). It must be re-membered that this entire amount isfor all public services, not for schoolsexclusively. Thus, the hope of citiesfinding relief from their fiscal prob-lems through federal action is slightindeed.

"Metropolitanism" has been ad-vocated by some as a solution to thetension between city school problemsand state-level inertia?' The centralidea here is that joint action by cityand suburbs has been helpful in ad-dressing urban ills in such areas astransportation, sanitation, and pollu-tion. Why not try it for education?What this proposed solution lacks byway of practical substance it com-pensates for in terms of politicalnaivete. To begin with, the basictheme is that an enlarged geographicunit will assist in redressing urbantax base and service disparities. Ifthis is so, then why not move to aneven larger geographic base, and onewhich has the appropriate legal au-thority in the first placethe state?Proponents of the metropolitan solu-tion make a grave error in equatingschools with sewage or pollution.There arc a number of clear-cut andhighly v isible advantages in cooperat-

ing on dimensions such as these, andwillingness to put aside communityidentity and political differencesshows itself rather readily. However,the benefits from metropolitan areaschool cooperation are not so evi-dent, and anyone who does not rea-lize the reluctance of citizens to giveup their "local control" should ex-amine the history of school districtconsolidation in the

If not a federal or metropolitansolution, then what? As hinted atearlier, it may be that state legisla-tures themselves will come to see thefolly inherent in their past short-changing of cities. Such enlighten-ment is not likely to come about asa consequence of some miraculousvalue transformation or attack ofaltruism on the part of those inpower. Rather, if it occurs, it maybe a product of the same social andeconomic forces which previouslybrought misery to the cities.

In addition to revealing thegross statistic that suburban residentsnow outnumber their central cityneighbors, the 1970 census data alsodisclose that the suburbs no longercan be considered as a homogeneousband of wealthy and white bedroomcommunities. The term "suburb"must now be viewed as including amuch more heterogeneous cluster ofmunicipalities, a growing number ofwhich are composed of low incomeand minority group individuals. Whatthis means is that despite the manybarriers that were erected, the trou-bles of the city ghettos arc beginningto "leak" into the suburbs. The lowperformance, low motivation, racialconflict, and organizational malaisewhich characterize city schools areslowly beginning to be problems insuburban schools. To whatever de-gree and with whatever speed thistransition occurs, urban school illsare likely to receive greater attentionand assistance from state level au-thorities.

But What About Educators?Up to this point, the picture of

possible reforms is far from opti-

23

mistic. From a time when they wereonce preeminent, city school systemshave sunk to their present sorry state,in which vast numbers of their clientsseek schooling elsewhere. This de-cline in quality has occurred at atime when the cities' own financialresources have not permitted themto solve the problems themselves.Moreover, they are denied the assist-ance they so badly need from thestate level because they do not con-trol the necessary political leverage.State governments have the legal au-thority and fiscal resources to rescuethe cities, but they continue to favorrural and suburban areas.

There is some small reason tobelieve that the spread of poor andundereducated students to the sub-urbs may, in time, make state officialsmore sympathetic to urban problems.However, for the short run, this isbut a faint hope. For somewhat dif-ferent reasons, the prospects of fed-eral government assistance and met-ropolitan cooperation appear to beno more hopeful. Where then canurban school systems turn? In short,where can city schools find politicalallies? What about educational orga-nizations? The political power ofteachers, administrators, and schoolboard members is well known." Whatis the record of these groups in co-alescing behind the needs of cityschools?

Unfortunately, our record as ed-ucators, administrators included. isnot particularly admirable on thisissue. Too frequently, the politics ofeducational interest groups are but asmaller reflection of the urban-non-urban tensions that characterize state-level politics. Educators have diffi-culty agreeing statewide on a systemof priorities that places the needs ofcity schools at the top. Those whoare most influential in educators' or-ganizations are not totally unmindfulof the difficulties besetting cities, butthey tend to place the needs of theirown suburban and rural districts first.

The persistent neglect of thesocial and educational needs of thelower class and racial and ethnic mi-

23

norities which populate our citiesrepresents nothing less than theabandonment of America's long heldand loudly proclaimed belief in

1. A part of the same process re-sulted in "fiscal dependence" (uponthe overall municipal government)for a number of city school districts.Conventional educational wisdomproclaims this governmental arrange-ment to be unfair and discriminatory,because having to obtain financesthrough another legislative body(typically the city council andmayor) reduces the school allotmentfrom what it would be if the boardof education itself were the only bodyhaving to pass on the budget. How-ever, such wisdom does not stand upto empirical test. Whatever differ-ences occur in the expenditure levelsof fiscally "independent" and "de-pendent" school districts can be ac-counted for more easily by factorsassociated with wealth and demandthan by variations in governmentalstructure. For added discussion ofthis point see James, H. T.; Kelly,James A.; and Garms, Walter 1.Doer/nu/ants of Educational EA-penditures in Large Cities of theUnited States. USOE CooperativeResearch Contract No. 2389. (Stan-

24

equality of opportunity. One wouldhope that school administrators. atleast, once realizing this, would so-lidify' their ranks and begin to deploy

Footnotes

ford. Stanford University School ofEducation, 1966. pp. 95-156. Seealso James, H. T., et al. Wealth, Ex-pendintres, and Decision-Making forEducation. USOE Cooperative Re-search Project No. 1241. Stanford:Stanford University School of Edu-cation, 1963.

2. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186(1962), and Wesberry v. Sanders,387 U.S. 1 (1964).

3. Even when such adjustmentsare made for the added problems ofthe cities, legislatures frequently ne-glect to fund the provisions in anamount which permits any differencein the quality of the educational serv-ices offered by cities.

4. See Jackson, Penrose B.,Trends in Elementary and SecondaryEducation Expenditures: Central Cityand Suburban Comparisons, 1965 to1968. Washington, D.C.. U.S. Officeof Education, 1969. (Mimeo.)

24

their considerable political voice inan effort to gain for city schools theattention of state governments whichthey so desperately need.

5. See Guthrie, James W., andLawton, Stephen B., "The Distribu-tion of School Aid Funds. WhoWins? Who Loses?" Edutaiiona/Adminisontion Quarteily 6 . 47-61;Winter 1970.

6. See, for example, Bendiner,Robert. The Politics of Schools: ACrisis in Self-Government. NewYork: Harper and Row, 1969.

7. For an added analysis of thedrawbacks to metropolitanism forschools see Levin, Henry M., "WhyMetrcoolitan School Districts?" anaddress delivered at a UCEA CareerDevelopment Seminar, Buffalo, NewYork, November 1969. (Mimeo.)

8. See, for example, l3ailey,Stephen M., et al. S'choolmen andPolitics. Syracuse. Syracuse Univer-sity Press, 1963.

Number Six

Public education cannot be eas-ily budged from its historical con-viction that it is not like otherhuman enterprises. Educational liter-ature, for the most part, has rein-forced this posture by proclaimingthat school systems are privilegedsanctuaries which are above themeanness of everyday politics. Inconsequence, we educators have re-sisted rather well suggestions fromthe citizenry demanding more effi-ciency and clearer identification ofthe obsolete and unnecessary. Thestre ^th of such commitment hassonic justification. Few of us relishreturning to the inhumaneness andrigidity of the Taylor-induced sci-entific management craze in Ameri-can public education.

Much data about the complexityof school administration, of course,is unknown to outsiders. They knownothing of the debilitating and end-less pressures involved in makingday-to-day operational decisions.They do not understand why we lackthe financial resources needed tomeet our considerable responsibil-ities. They question our capacity aseducational leaders, but they have noviable solutions to many of the prob-lems they rail against.

Spurred on by the feeling of fu-tility and helplessness of the deprivedgroups in our society, concepts likerelevance, accountability, communitycontrol, and the like are challengingthe legitimacy of our present schoolsystem. Critics are pointing out thateducation is political, and thatschools are political organizationswith all the status and power hang-ups that such a definition implies.Finally, the most damning allegationis that schooling as a social systemserves political ends. The questionremains: why have we reached thisdangerous impasse? The reason isnot hard to find.

In theory, public schools shouldbe equal in every way, but this is notthe case. School systems inevitablymirror the financial resources andsocial values of their supporting com-munities. The presence or absence at

25

the community level of sufficient in-tellectual and financial resources isthe most decisive factor in determin-ing the overall quality of a schoolsystem; in other words, a communitygets what it pays for in the way of aschool system.

Such disparity is consistentlyfound from state to state in spite ofsignificant regional differences in so-cial structure, culture, and laws.Parents and students are becomingmore acutely aware of these inequi-ties, and they are attempting to re-dress their grievances by active polit-ical intervention. To date, schoolsystems have generally been able tomaintain their present structures in-violate. The status quo has been pre-served because school systems areessentially political subdivisions oflocal governments and thereby nec-essarily reflect the expectations oftheir governing elites. In short, pub-lic schools operate within the frame-work of those sources of power orsymbols of legitimacy impingingupon a particular community.

Research studies have verifiedthat several different typologies ofcommunity-influence systems doexist, and they indicate that commu-nities may often be characterized asin transition from one type ofstructure to another.' Power, ofcourse, is elusive and difficult to de-scribe and verify empirically.

For instance, very few compar-ative studies involving communitypower structures have been con-ducted, no doubt because of the un-usually difficult methodological andlogistical problems involved; it iseasier to conduct an intensive case

Donald McCarty, dean, College ofEducation, University of Wisconsin,Madison, prepared this article,"Community Influence Systems andLocal Educational Policy Making,"for The School Administrator. It isthe sixth in a series of 12 essays onthe general subject, "Politics andEducation."

25

study in which startling descriptiveand often entertaining data may beimaginatively analyzed. Small won-der that researchers in this field

spend a great deal of time criticizingeach other's methods and findings.

Types of Communities

Fortunately, communities andtheir decision-making centers can besystematically categorized alonecontinuum. Sociological lit,.rature ispartial to a type of power structurecalled the elite power motel. Thisconcept holds that the power struc-ture in a community is pyran.idal,with a few men or even one man atthe top. The decisive decision-mak-ing group is likely to be the eco-nomic elite of the community, al-though dominance may also derivefrom religion, ethnicity, politicalparty, race, or whatever. This phe-nomenon is often referred to as theconspiracy theory of politics.

The point to remember is thatdie elite power model does not allowfor conflict between sides of rela-tively even strength. If the elitegroup desires to exercise power in aparticular instance its control be-comes absolute. For example, theowners of the major industry in acompany town are not too likely tohave their dominance threatened; iftheir decision-making power is beingchallenged effectively, by definition,the community is no longer domi-nated by a single elite.

There are some communities inwhich at least two durable factionscompete for control over importantdecisions. In these situations arefound not only relatively even sidesbut also clear manifestations ofpower within each faction similar tothose in the single elite power model.These factions tend to coalescearound natural rallying points suchas religion, polities. occupation (as intown N ersus gown), and economicphilosophy.

Some communities follow

neither the elite nor the factionalpower model. Rather, the powerstructure is pluralistic, or diffused.26

with many poles of power. Theoreti-cally. there is no single power strutlute which must be reckoned with inany situation. Leadership Narks withissues. Power and community inter-ests exist, but power is contestableand not overwhelming.

A fourth type of power struc-ture is frequently seen in small ruralcommunities. This residual type ofcommunity reveals no active powerstructure. Power is basically inert or.more properly, latent, and resemblesa sort of domination by the statusquo. In such an env irunnient radiLal experimentation is not likely tooccur.

Walton,' after reviewing a

number of research studies in thecommunity power field, identifiedfour similar typologies. He concludedthat the most common types were-

1. Pyramidal (a monolithic,monopolistic, or single cohe-sive leadership group)

2. Factional (at least two dur-able factions that competefor advantage)

3. Coalitional (leadership Va-ries with issues and is ..,adeup of fluid coalitions of in-terested persons and groups)

4. Amorphous (the absence ofany persistent pattern ofleadership or power exer-cised on the local level).

In sum, communities are notidiosyncratic at all but instead fallinto readily identifiable patterns.Communities are, however, dynamic,as environmental conditions change,decision-making structures NN ill even-tually respond to these demands, per-haps too slowly for many of theirconstituents. This fact accounts formuch of the community conflict wefrequently observe.

Public school systems, subjectas they are to community politicalenv ironmentslre geared to localpolitical demands. If and when suchexternal forces wish to modify coursecontent, the framing and execution oflong-range plans, and the like, theymust attempt to influence the sauolboard and the superintendent of

26

schools either directly or indirectly.As one might expect, overt demon-strations of power influence are rare.Mori. sophisticated tLchniquLs in

opinion management are usuallyemployed.

School Boards

Boards of edai., Lion and super-intendents do exhibit a type of deci-sion-making structure that corre-sponds to the particular kind of com-munity power structure manifested.The elite power structure results in adominated board of education. Boardmembers are chosen on the assump-tion that they will take the advice ofcommunity leaders mainly becausethey share the ideology of the domi-nant group. The powerful figures onthe board tend to be reelected timeand again. In such a situation aboard majority, or perhaps one ortwo powerful individuals, representthe community elite and exercisepower so that policy follows the rightdirection. The board tends to voteunanimously on all basic issues.Members of such a board are notnecessarily consciously aware of theimpact of homogeneity on board de-cision-making. By definition, there isno organized opposition of any mag-nitude contesting for office.

In the community with a fac-tional power structure a factionalschool board is found. Voting ismore important than discussion inboard meetings, if the vote is crucial.the majority faction always wins.Board members represent the view-point of one or the other of the fac-tions and tend to act according to theideology of the group they represent.Members of any one group tend toconsider other groups as motivatedby specific group interests. Boardelections are hotly contested. Onepartkular fiction may be in controlof the board at any one time, but thebalance is likely to shift as new mem-bers are selected.

In the community with a plural-istic power structure school boardmembers may often represent par-tiLular interests, but there is no over-

all theme of power influence There-fore, in this type of communityschool board members are active butnot rigidly bound to one position.Discussion, often before a motion, isof utmost im ortance Board mem-bers are equal in status and treateach other as colleagues free to actas individuals. Rather than a hier-archy of control within the board,there exists a community of peerswhose decisions are characterized byfull discussion of problems and ar-rival at consensus in an atmosphereof detachment from the interests ofany particular segment of the com-munity. Members do not tend topromote the interests of specificcommunity groups.

In the community with the inertpower structure the school board isinactive and has no philosophical re-inforcement from the community. Ittends to perform perfunctorily be-cause board members neither rep-resent nor receive reinforcementfrom citizens for expressing oneviewpoint or another. When deci-sions have to be made, the boardtends to follow the lead of the profes-sional staff without going extensivelyinto the appropriateness of a policyin terms of community needs or de-sires. It simply sanctions policiespresented to it and does little but ex-ercise its right to approve or rejectproposals from the administration.Board members show a high degreeof respect for the administrator andlook to him for advice in mostmatters.

School Superintendents

Is the school superintendent ableto perform his role independently oris he influenced by the environmen-tal strictures outlined? As in the oldand unsettled argument about theprimacy of environment or heredityin determining intelligence, there ismuch to be said for environmentalpressures' overcoming the psycholog-ical and professional preferences ofan administrator. By their very na-ture school systems are political in-stitutions. and it is not unreasonable

to expect a superintendent of schoolsto reconcile himself to the realities ofpolitical life. This is k% hat ordinarilyhappens.

In the dominated communityand board the superintendent mustplay the role of functionary if he is toact effectively as the integrator ofcommunity interests and school pro-grams. He tends to identify with thedominant interests and takes his cuesfor action from them. Needless tosay, he may do this as a matter ofconscience. since he is probably incomplete agreement with proposalsoffered by the elitist group. He per-ceives himself as an administratorwho carries out policy rather than asa developer of policy; hence he asksthe board for detailed plans of anyaction to be taken. The school board,either unconsciously or deliberately,will choose a superintendent whoholds beliefs and fellows behaviorpatterns consistent with prevailingthemes in the dominated community.So long as this person agrees with thedominant ideology, all necessary

business will continue to be done inhis office but he will not be a truedecision maker.

In the factional community andboard the superintendent must workwith the majority, but since thesecommunities often change majorities,he must be careful not to becomeidentified too closely with one fac-tion. In other words, he must be apolitical strategist. He takes his di-rection from the faction exercisingpower at any particular time, but hebehaves in such a way that he canalso work effectively with the oppos-ing group when the power balanceshifts. He does not recommend onecourse of action as the best, to theexclusion of all others; rather thantaking a strong stand on controver-sial issues, he follows a middlecourse, allo., ng himself room for re-treat. He is not an active supporter ofany particular group in the board.

In the community with a plural-istic power structure and status-con-gruent board. the superintendent isexpected to give professional advice,

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based on the best educational re-search and theory. The board is ac-the but open-minded. The superin-tendent is not limited to carrying outpolicy handed down to him, nor is heforced to shape his opinions accord-ing to the ideology of the group inpower. His approach can be morestatesmanlike in the sense that he canexpress to the board alternatives toany policy and can delineate the con-sequences of any action openly andobjectively. He frequently presentsproposals for experimental programsand acts primarily as a change agent.

In the community with he inertpower structure and the sanctioningboard the superintendent initiates ac-tion and the board becomes merely arubber stamp. In this case the role ofthe superintendent is that of deci-sion maker. He does not have to takecues from any dominant group, noris he called on to give technical ad-vice as a basis for decision. Becauseof the lack of interest on the part ofthe board, the superintendent notonly is free to initiate action but mustdo so if the program is to be effec-tive. His support is a sine qua nonfor the success of any recommenda-tion made by individual board mem-bers.

The preceding descriptive ac-count of community power structureand school administration may beNummarized as follows:

Community RolePower School of the

Structure Board Superintendent

Dominated Dominated FunctionaryFactional Factional Political strategistPluralistic Status congruent Professional adviserInert Sanctioning Decision maker

These categorizations are idealtypes, gross characterizations ratherthan sharply honed discriminations.Yet, a comprehensive field investiga-tion of this conceptual modelresulted in statistically significantconfirmation of these important rela-tionships. The most powerful dimen-sion underlying this discussion is theproposition that a school administra-tor who is out of touch with the politi-cal dynamics of his supporting en-vironment will likely be neutralized

in one form or another. Frequentlythe result is involuntary resignation,early retirement, job transfer, or.sometimes, public firing. Moreover,our highly mobile society with itsrapid economic movements oftenbrings about radical restructuring ofestablished communities. If the in-cumbent school administrator in sucha place is unable to adjust his leader-ship style to the new demands, he,too. becomes expendable.

It is impossible to predict withcertainty what will happen when com-munity, school board, and superin-tendent are out of step with eachother. Generally, the aggregate in-fluence of a community power struc-ture on a school board and its super-intendent is relatively low Thispower is also diluted by both stateand federal laws. Unless the schismbecomes bitter, natural inertia mayintervene and the superintendent mayretain his position although his lead-ership is effectively rejected. Further-more, a superintendent of surpassingability may be so visibly competentthat he cannot easily be dislodged.

Although this analysis-seems toaccount for most common occur-rences, community power structuresare by definition almost impossibleto classify in rigid categories. Com-munities are constantly changing;what may be accurate enough at thistime may be quite inaccurate in the

1. See McCarty, Donald J., andRamsey, Charles E., The SchoolManagers. Power and Conflict inAmerican Public Education (West-port, Connecticut: Greenwood Pub-lishing Corporation, forthcoming)for a detailed comparative account of

28

not-too-distant future. Still, with allthese reservations, it seems reason-ably certain that if a superintendentof schools is employed in a commu-nity where his particular administra-tive approach does not fit the roleexpectations, and he is unable ordoes not wish to adjust his behavior,this incongruity will result in com-munity confli

Unfortunately the great mass ofthe public is oriented toward non-participation in community affairsand, unless motivated by a controver-sial issue, tends to evince apathy,boredom, and escapism. The futuredemands on the educational enter-prise are so awesome in characterthat they will require massive struc-tural changes at every governmentallevel. The citizenry as a whole mustbecome active participants in reor-dering educational goals and priori-ties.

Many familiar educational shib-boleths such as strict age placement,competitive grades, the single teacherisolated with a given set of learners,and a standard curriculum for all, areunder heavy attack. The interestedcitizen should be raising hard sub-stantive questions about these issueslocally while encouraging his schoolboard and superintendent to experi-ment; otherwise, by default, powerseekers will rush in to fill the vac-uum,

FOOTNOTES

the effects of community powerstructures on boards of educationand school administrators in 51 dif-ferent communities.

2. Walton, John. "Discipline, Meth-

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Finally, the rapid escalation offederal and state financial assistanceto local school systems invites an en-tirely new control structure from theone that presently exists. Many statesare already paying a substantial shareof the local school system budget, thefederal government appears likely toincrease its contribution. Ultimately,the really crucial decisions abouteducation may emanate from statecapitals and from Washington.

For the foreseeable future, how-ever, local community control willremain a powerful force. Communitypower structures have been resilientenough to ward off the effects ofmost externally-imposed strictures ontheir freedoms, by such Machiavel-lian mechanisms as failing to complyin toto with the regulations promul-gated, refusing help outright, inter-preting statutes to fit local prefer-ences, using delaying tactics, and thelike. It is clear that as long as theproperty tax remains as an importantrevenue producer, local power struc-tures will continue to exert signifi-cant power over educational policyin the schools. Curiously enough,while it has been popular to predictits early demise as natural and in-evitable, local community control ofthe public schools remains a vibrantreality, it is far from becoming amyth.

od and Community Power. A Noteon the Sociology of Knowledge."American Sociological Ret iew 3.684-89; October 1966.

3. McCarty and Ramsey, op. cit.

Number Seven

On my way to the schoolhouseI met an elephant and a donkey. Thisis a daily occurrence. The history ofpublic education in the United Statesis a history of political confrontationand involvement. It would appearthat such confrontation and involve-ment will characterize the future aswell. The number of citizens andschool people who believe that edu-cation can be separated neatly andcompletely from the political life ofthe community, state, and nation isdecreasing.

The initiation of public schoolswas not an act of setting them to oneside away from the main stream ofpolitical reality. Instead, they wereactually so placed that they wouldconfront the elephant and the donkey.The Massachusetts General Assem-bly, back in 1647, required eachtown with 50 or more householdersto establish an elementary school atcommunity expense. Thus was bornthe school system that eventuallyspread throughout the country.1 Inthe beginning, a general assemblyacted, and the phrase "communityexpense" meant financing by someform of taxation. When years laterthe founding fathers once again actedpolitically and established the UnitedStates Constitution, they waived theopportunity to set up a national sys-tem and instead established educa-tion as a responsibility of each state.Most state constitutions contain somedeclaration of guaranteeing the peo-ple an efficient system of free publicschools. The states in turn have as-signed much of the responsibility tothe local level. Their legislatures inone way or another have createdlocal school districts, local boards ofeducation to run them, state boardsof education, and state departmentsof education to carry out state boardpolicies. So on our way to a discus-sion of politics in education, we mustface the fact that education is woveninto many aspects of government atall levels. This is where the money is.this is where the action is, and noamount of debate will make it goaway. We must decide whether the

29

meeting on the way to the school-house will be a simple maneuveringfor the most advantageous positionor whether it will be genuine headknockinggutter politics of the mostobjectionable kind.

Knowing that we must confrontthe politician, the decision as to tech-niques and tactics should be basedon a careful reading of the politicalatmosphere in the arena where theaction is about to take place. Whois for and who is against? Who ison the fence nrld can be convinced?Is the opposition rabidly radical oris it in a sound position with fartoo many facts in its favor? Whereare the power blocks? Who is aninfluential dominating personality?There are literally limitless questionsthat could be asked that would fur-nish significant data upon which tobuild an effective political confron-tation.

The phrase "political confron-tation" carries with it the meaningof face-to-face debate. It implies apurposeful argumentation of a diplo-matic nature. Some might add theingredient of hostility, although thismight or might not be included in thedefinition. For the purpose of thisdiscussion, all-inclusiveness is thecriterion of the definition. If "polit-ical confrontation" is narrowly de-fined, we shall miss some of the ef-fectiveness of the manner in whichachievements are accomplished inour society. Then too, there is thedanger of our being excused by anarrow definition because it allowsus to classify ourselves as either in orout of the political framework. Forexample, the small system superin-tendent might refrain from involve-ment because "political confronta-tion is a procedure for the urbanite."

E. C. Stimbert, state commissionerof education, Nashville, Tennessee,prepared this article, "Political Con-frontation," for The School Ad-ministrator. It is the seventh in aseries of 12 essays on the generalsubject "Politics and Education."

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Administrators in simple politicalstructures would use the same excusefor noninvolvement.

There is no excuse for nonin-volvement. The small community hasits political power structure, thoughit may be a more simple one. Asmuch influence may be wielded bya certain individual in a rural neigh-borhood as by the big city politicalmachine boss. In some situations theopinion, influence, and approval ofthe biggest land holder in the ruralneighborhood must first be obtainedor the educational objective !s com-pletely dead from the very beginning.Get it and you arc on your way. Onthe other hand, the same situationcan be found in a much larger, morecomplex governmental structure.Many of our large cities have severalpages in their history telling us ofperiods of time when it was absolute-ly mandatory to get the blessing ofthe "boss" before the school budgetcould be presented, salaries increased.a building built, or a policy passed.

Realistically, whether there is adominating political personality ornot, procedures for operating a schoolsystem have as a basic ingredientpolitical know-how, or "savvy." Thebig problem, it would seem, is nothow we keep school administrationout of politics but how we conductourselves in the political arena in

such a manner that the charge ofdoing it loses some of its sting inthe light of accomplishment. This re-quires astuteness and the applicationof managerial techniques that demon-strate a high level of understandingof the maneuverability of people. Itmay be as simple as knowing whento turn on the understandings, psy-chological and otherwise. that provethat people can work together forcommon Liaises. It may be knowingwhen to be adamant even to the pointof abrasiveness. It is doubtful thatpolitical confrontation can be di-vorced from personalities and fromwhat is generally known about howpersonalities can be directed if thegoal is to obtain positive. affirmativevotes on school issues.

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Perhaps the most urgent prob-lem facing administrators is an inter-nal one. The administrator has theresponsibility of dealing with othermembers of the teaching profession.What is done and how it is donespells the difference between a satis-factory relationship and a confron-tation than can end in constant con-flict among the various segments ofemployees serving a community.There i merit in the package oftechniques that falls under the head-ing of structured participation in col-laborative decision making. Teacherparticipation with administrators inthe operation of a school system cando much to diminish the loss of timeand energy that occurs when the re-lationship is based on the conflict ofbargaining or negotiations. Leader-ship can be exercised to bring aboutan atmosphere of professionalismand cohesion within the profession.This is basic because if the cohesionis lacking, then punch or clout islacking. The opposition is alwaysdelighted when it can observe a

broken front instead of a solid front.At no point in relationships are ad-ministrators so negligent. so slow, oreven so obdurate as they are in thismatter. They fail to realize that thisis probably the first step to successin many other arenas of politicalconfrontation. Mention any signif-icant aspect of school system man-agement and you will be mentioningan opportunity for a development ofthose teacher-administrator relation-ships that could mean the differencebetween success and failure.

If the school system is to oper-ate, it must have funds to do so. Ifthe system through its chief executiveand the board is waging a runninggun battle with its employees atbudget time, it is obvious that theleg,ally constituted body that approvesbudgets or furnishes funds cannot beeffectively confronted. In fact. thismay be one reason among many thatachieving adequate budgets is so dif-ficult. and it may have something todo with the inability of the public orlegally constituted approval bodies

30

to grant authority for bond issues.Teacher militancy, coupled with ad-ministrative know-how and under-standing. can become a dynamicforce in achieving not only financialsupport but also moral support forschools. The faith of the public islessened, if not shattered, when theymust stand on the sidelines and seetheir children become the victims ofinternecine strife. Through continu-ous contacts, and by means of a well-

designed public relations programwhich includes the community's poli-ticians. it is possible to develop theschool system's image to the pointwhere the limits of financial supportare set high by the community lead-ers. School bulletins, documents, andstudies should flow to co anty courtand city councilmen. Persons withother key titles should he on themailing list. Frequent meetings forthe dissemination of informationshould be deliberately scheduled wellin advance of the actual confronta-tion or the presentation of a matter.Over and over again when this matteris discussed, community leaders pointout that school people are most neg-ligent in providing them with a con-tinuous flow of the right kind of in-formation.

There is a tendency to limiteducational discussions to the dollarsign. Admittedly at the local, state,and federal levels, the pressure pointsmust be understood and used, orga-nizations must be rallied, influencesmust be utilized. At the state level,illustrations arc legion of the accom-plishments of the state associationsof administrators and teachers com-bining to get needed funds. There isgeneral familiarity with the most re-cent organizing for full funding at thefederal level. Add to these betterknown attempts the further implica-tions of this series. Each article isfar too short to cover the subjectsadequately, but hopefully each mightstir up some thinking about a ne-glected topic. Other important edu-cational matters arc dependent onplanning and timing.

One large urban system made a

logical decision to decentralize ad-minigtratively. Realizing the opposi-tion that might develop from differ-ent directions, the system devised adeliberate plan for involving the en-tire community in preparation for theacceptance of a radical departurefrom the past. For six months veryminor changes were initiatedjustsufficient to get the project operative.Literally hundreds of people partici-pated in different kinds of meetingsdiscussing the advantages and dis-advantages of decentralization. Onthe other hand, another system ofsimilar size stubbed its toe on thevery first decision about decentraliza-tion, which dealt with area boundarylines of the subdistricts that werecreated The difference between suc-cess and failure in the two districtsmight well be ascribed to the firstone's using community politicalknow-how to gain acceptance forthat which the school board couldhave said it had a perfect right toorder without the planning and tim-ing. In the first district the timingand planning were as nearly perfectas school hoard administrators andstudy committees could make them.In the second district, power waswielded legitimately but did not takeinto account community politics.

It is just as important to spendtime and effort in planning the cam-paign as in planning the project thatthe campaign is all about. To furtherillustrate this point, a school systemcan be cited that used a similar planto obtain a higher level of accept-ance of desegregation plans. Wearyof the continued emphasis by thecourts on ratios and percentages ofpupils and teachers, this system setout to establish relationships thatwould he fundamental and lasting.Believing that the mere movementof bodies creates the least under-standing. it set about developing ac-tivities in all phases of the schoolsystem and the community with dueregard for the accepted principles ofgood planning and good timing. Asa consequence, literally thousands ofchildren and adults were taught to

practice human relation skills andthe art of appreciating the multicul-tural aspects of their community.

As various cities are studiedfrom the standpoint of both failuresand successes, it becomes clear thatthe future of public education reststo a great extent on how schoolboards, administrators, professionalgroups, and pressure groups wieldtheir respective power.

The failures have been so nu-merous that they have been de-scribed as a crisis in self-government.As a formulator of the community'sphilosophy of education, the schoolboard is usually so muted in tone andso vague in rhetoric that it rarely in-vites challenge (political confronta-tion). "What the philosophy usuallyboils down to is 'the best possibleeducation for the boys and girls ofthis community for the most reason-able and efficient expenditure of thetaxpayers' money.' "2

Why arc we so hesitant aboutaccepting the premise that politicalinv olv ement is an absolute necessity?Public education in these times com-petes with a multitude of modernattractions, inventions, and institu-tions for the time, energies, attention,and money of the individual. Couldit be that as school administrators weare out of touch and tune with thetimes? This does not seem possible;nevertheless, one obServing organi-zational actions, conventions, andconferences might draw the conclu-sion that the number of leaders ineducation who have not yet beenshocked into action is considerable.Little time is left for us to apply thepressures that will make this greatAmerican institution, the publicschool, a viable, dynamic, ever-changing, effective, essential ele-ment of our society. What is thematter with us? It is plain to seethat time is short.

As change accelerates, whatdoes the future hold? And what partmust (not will) education play inpreparing for and adjusting to theconditions? It is practically a matterof survival. The rate of social, cul-

31

tural, and technological change ex-tracts a human cost. ". .. when diver-sity . . . converges with transienceand novelty, we rocket the societytoward an historical crisis of adapta-tion. We create an environment soephemeral, unfamiliar and complexas to threaten millions with adaptivebreakdowns." The acceleration ofchange and the announced attemptsfrom many quarters to chip awayconstantly at the effectiveness ofpublic education make it essentialthat the administrator, along with allother professionals and interestedcommunity leadership, be politicallyactive and aggressive, if the supportfor education is going to be adequatefor the types of programs, projects,and activities the 70's, 80's and 90'scall for. If this support becomes in-adequate, then the 90's will punning-ly become a type of sleeping garmentfor civilization to wear as it goesinto its long, inevitable, eternalsleep.' If change has accelerated,and there is no successful argumentthat it has not, then the understand-ing of change must be accelerated atan even greater rate so that we canbe ahead in our planning for suc-cessfully managing the changes.

The discussion leader on urbanpolicy and development was probablyright, but the same statement couldbe made about the policy-makers ineducation. Neither have we created asolid front of attack for the solutionof our problems.

Parenthetically we should con-cern ourselves also with the fact thatthe critics of education do not havethe solutions but sometimes theirsuggestions have tremendous politicalundercurrents. Voucher plans, per-formance contracting, bypassing ofstate and local boards, and a host ofother so-called innovations are fre-quently initiated subtly to make theschool system less effective and toprove that it has done a poor job.

Congressmen can read and con-gressmen can pass laws, guidelinescan be written, and when it's allover, we find that the school systemhas had its reputation blackened just

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a bit, but it is still required to oper-ate for fewer dollars per pupil thanthe grandiose experiment used.

The largest file in any super-intendent's office should be his lettersof communication with his Congress-men. It is a good thing that the in-stitution of public education is sodeeply imbedded in our thinking;otherwise, it would have disappearedin the last couple of decades just be-cause of the manner in which it hasbeen treated by its critics. The pointshould not be misunderstood. Criti-cism, particularly the constructivekind, is an absolute essential. Dis-agreement is good, but the churchshould not be bombed in order toreplace the bells in the belfry.'

At the Urban Policy Conferencethe topic for the day's discussion wasthe question of priorities. What is itswe really want in America, and whatare we doing to each other in theprocess of getting it? Maybe in anage that is making such tremendoustechnological changes at such an ac-celerating rate, we, as educationalpoliticians, ought to be knowledge-able about the changing pattern ofattitudes if we are to be effective.

Neighborhoods are unstable.Millions of people change their resi-dential address each year. In oneschool system with approximately150,000 pupils there are over 6,000address changes every twenty days.Community, with its capital "C," isa surface kind of organization anddoes not run too deep. The schooladministrator is not dealing with asimple political entity as the super-intendent of schools did some fiftyyears ago. Politics moves to thelarger stage. We compete with theinterstate highway and not the dirt

1. "The State's Role in Public Edu-cation," School Board Briefing Pa-per, Croft Educational Service, Au-gust 1970.2. Bendiner, Robert. The Politics ofSchools. New York: Harper & Row,1969. pp. 3-432

country road whose ruts weresmoothed by the drag drawn by thefour-horse team. The scene is filledwith blurs as these interstates aretraversed by a nation spinning itswheels at 75 per. The air is filledwith people traveling in one hour thedistance the people on the groundtravel in a day.

Should the educational leader ina scene like this keep plodding hisweary way just meeting the elephantand the donkey? We are on thebrink of observing that even politi-cal knowledgeability and politicaltechniques may be too slow. Manyare calling our present changes arevolution of sorts. If this be so, thenwhat further demands are made uponleadership to understand and to helpmold and fashion support of a struc-ture that is Establishment and Sys-tem, acceptable and necessary to thenation? Our responsibilities arefrightening. There are many who be-lieve that there is no answer for thedirections we might go in the next 30years, other than those to be foundin education.

We face enormously complexissues, problems, and opportunities,and we will have to use unprece-dentedly powerful means to respondto them. I contend that one of thoseextremely powerful means is foundin the political component of our so-ciety. The word "political" must bedefined as all planning and policymaking in addition to the usualsimple concept of electing officials.This extremely broad definition,which we must use if we are goingto make our confrontations realisticand effective, means "beefing up" thepublic relations and personnel rela-tions programs. It means really be-

Footnotes

3. Article written for PsychologyToday magazine, based on FutureShockI new hook by Alvin Toffier(New York: Random House, 1970).4. Pardon the pun.5. Apology number 2At least thebaby wasn't thrown out with the

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coming involved as organizationalarrangements through which deci-sions are made and policies are car-ried out become even more inter-locked. "Leaders will continue to betoo rigid, too defensive, too remotefrom themselves and thereby fromothers to have the flexible and boldstate of mind that will be needed tocope humanely and imaginativelywith plans and turmoil, order anddisorder. It will take special effortsindeed to enlarge the emotionalunderpinning of those who recruitthemselves to use the social tech-nologies needed to run a complexsociety."

Dynamic, constructive adminis-trative militancy is called for by thesetimes and conditions. The conclud-ing paragraph in Robert Bendiner'sbook The Politics of Schools: ACrisis in Self-Government gives usa closing thought on the urgency ofthe business at hand. Speaking ofthose who will play an active part,the writer says, "They will possiblyhave saved the cityand the sub-urb and country with it. For thetruth is that we have come to a pointin our affairs when the political entityof the city no longer coincides withthe overriding social facts of wherepeople work and live. And when thathappens, government must graduallylose its grip and in time cease togovern. Looking at our worn andseething centers of frustration, no onecan doubt that we have alreadymoved into this downward spiral,that the saving of our school boards,even the saving of our schools, isonly an aspect of the larger and moredesperate need to save our cities. Insaving our cities, we possibly cansave the nation. "' Let's get on withour confrontation.

bath.6. Michael, Donald N. The Unpre-pared Society. Planning for a Pre-carious Future. New York: Harper& Row, 1968. p. 1 1 1.

7. Bendiner, op. at., pp. 226-27.

Number Eight

Planning enables educators toconsider what is desirable, whilepolitics determines what is feasible.Broadly speaking, planning is simplythe orderly application of intelligenceto problems of continuity andchange. Politics is the study of "whogets what, when, how." At a timewhen interest in educational plan-ning models is increasing, the publicschools are in a state of unprec-edented disarray, and it is apparentthat better planning procedures areurgently needed to bring aboutstructural reforms. The prescriptionthat most of our lay experts offeris to throw away the present moldsand develop new ones. However,there is an institutional tendency forschools publicly to support planningefforts (professed values) but pri-vately to resist operational changes(observed values) that the plan-ning process may specify as nec-essary. Educators are very open-minded about new ideas so longas they are exactly like the old ones.In effect, planning models in educa-tion encounter very real political bar-riers that dispel any romanticized no-ions about basic change that the

planner once may have held. Thebasic purpose of this article is toidentify the uses and abuses ofplanning within the political environ-ment of public schools. The articleis organized around three majorthemes: (1) observations about thecurrent environment of educationalplanning, (2) identification of pos-sible limitations confronting plan-ning models and (3) considerationof potential misuses and abuses ofnew approaches.

L SCHOOL PLANNING ENVI-RONMENT: IMPRESSIONISTICOBSERVATIONS

Other articles in this AASAseries have described the changingrelationships between public educa-tion and the diverse political arenaswithin which the schools operate. Myconcern is with the political factorsthat influence and restrict the use ofplanning models. Described below

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are several impressionistic and arbi-trary observations about the settingin which educational planning mustmatch expectations with achieve-men ts.

Emergent Political Forces OpposeRational Planning

The decade of the 1970's ispropagating a youth culture thatopposes technology as an end anddistrusts rational planning methods.The political implications of this ap-parent rebirth of human values aresubstantial. In the 1960's, our primevalues were meritocracy, science,technology, and institutional plan-ning. The organization was accusedof taking precedence over the in-dividual. Now young people arebringing about a type of transcen-dent revolution that will cause plan-ners to justify their analytical toolsin terms of existential values. In TheGreening of America, Charles Reichanalyzed American history in termsof three distinct eras: ConsciousnessI (the American frontier spirit);Consciousness II (the "corporatestate" with its organization valuesand rational planning); and Con-sciousness III (the emerging youthculture). School administratorsclearly fall within the ConsciousnessII category.

Although I personally do notshare Reich's distrust of reason asportrayed in Consciousness III, Ibelieve that his observations aboutthe changing political environmentdo reflect the beliefs of many whowill soon hold major policy-makingpositions. The burden is upon uswho believe in rational planning todemonstrate that technology cantruly enhance humanistic values.

Harry J. Hartley, associate dean,School of Education, New YorkUniversity, New York City, preparedthis article, "Planning and Politics,"for The School Administrator. It isthe eighth in a series of 12 essays onthe general subject, "Politics andEducation."

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Schools Are Becoming MoreBureaucratized

Organizational theorists haveput forth conceptual models of for-mal organizations, but all of these arevariations of a basic theme. Thattheme is bureaucracy. Max Weberidentified the basic characteristicsof a bureaucracy (rules, hierarchy,expertise, etc.), and Presthus, Blau,Simons and other social scientistshave examined contemporary humangroups from the same perspective.As schools have grown in size andcomplexity, they have acquired aneven greater degree of bureaucrati-zation. Since the planning process isdesigned to bring about change, op-position is created by those whofavor the status quo. The result is anorganizational tendency to supportplanning efforts but to minimize thechances for any implementation.Such resistance to planned changeincreases with the growth in com-plexity and size of the bureaucracy.

Educators Prefer IncrementalChange

The dominant pattern of plan-ning and decision making in educa-tion is by incremental change. Fewdecisions are reached by rigoroususe of cost-effectiveness analysis ofalternatives. This is particularly truein the case of budget formationNext year's school budget will havethe same function-object categoriesas this year's. It will simply involveprojections of perhaps 15 percentincreases in each category, but withlittle attempt to assess the worth ofeach competing program. Schoolplanning at present is a tradition-bound, low risk, minimal feedback,slow sequence of incrementalchanges that makes occasional spurtswhen a crisis arises. It is the resultof myopic vision.

II. POSSIBLE LIMITATIONS AF-FECTING PLANNING MODELS

Let us turn now to some of theoperational difficulties of planning

in education. Most of the literaturedescribing the new generation ofmanagement procedures is ratherlong on persuasion and short oncritical appraisal. My own attitudeis one of two-and-a-half cheers forsystems analysis. The reasons for re-fraining from that last half cheer areoutlined in the 9 limitations below.This focus on constraints, offered byone who is an enthusiastic supporterof systematic planning, should not beinterpreted as a rejection of the ap-proach. Rather, it calls for a morerealistic, experience-based applica-tion of systems analysis in schools.

Intangibility of EducationalGoals

In education, as in mostorganizations, one should speakabout a matrix of purposes, becausemembers try to achieve diverse goalsand satisfy multiple interests.Vagueness and diffuseness charac-terize the multipurpose goals of theschools. Many of the goals are in-tangible, which creates problems forthe planner-analyst. In a decen-tralized, open system such as a localschool, objectives are often mattersof rigorous public debate. There isremarkably little unanimity regard-ing explicit objectives and effectiveways to attain and measure them.Presently, systems procedures andavailable mathematical instrumentsare appreciably more elaborate thaneducational measurement criteria.

Undermanagement withInadequate Staffs

Some of our crusading lay ex-perts today criticize schools and gov-ernment in general for being over-managed and top-heavy with admin-istrators My impression is just theopposite I think that the real threatto schools, and even to democracy,comes not from overmanagement,but from undermanagement. Whenone considers the size, complexity,and diverse public expectations oflocal schools, it is amazing that weperform as well as we do. Localschools simply have inadequate staffs

34

for rigorous planning. Deficiencesexist in the training program ofschool administrators, the usage andnumber of administrative personnel,and the application of electronic dataprocessing. We are plagued by"people problems."

Turnover Rate. fSu perktendents

Planning is a highly personal-ized process. New models are intro-duced by specific individuals whoadapt them to their own leadershipstyles. When these individuals leavetheir organizations, the innovationssuddenly come to a halt. As theturnover rate of chief school officerscontinues to increase, the problemsof continuity of an innovation willpersist. PPBS is a case in point. Inmany of those districts where asuperintendent began to install PPBSand then departed for another posi-tion, the successor did not know howto proceed with the new procedures.

Shortcomings for PoliticalPurposes

The school superintendent maybe viewed as both analyst andpolitician, among other roles. Aspolitician, he may find analyticalplanning tools both incomplete andfrustrating. Analysis deals in a ratherabstract way with scarce resourceusage and efficient allocation deci-sions. It does not deal with the at-titudinal issues of support-genera-tion, coalition-gathering, or timing,which are so crucial in the politicalcontext.

Prohibitive Cost of staffInvolvement

Considering the current statusof collective negotiations in educa-tion, many schools simply cannot af-ford to pay for participatory plan-ning. In sumerous cases, the for-mally negotiated contract specifiesthat teachers must be paid time-and-a-half (or some other high rate) forany additional professional worksuch as planning. The result is thatthese school districts must either payfor released time, or pay for extra

time for existing staff, or decide notto involve the full staff in planning.The dilemma of how to involve theteaching staff in planning is going tobe even more severe for administra-tors during the mid-1970's. Planningwill become more expensive in termsof time, talent, and money.

Adversarial Relationships inNegotiations

Many have observed that in thepresent environment of collectivenegotiations, teachers and adminis-trators view each other as adver-saries. This type of climate, whichusually persists even after the annualnegotiations are concluded, is notconducive to cooperative planning.When a new planning model is pro-posed by district officials, it may bemet with skepticism or resistance bythe teaching staff. Teachers may per-ceive that the central office has"something up its sleeve" when thenew procedures are proposed. Thismutual distrust is a very seriouslimitation to planning.

Opposition to InnovationNew planning procedures en-

counter opposition from educatorswho view modes of analysis as anencroachment upon their profes-sional activities. Opposition of somedegree to any form of planned changeexists in education. In the case ofsystems analysis, some conscientiousteachers may resist the new pro-cedures, not because they are stub-born, but because their pride causesthem to be fearful of failing at some-thing new.

Teacher IneffectivenessSome professional educators

are neither competent nor motivatedto do an effective job Traditionally,education has attracted mediocrestudents in colleges, often of pro-vincial, lower middle class outlook,a large proportion of whom are wo-men marking time before gettingmarried. In many districts, teachershave become "infantilized," ortreated like children: they mustpunch time clocks, file affidavits

when sick, abide by dress codes,etc. Because we lack performance in-dicators, accountability is a problem.The problem is compounded becausethere is no codified body of knowl-edge that educators can learn andapply. As a profession, we even lacka useful set of empirically validatedprinciples of instruction that couldform the primitives of a theory ofteaching. This limits the utility ofplanning models.

Intrinsic Ambivalence inTechnology

New advances in computerizedplanning have resulted in chargesthat modern man is depersonalizingand alienating himself. For many,the computer has become the pri-mordial symbol of mass impersonal-ization. This seems ironic becausethe computer has eliminated so muchmental and manual drudgery. None-theless, man has consistentlytrembled a bit before his tools, andthere always has been an intrinsicambivalance in technology. Educa-tors, too, are creating the "two cul-tures" that C.P. Snow has depicted.

III. POTENTIAL MISUSES ANDABUSES OF PLANNINGMODELS

It is easy to exaggerate the ex-tent to which technology can assisteducators. Clearly, the new planningprocedures can be misused. The in-tent of this section is to identify ex-amples of misuses and abuses of theplanning tools of management.

Gresham's Law of PlanningThere is a tendency for people

in organizations to ..ngage only inactivities related to goals that areclearly defined and sanctioned. Theresult is goal displacement, in whichintangible goals arc replaced by moretangible goals that are easier to livewith and achieve. In what may betermed "Gresham's Law of Plan-ning," programed activities tend todrive out unprogramed activities.Tangible educational goals replaceintangible goals. To illustrate, the

35

schools place a great emphasis onthose goals that are most easily mea-surol (cognitive aspects) and tend toneg:,ct more important goals (moralperspectives) that cannot be testedand quantified.

Paralysiv by Analysis

With the introduction of analyt-ical models into organizations, thereis a tendency to overformalize, over-ritualize, and overdocument. Thisproliferation of unnecessary pro-cedures results in the familiarbureaucratic red tape. When analy-sis is used to extremes, it means thatbefore a decision about a particularschool problem can be made, (a)new committed must be formed, (b)outside consultants must be hired,(c) extensive reports must be cir-culated, and (d) administrators mustattend special night meetings. Theresult is that analysis itself preventsofficials from making decisions in areasonable manner. This is "paraly-sis by analysis."

Jargon Faddism and InstantExperts

It is frightening to visit localdistricts that no longer have teachers,but now have inputs; where childrenhave been replaced by outputs;where the curricular programs havebecome throughputs, and so forth.The surest way to sabotage an in-novation like systems analysis is toadopt it in name only. In an age ofstudent rebellion, students shouldnot be casually labeled as outputs.The successful application of newplanning models calls for much morethan the flippant use of new jargon.In fact, the new terminology shouldbe minimized during inservice train-ing sessions with the staff. PPBSmight be referred to simply as pro-gram planning, MIS could be calleddesired information, and PERTmight be termed the scheduling ofactivities.

Overblown Affinity f or NumbersTo adopt the view of some

operations researchers, "If you can'tcount it, it doesn't count," is a serious

35

misuse of models in education. Itplaces great emphasis on quantita-tive analysis without providing toolsfor qualitative analysis. In education,the things that are countable are fewand often only vaguely related to theexpressed end purposes of theschools. Educational planners maybe prone to take statistics too liter-ally. ignore their limitations, over-emphasize the easily measured, andconfuse partial truths with the wholetruth about complex issues.

Bandwagon Approach toInnovation.

In direct contrast to those whocherish the status quo are thosewho rush to jump on any band-wagon that carries educational inno-vations. But things that are new maynot be better. The success of manyproposed innovation; has neverreally been measured. Most of thearticles about innovations describethe potential value of a concept, butthey do not validate it. What isneeded is more critical, objectiveconsideration of new proceduresprior to their use. If innovations areevaluated in an organization by thesame officials who originally intro-duced them, they are "doomed tosuccess."

Instant Cost Reduction

Most planning models areneutral on the issue of cost reduction.If you are looking for ways of"stretching" school dollars, I warnthat there is nothing inherent in aprocess such as program budgetingthat enables it to avoid at least onepitfall of most current school budg-ets, which are "worse than the last,but not as bad as the next." In short,planning is not likely to reduce thetotal costs of a school district unlessthat district is willing to make thedifficult decision to curtail programsand services. Many officials have in-troduced program budgeting intotheir districts as though it were amathematical Messiah that would au-tomatically reduce costs. Such is notthe case.36

Centralization Emphasis

At a time when schools are fac-ing community demands for decen-tralization, some new planning mod-els contain a centralizing bias. Deci-sion making has become much morecentralized within a tightly definedchain of command. The distance be-tween the leader and the led is in-creasing, thus reducing the individ-ual's democratic rights of decision,dissent and deviation. How to bal-ance the advantages of efficiency ob-tained from centralized decisionmaking against the human survivalvalues of individual decision makingat the "point of stress" is a basicproblem of public school governancein our time.

Imitation of More PrestigiousOrganizations

Some of the planning modelsthat are adopted by education areselected simply because industry orgovernment popularized the sameconcepts. This imitation of "success-ful" organizations has resulted inproblems of model adaptation. Un-less analysts are sensitized to thedangers of casually applying corpo-ration or defense models to educa-tion, the result is likely to be a misuseof the particular concept. Some peo-ple have even adopted the attitudethat education has become too im-portant an affair to be entrusted toeducators. They think the schoolsshould emulate industry, hire busi-nessmen as superintendents, and in-crease productivity somehow.

Cult of Efficiency

Analytical planning may lead tothe placing of too much emphasis oneconomic savings. When this occurs,preference is given to saving at theexpense of accomplishing. If the onlycriterion used to make decisions iscost, then we will simply create an-other cult of efficiency. This is self-defeating. Knowing the costs of ourgoals should not mean that costsalone will dictate which goals to pur-sue. 36

Invasion of Individual Privacy

One of the most pernicious as-pects of computer-based planning ineducation is the way it endangers in-dividual privacy rights. Staff and stu-dents are often asked to provide in-formation that might better remainconfidential. This abuse could beavoided if schools would establishpolicies on information gathering anddisclosure. Otherwise, computerscould turn schools and society into atransparent world in which any in-discretion of an individual could beadded to his dossier and reviewed byothers many years later.

Conclusion

It is difficult to find fault withthe systems viewpoint of modernplanners, who agree in principle thatit is preferable to examine problemsor data in a whole context. There areexciting opportunities, accompaniedby risks and dangers, in the applica-tion of modern decisional technolo-gies to education. The new systemsanalysis mode of thinking is alreadyexerting influence on political struc-ture and style. PPBS-type argumentsand justifications are being widelyused by the new breed of technipolsin political debates about education.These leaders employ rational argu-mentation to enhance their intuitivejudgments. Although difficulties havearisen over the use of specific con-cepts, it should be pointed out thatthese planning models must make doin a world they did not create andhave not yet fully mastered. In as-sessing the impact and success ofplanning in education, one shouldkeep in mind that most projects havebeen chaacterized by incomplete im-plementation, institutional resistance,insufficient resources, and inade-quately trained personnel. BernardShaw once observed that the onlytrouble with Christianity as that ithad never really been tried. Perhapsthe same could be said about com-prehensive planning in education.

Number Nine

One hundred years ago mostAmericans still believed strongly inthe desirability of involving manyhundreds of people in school deci-sions. Every township, village andhamlet (outside the South) had itsown school board. Most of the largecities were organized by wards, eachhaving its own board, and togetherforming a central board, which inBoston and Philadelphia numberedmore than a hundred members at thepeak of citizen involvement. Whydid this pattern change?

Horace Mann was dismayed atthe inadequacies of the tiny villageschool committees. As secretary ofeducation in Massachusetts, he cam-paigned hard for the consolidation ofdistrict school committees, in effectlaunching a movement that continuesto this day. One consequence was agradual reduction in the numt,er ofcitizens who participated in month-to-month decision making about edu-cational issues at the local level.

Meanwhile, urban school re-formers fought hard for the elimina-tion of patronage and corruption incity school systems. Textbook scan-dals, payments to secure positions,squabbles over construction con-tractsthese widely publicized prob-lems gave impetus to a drive to "pro-fessionalize" and centralize cityschools around the turn of the cen-tury.

School administrators have beentaught that these reforms were bothnecessary and productive. Both theagrarian and urban reform move-ments made possible the emergenceof a strong superintendent em-powered to nominate teachers, prin-cipals, and other staff members.Smaller boards, usually elected atlarge and in nonpartisan elections,appeared to attract decision makerswho were better educated and thuspotentially more responsible than themass of citizens.

Yet in the 1970's a new breedof reformers calls for "communitycontrol," extensive decentralization,"breaking up the system," voucherplans, and returning "power to the

....,

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people." School systems across thecountry are flayed as joyless, grim,repressive, rigid and even genocidalin their impact on the minds of chil-dren. What happened? And whatare the more constructive responsesto the crisis of confidence in whatmost educators thought to be a suc-cessful movement to professionalizeand centralize educational decisionmaking?

The Quest for Accountability

Teachers and principals now areaccountableto the superintendentand the school board. Accountabilitymeans that they are held responsibleor liable for the educational progress,as well as for the health and safety,of children in school. But in a hun-dred or more county and city schooldistricts, parents complain that theschool board is remote and takeslittle positive action when either theprogress or safety of children is atstake.

What are the alternatives? TheDecember 1970 issue of the PhiDelta Kappa!: includes eight majorarticles on accountability and majorproposals such as performance con-tracting and improved informationsystems.

Elsewhere, Alan Altshuler inhis book, Community Control, iden-tifies three points of special concernto the black community in cities:

1. Devolution of as much au-thority as possible to neighborhoodcommunities

2. Direct representation of suchcommunities on the city council, theboard of education, the police com-mission, and other significant policybodies.

Joseph M. Cronin, professor, Grad-uate School of Education, HarvardUniversity, Cambridge, Massachu-setts, prepared this article, "Com-munity Involvement in EducationalPolicy-Making," for The SchoolAdministrator. It is the ninth in aseries of 12 essays on the generalsubject, "Politics and Education."

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3. Black representation at all

levels of public service in far morethan token numbers.

The more recently organizedPuerto Ricans, Mexican-Americans,Chinese, and Indians are only be-ginning to voice the very substantialconcerns they have about the treat-ment of their children in schools andclassrooms.

Still another reform proposal isthat of educational vouchers, a

scheme for consumer choice ad-vanced for several centuries by econ-omists, beginning with Adam Smith.A 1970 version with provisions toprevent racial separatism or get-rich-quick entrepreneurship has been pro-posed by Christopher Jencks andWalter McCann. The plan is unlikelyto sweep the country overnight, andeven its advocates have called for acareful six-to-eight-year trial of theplan in various settings. Meanwhile,almost every major teacher and ad-ministrator group has denounced theplan even before studying the ade-quacy of the safeguards. At the sametime, Dean Dwight Allen of the Uni-versity of Massachusetts has pro-posed a limited voucher system ofchoices within a public school sys-tem, an idea which will calm somecritics while stimulating competitionbetween schk ols in d city or countyarea.

Each of these proposals stressesaccomplishment of results as thesingle most important feature. Com-munity control stresses the possibili-ties of improving results throughclose supervision and selection ofpersonnel and programs. Perform-ance contracting suggests the needfor drastically different incentiveschemes to bring about progress anddoes not substantially alter the pres-ent system of governance. Voucherplans presumably would lead tosome new schools (although manyexisting schools would remain popu-lar) but without dramatic changesin governance. Children or theirparents would simply vote with theirfeet, leaving the inadequate schoolin search of the achieving school.38

The Inadequacy of ExistingMechanisms

Educators face the charge thatthey have at every turn deliberatelyfrozen out minority groups or com-munity spokesmen during the pasttwo decades. Yet school administra-tors have tried dozens of techniquesand strategies to bring the schoolscloser to the people and vice-versa.The most widely trusted of thesemethods warrant some review:

The citizens advisory co -mime grew popular in the 1950's,as a result of the pioneering work ofRoy E. Larsen and thousands of citi-zen leaders anxious to restore publicconfidence in the public schools.These volunteer committees continueto assist school boards, pass bondissues, work for more adequatebudgets, and in other ways supportefforts to maintain and expandschool services. Unfortunately, thesegroups have withered away in work-ing-class suburbs and cities, or re-main simply as forums for well -

educated elites, In Cook County sub-urbs and Long Island school dis-tricts, welt groups serve as screen-ing eoutkils or caucuses for candi-dates for the school board. In a fewinstances citizen committees havehelped to prepare a system to acceptthe principles of racial justice, as inthe case of Pittsburgh in the mid-60's, but too often the new issuesof race and adequate representationhave escaped the attention of thesecommittees. Such groups have rarelyrecruited or attracted poor people orminority representation, even if thecommittees themselves were sympa-thetic.

The public hearing has inmany ales become a kind of ritual-ized drama where each pressuregroup, parental or professional,draws a five-minute turn at themicrophone in which to plead forproper recognition of the need forfunds and services. Former NewYork City Board member John Lotthas criiicized public boards for dis-

38

cussing important items at informalmeetings and then just listening im-passively to comments at publicmeetings, giving an impression ofbloodlessness and "sphinx-like dis-interest." His report to the CitizensCommittee for Children in NewYork City proposed dozens of rec-ommendations to streamline boardmeetings, provide the public withbackground information and phonenumbers of resource persons in ad-vance of meetings, and change thelocale of board meetings to bringthem to various schools.

The use of 'derision cover-age so far in most large cities reflectsthe essential innocence most educa-tors retain about the nature of themedium. Several city boards pre-serve intact the old stereotyped agen-da format and with the cameras pres-ent escalate their criticism of thestaff and each other. For a whileHouston citizens called their tele-vised school board meetings theMonday Night Fights, and in othercities the sobriquet "School BoardLaugh-In" has been tied to similarshows. By its nature, television at-tracts the publicity seeker and re-wards the individual or group thatdemonstrates, remonstrates, or dis-rupts a meeting. Schoolmen andboards have not yet learned to usethe electronic media to present alter-native plans and then invite citizenfeedback by adapting the "talkshow" or citizen phone-in format.The conventional use of televisioncoverage has, for the most part,probably undermined public confi-dence in the effectiveness of publicdecision-making boards. Yet themedia can handle a variety of in-genious interactive approaches, someof them yet to bt., devised but pre-sumably possible through the emerg-ing technology of cable TV, the tele-phone, and the computer. These maymake obsolete within the decade thetraditional and expensive forms ofreferenda or town meetings in whichvoters must turn out in pour weatherrather than vote from their kitchenor living room.

Some Interim Proposals

The technology and softwarefor new modes of citizen involve-ment require further development.What can be done immediately? TheBoston School Committee and theMassachusetts Advisory Council onEducation cosponsored a majorstudy of the Boston school depart-ment which included an evaluationof the adequacy of existing schoolcommunity relations. The final re-port, "Organizing an Urban SchoolSystem for Diversity," presents anumber of recommendations towardwhat Chandler Stevens of M.I.T.calls a "citizen information system,"part of a new approach to educa-tional decision making on programand policy issues.

Discussions and systematic in-terviews with Boston parents re-vealed that many were frustratedwith the schools as they existed. Yetthey did not want to abolish the sys-tem or acquire the right summarilyto dismiss the principal, a concernthat makes many educators under-standably fear community control.Two-thirds of the parents inter-viewed wanted more of a voice inthe decisions, but with the profes-sional staff participating, too. Underthe existing centralized system (onefive-man lay board for more than90,000 children) parents felt theyhad very little control over decisionsthat affected their children.

One very central recommenda-tion was the creation of school coun-cils consisting of parents, teachers,and students, with the principal asan ex officio member. Unlike someof the experiments in New YorkCity, the creation of school councilsin several Boston public schools con-tributed greatly to the political ef-ficacy of parents who saw a needfor major changes in the staffing andorganization of their schools. Thefamous Quincy School (now servingthe Chinese population), the MartinLuther King Middle School, and theSolomon Lewenberg School wereamong those that relied heavily onparent, community, and student ad-

vice in planning major improve-ments in program and facilities. Thehiring of community persons as aidesand coordinators was in each in-stance a critical factor in the suc-cess of the councils in restoring con-fidence in the schools.

Altshuler and others recom-mend community elections despitethe notoriously low turnout in specialneighborhood elections. In NewYork City, a number of the com-munity school board elections werewon by parochial school parentswhose platform stressed concern thatfederal and state funds would flow

as entitled to nonpublic schools. TheBoston proposal calls for election offive parent representatives and threeeducators to an executive board foreach school. Each school would senda representative to an area councilor board to plan for a network ofschools, perhaps those feeding asenior high school or identified with

definable geographical entity.Councils would be formed at

the request of 10 or more parentsat each school. Officers of an execu-tive board would be consulted onthe school budget and major staffchanges and building alterations.They would develop criteria for theselection of principals and head-masters (for example, "experience inworking with antipoverty agencies"or "bilingual program leadershipskills"). They would make reviewsat least once each year and makerecommendations concerning a"school achievement profile."

School officials, using their dataprocessing capacities, would annuallyprepare information on each school:the number of teachers and theirlevel of experience; the special pro-grams, aides, and extra staff avail-able; dropout rates, known collegeacceptances, and other career data;test scores by grade and subject orskill area; school expenditures forteachers and counselors, custodians,books and materials, repairs, lunchprograms, and special staff, and pro -jected enrollments for the next threeyears.

39

Henry Dyer, an officer of theEduCational Testing Service, has pro-posed a School Effectiveness Indexthat could carefully point out thestrengths and weaknesses of a schoolprogram. Standard reports of schoolachievement scores and test averagesyield very little information of useto either staff or citizen groups. TheSEI, described in the December1970 Phi Delta Kappan, is the kindof accountability profile that citi-zens will begin to request from cen-tral school boards, or from states ifnecessary.

Those who question the legalityor wisdom of releasing such datamust note the momentum behind theconsumer movement. State legisla-tures are likely to pass Right ToKnow statutes and otherwise directthe release of such information ifschool officials balk at requests forinformation on school performance.At the same time, educators in schoolsystems and universities have an ob-ligation to provide short-term train-ing institutes so that parents andchildren can learn how to interprettest results and evaluate alternativeresponses.

One example of community in-volvement in a policy decision inBoston is the tition taken to issuea performance contract in a Rox-bury school where reading skills werelagging Both a Title I AdvisoryCouncil and the Education Commit-tee of an AntiPoverty Council urgedthat such an experiment be tried, butwithout the possibly destructivebonus gifts to children on comple-tion of tests. Citizens will want tomake and monitor such decisionswhich touch the lives and shape thesubsequent career opportunities oftheir children.

The Ombudsman and OpinionSurvey

The Boston Report also callsfor an ombudsman to investigatecitizen or consumer complaints aboutthe system. Based on the Scandi-navian experience reported by Wal-

39

ter Gel lhorn in Ombudsmen andOthers, a number of colleges havealready established such a position.An ombudsman operates best as animpartial, independent investigatorand not as an employee of the boardor agency. He inspects records anddocuments, listens to testimony, andrenders ,t report on whether justicehas prevailed. Such a role can beuseful in the larger school systems.

Administrators in other coun-tries endorse the ombudsman con-cept because it protects them fromunjust complaints and extremist criti-cism. At the same time, the arbitraryor capricious administrator is re-buked for failing to consult withothers who share responsibility fordecisions.

Educators and school systemscan also adopt the "market survey"approach at frequent intervals to

References

1. Altshuler, Alan. Community Con-trol. New York. Pegasus, 1970.

2. Center for the Study of PublicPolicy. Education Vouchers: A Re-port on Financing Elementary Edit-cation by Grants to Parents. Cam-bridge: the Center, December 1970.

find out what problems trouble theelectorate or constituencies within it,such as ethnic or racial minorities.Regrettably, the public opinion pollis viewed as a tool suitable only forMadison Avenue or for expensivepolitical campaign consulting firms.Yet ,t small HEW grant of less than$12,000 to Jeffrey Raffelt youngpolitical scientist, made possible theinterviewing of 400 Boston parentson their expectations, sources of in-formation, and other concerns aboutthe school system.

Too many administratois, in theabsence of such surveys or polls,find that the annual budget electionor bond issue serves the identicalfunction of registering dissatisfactionwith disastrous result. Voters feelno one is listening and thus vote noto protest their specific gripes aboutthe schools or their general frustra-

3. Cronin, Joseph, et al. Organizingan Urban School System for Diver-sity. Boston: The Massachusetts Ad-visory Council on Edmation, 1970.

4. Dyer, Henry. "Toward ObjectiveCriteria of Professional Accountabil-ity in the Schools of New York City."Phi Delta Kappan 52:206 -11; De-cember !970.

tion over rising taxes. The budget isthen Lot, sometimes aLaoss the board,without imiL.11 careful analysis of thereason for the negative response fromthe citizenry.

N1cLuhan and others warn usthat the electronic age in which welive threatens all established institu-tions. School systems can hardly beexcepted. The test is to harness thenew technologies in such ,t way ts

to express our genuine concern forhuman feelings, to exchange infor-mation and understand the messagesour fellow man yearns to communi-cate. The school council, account-ability profile, ombudsman, andopinion surveys are some of the newkinds of govername needed tc -.rakeour schools responsive to communityexpectations.

5. Gellhorn, Walter. Ombudsmenand Others. Cambridge. HarvardUniversity Press, 1966.

6. Lotz, John. Modernization of thePublic Meeting Process of the NeseYork City Board of Education. PartOne. New York: Citizens Committeefor Children, 1970.

Number Ten

The problem of public supportfor nonpublic schools is almost anAmerican classic, having erupted andsubsided at various intervals through-out this century. But never beforehas it .been as politically hot as it is

now, and it is going to get hotterbefore this decade is half over.

What are some of the major di-mensions of the problem? What arethe critical isfues involved in address-ing it? What options are available tous in seeking a resolution? It is toquestions such as these that this ar-ticle is addressed.

In order to scrutinize the realhub of the problem, we shall limitour consideration of nonpublicschools primarily to Catholic ele-mentary and secondary schools.There are two main reasons for thisapproach. First, Catholic schools en-roll a vast majority of the nonpublicpupils in America. Second, focus onCatholic schools will force us to con-frnnt the religious issue and will help

,ighlieht the political concomi-Ans of the problem. Moreover, the

manifest conditions that seem largelyresponsible for sparking the currentheated debate-declining enroll-ments and school closuresare al-most exclusively Catholic schoolphenomena.

1. THE PROBLEMIn examining the problem of

public support for Catholic schools,it is necessary to explore the historyof changes that have brought Cath-olic schools to their current state ofcrisis, and, hence, have led to de-mands from Catholic educators forincreased public support. Thesechanges help clarify several dimen-sions of the problem, four of whichwe shall consider here.

Philosophical DimensionsIt is well known that the Cath-

olic Church is undergoing some fun-damental changes. One sees dailyevidence of increasing liberalizationand flexibility in the interpretation oftraditional values and doctrines.Especially in America, the Church is

41

striving to become more "relevant" tothe needs and interests of its clientele.The "philosophical revolution" has,as Stronck ndicates,2 had an impacton Catholics' expectations and per-ceptions of their schools. To under-stand this impact it is important torecall the historical goals of Catholicschools in the United States.

The "siege mentality" thatled to the widespread establish-ment of Catholic schools in thiscountry was largely religiously moti-vated. The schools were founded inprotest against the emergent systemof public schools, which were viewedau. instruments of Protestantism.Soon, another reason for the expan-sion of Catholic education wasfoundthe need to protect many ofthe European imigrants from ethnicpersecution in the public schools.Eventually, however, the publicschools were largely purged of reli-gious and ethnic bias and the "siegementality" waned.

In recent years we have seena growing secularization of Catho-lic schools.

Concomitantly, some hard ques-tions are being asked by those as-sociated with American Catholicism.Church officials wonder whether theirrising expenditures on the schoolsconstitute the best use of the Church'sresources. Parents wonder what theCatholic schools can offer their chil-dren that the public schools cannot,and whether any uniqueness justifiesthe substantial financial sacrifice thatis required. And religious orderswonder whether Catholic schools of-fer the best placements for their per-sonnel. (In 1950 about 90 percent ofCatholic school teachers were reli-gious; in 1960 the proportion haddropped to less than 75 percent; in

Robin H. Farquhar, chairman, De-partment of Educational Adminis-tration, The Ontario Institute forStudies in Education, Toronto, Can-ada, prepared this article. It is thetenth in a series of 12 essays on thegeneral subject, "Politics and Edu-cation."

41

1965 it was under 65 percent; andnow it is only about 50 percent.1)

Such questioning indicates agrowing crisis of confidence in theCatholic schools. It seems obviousthat recent closures and cutbacks re-flect patron defections for reasons.-auch more complicated than moneyalone.

Demographic DimensionsAbout half of the Catholic ele-

mentary and secondary schools in theUnited States are located in urban orinner-city areasalmost twice asmany as are found in the suburbs.4This is because of the early objectiveof Catholic schools to meet the needsof immigrants, who initially settled inurban centers. These patrons tendedto represent the lower socioeconomicstrata. As Erickson observes, theywere seldom critical of the work ofprofessional educators and "couldtolerate conditions widely regardedas substandardsuch as class sizesvirtually unheard of in public educa-tion, untrained, underpaid teachers,and primitive facilities and equip-ment."

With the passage of time, how-ever, the "melting pot" did its workand the American Catholic popula-tion became increasingly less lowerclass and more middle class. Catho-lics were no longer willing to tolerateschoolspublic or nonpublicthatwere academically inferior. More-over, the wealthier among themmoved to the suburbs, where the pub-lic schools were viewed as superiorto those in the urban centers. At thesame time, the costs of educationwere rising dramatically.

What has resulted from thesedemographic shifts in the Catholicpopulation is an ironic dilemma. Alarge proportion of Catholic schoolsare located in the urban centerswhere the need for alternatives to thepublic schools is greatest, but heCatholics who live there can ill affordto support these schools at a levelthat would enable them to become at-tractive alternatives to the publicschools. On the other hand, the Cath-olics who could afford to adequately42

support their schools live in the sub-urbs where, for reasons mentionedpreviously, Catholic alternatives tothe public schools are being increas-ingly viewed as unnecessary.

Economic DimensionsUnquestionably, financial diffi-

culties represent a major componentof the current Catholic school crisis.On the expenditure side of the ledger,school costs have risen sharply inboth the public and nonpublic sec-tors.6 But the Catholic schools havebeen particularly hard hit. Despitedrops in enrollment, total expendi-tures in Catholic schools have in-creased by about 13 percent withinthe past two years.

The chief causes of these in-creases are subtle but significant.First, as mentioned above, substantialefforts are being made to improve thegm- :ity of Catholic education throughlowering class sizes, raising teacherqualifications, and purchasing morecurrent instructional materials. Suchchanges cost money. And second,Catholic school teachers are becom-ing much more expensive. Not onlyhave there been increases in "cashpayments in lieu of salary" made toreligious staff, but also, as noted be-fore, the proportion of lay teachersin Catholic schools is rising rapidly.Salaries for lay teachers must be keptreasonably competitive with those forpublic school teachers, and theforma are adopting some of the strat-egies of the latter to ensure that thisoccurs.

On the income side of the ledger,money for education generally is be-coming much harder to raise, as il-lustrated by the growing resistance totax increases for public schools. Buthere again the Catholic schools are ina particularly difficult position, forseveral reasons. First, all Catholicschool patrons must help meet therising income needs of both publkand nonpublic schoolsthe "doubletaxation" problem. Second, Catholicschools must compete with other in-creasingly expensive services for ashare of the Church's general rev-enue. Third, as thetzportion of lay

teachers in the Catholic schools in-creases, income in the form of "con-tributed service" by religious staff de-creases. Finally, income needs aregreatest where the ability to pay islowest.

Clearly, Catholic schools are ina financial bind. Growing deficitshave necessitated enrollment cut-backs and school closures, with con-sequent added burdens on the publicschools. So it should surprise no onethat Catholic educators are seekingpublic support to help bail out theirschools. In light of the philosophicaland demographic phenomena notedearlier, however, it is not at all clearto what extent the Catholic schoolclosures and cutbacks are financiallycaused and to what extent they re-sult from other factors. Accordingly,it can be seriously questionedwhether public support can resolvethe Catholic school problem.

Political DimensionsAs battles over this issue have

been fought in the Congress andstate legislatures. several argumentshave been advanced, and various or-ganizations have lobbied strenuouslyin support of each side of the debate.

The argument most commonlyoffered in favor of proposals for gov-ernmental assistance is that it is moreexpensive to the public for nonpublic(particularly Catholic) schools toclose ( because public funds would berequired to support the entire educa-tion of former Catholic school stu-dents) than to provide aid to partiallysupport Catholic school operations.Another common argument on thisside is that nonpublic schools per-form a public service, serve a secularfunction, and protect the values ofdiversity, freedom of choice, andhealthy competition in Americaneducation.

The most frequently heard argu-ment against public support of Cath-olic schools is that such aid is uncon-stitutional because it violates the"Establishment Clause' of the FirstAmendment. It is further claimedthat the "religious" and "secular"Loruponents of instruction cannot be

separated in Catholic education.Other arguments commonly ad-vanced are that public aid to Catho-lic schools would "columnize" societyalong religious and ethnic lines,would deprive the public schools oftax revenues which they badly needand would otherwise get, wouldmake public schools "dumpinggrounds" or "schools of last resort"for difficult-to-educate children, andwould lead to public controls thatwould deprive nonpublic schools oftheir distinctive qualities.

At this time it appears that al-though proponents of public aid tononpublic schools have lost numer-ous battles in the courts and legis-latures, they are slowly winning thewar. The primary reason is that thepolitical pressures they have mountedhave been stronger than those mount-ed by the opposition. Those favoringaid are better organized for politicalpurposes, have better access to pub-lic influence mechanisms, and havea more visible cause (fighting for the"financial life" of their schools) thando their opponents. Moreover, aidproponents are, with experience, be-coming increasingly astute politically,and their numbers are swelling.

Nevertheless, those opposed topublic support are gradually beingshaken out of their political apathy,because of such factors as taxpayerrevolts and the projected voucher ex-periments. They are forming newcoalitions to fight increases in publicaid, and it is apparent that they arepreparing to enter the political arenawith renewed determination. It willdefinitely get messier-, whether or notAmerican education will come outahead is not yet clear.

H. THE ISSUES

Let us take a brief look now atthree of the central issues that mustbe considered by policy makers asthey confront this complex problem.Constitutionality

The words "wall of separationbetween church and state" are notfound in the United States Constitu-tion. Rather, they define an early

construction of the First Amend-ment's "Establishment Clause." Overthe years, interpretations by the U.S.Supreme Court have become pro-gressively less restrictive: The his-torical concept of an unbreachablewall between church and state hasnow been weakened by the Court tothe point where Litka and Tnibacconclude that "if the justices are ableto find a secular purpose for a chal-lenged enactment and label this pur-pose as the primary effect of the act,the legislative action can withstandFirst Amendment arguments eventhough it definitely aids a religiouscause." ' The outlook for those whowould fight public support for non-public schools on the basis of consti-tutionality, then, does not seem verypromising.

Freedom of ChoiceThere has been, is, and prob-

ably always will be a need for publicschools in this country. Yet, it some-how seems at odds with the goals ofa great free enterprise nation to per-mit parents no real choices in so im-portant an area as education. Someparents do have freedom of choicethose who are financially able to sup-port both the public schools and thenonpublic schools they choose topatronize, but even they are punishedeconomically for choosing nonpublicschools. The poor lack even the op-portunity to choose.

Obviously, if freedom of choicewere to be facilitated through in-creased public support of nonpublicschools, it would be essential to buildin controls to ensure that all studentshad equal access to the schools. Andthis is where the real crunch comes,for nonpublic schools can sustainonly so much governmental controlwithout losing their distinctiveness asviable alternatives to the publicschools. This may be the most crt.zialproblem the 0E0 voucher experi-ments will confront.Societal Effects

Are nonpublic schools worthpresening? It is not at all clear whattheir impact upon societal progressis, or would be under conditions of

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increased public support. Catholicschools are accused of divisiveness,but they counter with data suggest-ing that their graduates contribute atleast as much to the country's generalwelfare as do Catholic graduates frompublic schools. They are accused ofacademic inferiority, but they counterwith data suggesting that their gradu-ates do as well in the universities asdo Catholic graduates from publicschools. They claim to promote thediversity essential to a pluralistic so-ciety, but they are apparently becom-ing increasingly similar to publicschools. They claim to provide pa-rents with opportunities to exercisetheir right of free choice, but theyadmit their students selectively.

Since it is not known with cer-tainty what the societal effects ofCatholic schools are, it is futile totry to predict without further syste-matic research what their impactwould be under conditions of ex-panded public support. Nor does ithelp much to examine the experi-ences of other countries whose gov-ernments provide substantial assist-ance to nonpublic schools. As Erick-son points out, the results vary mark-edly within and among nations."

At a more specific level, whatare the effects of Catholic schools onthe public schools? While many ef-fects have been postulated, few havebeen empirically examined. At leasttwo, however, seem irrefutable. Onthe negative side, as long as nonpub-lic schools are permitted total free-dom to select their students, the pub-lic schools will serve as "receptacles"for nonpublic school rejects. Govern-mental aid will augment this effectunless regulations are applied to pre-vent it.

On the positive side, as long asnonpublic schools effect the injectionof private resources into Americaneducation, they save the publicmoney. It is for this reason that theprinciple of fractionality in publicsupport is important; no aid programshould permit the government tocompletely subsidize nonpublic edu-cation.

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III. CONCLUSION

What options are available toeducational policy makers in seekinga solution to the problem character-ized by the complex issues notedabove' Short of precipitously cuttingoff all government aid for nonpubliceducation, which would be disastrousfor all schools, there appear to bethree main alternatives, each basedon different assumptions and objec-tives)" The first, based on the as-sumption that the phasing out ofmany nonpublic schools is unavoid-able in light of some of the problemsdiscussed previously, would involveproviding them just enough aid to"soften the blow" on the publicschools as the phase-out occurs. Thesecond alternative, based on the as-sumption that the existing balancebetween public and nonpublic educa-tion is desirable, would involve pro-viding nonpublic schools with enoughaid to maintain their current level of

operations. The third alternative,based on the assumption that a newsystem of public and nonpublic op-tions could reform and revitalizeAmerican education, would involvedeveloping substantial and creativeprograms of public support for non-public schools.

The first two of these alterna-tives are currently the most widelysupported. The provision of auxiliaryservices (speech, guidance, health,transportation, etc.) is negligible inimpact, it can slow the phase-out butit cannot stop it. The same is true ofshared-time and released-time ar-rangements. The more recentlyinstituted "purchase-of-secular-serv-ices" programs in several states pro-vide much more substantial aid tohelp meet salaries and other instruc-tional costs, these plans could stemthe phase-out and preserve the pres-ent balance.

Neither of these approaches,however, is capable of stimulating

really new options in education.Moreover, they both serve to main-tain the inequality of educational op-portunity now so characteristic ofboth public (because of residentialpatterns) and nonpublic (because ofpupil selectivity) schools.

The third alternative, attemptingreform through creating a new sys-tem, would seek to overcome the in-adequacies in the first two approaches.It is toward this end that OEO'sprojected experiment with the "regu-lated compensatory model" of thevoucher system is directed. Whetheror not voachers can help achieve theambitious objectives of the third al-ternative cannot be known withoutvery thorough, systematic, long-termtesting. But they appear to have morepotential fur success than any otherplan that has been proposed.

Whether this potential can everbe realized, however, will likely de-pend more on political than oneducational considerations.

Footnotes

I For providing information help-ful in the preparation of this article,the author is grateful to Dr. EdwardR D'Alessio, United States CatholicConference; Dr. Donald A. Ericksor,The University of Chicago; BishopWilliam E. McManus, member of thePresident's Panel on Nonpublic Edu-cation and Commission on SchoolFinance; and the Reverend John F.Myers, National Catholic Education-al Association The views expressedin the article are the author's and arenot necessarily shared by these in-dividuals.2 Stronck. David R "The Chang-ing Catholic Philosophy of Educa-

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tion." Phi Delta Kappan 52:303-304; January 1971.3. National Catholic EducationalAssociation. A Statistical Report onCatholic- Elementary and SecondarySchools for the Years 1967-68 to1969-70. Washington, D.C.. the As-sociation. 1970. pp. 5, 13-14.4. Ibid, p. 8.5. Erickson. Donald A. Crisis in Il-linois Public Schools. Final ResearchReport to the Elementary and Sec-ondary Nonpublic Schools StudyCommission. State of Illinois, Spring-field. the Commission. 1971. Chap-ter 4. p. 6. (Mimeographednowin press)6. Cost data are drawn from A Statis-tical Report on Catholic Elementary

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and Secondary Schools for the Years1967-68 to 1969-70, pp. 19-20.7. For a historical summary of ma-jor positions taken in interpretingthe First Amendment. see Erickson,Donald A. "Central ConstitutionalQuestions on Aid to NonpublicSchools." State Government 43 :244-49; Autumn 1970.8. Litka, Michael P., and Trubac,Edward R. "Aid to Private Schools."Momentum, February 1971. p. 6.9. Erickson, Donald A. "PublicFunds for Private Schools." SaturdayReview, September 21, 1968. p. 67.10. These alternatives are discussedat some length in Erickson, Crisis inIllinois Public Schools, Chapter 2, p.11.

Number Eleven

The politics of desegregationcan be viewed on one hand as theorganized affairs of a governmentalpower or, on the other hand, as therelationship between competing in-terest groups or individuals forpower and/or leadership. For thepurpose of this article, politics ofdesegregation is being viewed asthe total complex of interrelationsbetween man and society as it re-lates to education. Within this con-text, the politics of desegregationresides primarily and principally inthe realm of multiple human inter-action. Governmental, political, andjudicial considerations reflect seg-ments of structured variables as ap-plied to desegregation. However,multiple factors do indeed existwithin the realm of human exchangereflecting both positive and nega-tive educational oriented modifica-tions as applied to the problem ofdesegregation of the nation's schools.There are those who are convincedthat an active conspiracy existsdedicated toward a series of care-fully constructed delay tactics. Con-trary to the above, the perceptionsof others reflect organized efforts tobring about dramatic and immediatechange in the desegregation arena.Perhaps, to a limited degree, bothelements exist. Yet experience andfactual data reveal multiple and di-vergent activities underway withinand between competing and co-operating segments of the wholefabric of society.

The very nature of the currentrelationships between man and socie-ty relative to desegregation impliesunrest. In fact, if one were to searchfor a single word to convey thoughts,movements, and undertones of pres-ent activities, the most singulardescriptor would be "unrest." Un-rest implies both positive and nega-tive involvements; support compo-nents energizing more forceful andimmediate movement exist withincertain realms while these same com-ponents, in turn, are being counter-manded under systems of moreactive resistance. The unrest factorimplies a tug-of-war between the

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competing interest groups reflectingdivergent power structures and thestruggle for multiple leadership.Unrest, with its implications, is notnecessarily more negative than posi-tive. To the contrary, unrest impliesthe need for forward momentum; anopportunity to direct change andmodification of events in such a waythat maximum good results. The di-rection of change, the impact ofchange, the positive or negativeimplications (depending upon defini-tion and strategies) which will resultfrom elements of unrest resideprimarily in the ultimate commit-ment of the school administrator andthe multiple political groups he mustharmonize.

The current movement in educa-tion, presently taking cohesive shape,will develop into a defined structureduring the 1970's and will, to agreat extent, constitute the frame-work for future educational decision..

We have finally come to realizethat events confronting the politicsof desegregation present significanteducational opportunities for prog-ress on one hand; and severe chal-lenges, frustrations and painful ad-justments within the educationalscene on the other. In a sense, thefuture of the public school structuredepends upon the school superin-tendent and his understanding of thepolitics of school desegregation.

Considerable dialogue and in-teraction with administrators through-out the country substantiate the factthat there is little theoretical opposi-tion regarding the need or the urgency

Morrill M. Hall, professor ofeducational administration and di-rector, Center for EducationalImprovement, University of Geor-gia, Athens, and John P. VanDeusen, associate professor, Geor-gia Southern College, Statesboro,prepared this article, "The Politicsof School Desegregation," for TheSchool Administrator. It is theeleventh in a series of 12 essays onthe general subject, "Politics andEducation."

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to desegregate the nation's schools.The dilemma of the superintendentresides in the demands of competinginterest groups and the threats ofmultiple confrontations. These threatsituations result almost entirely fromthe lack of experience of school ad-ministrators in the realm of humaninteraction and the subtle and ob-vious vested interest groups thatmust be given significant considera-tion The "tried and true" of thepast no longer applies. In the past,school administrators enjoyed anempirical advantage in that carefulassessment of events and circum-stances in a restricted categoricalhierarchy yielded firm and definitivesolutions to existing problems Em-pirical answers are no longer avail-able Today, under the pressures ofthe politics of desegregation, multi-ple forces are affecting the schooladministrator, his role, his responsi-bilities, and his effectiveness in deal-ing with reality.

What then are the priorities ofpolitics which must be dealt withby the conscientious and effectivesuperintendent? What are the realvalues and how can the school ad-ministrator identify and understandthe multiple force factors with whichhe must contend? A recent appraisalof events, experiences, articles, pro-fessional references, documentationfrom governmental agencies andeducational research indicate thatin both the South and the North thefollowing concepts are relevant tothe politics of desegregation.

Local Subtle Power Structures

Within every community facingthe politics of desegregation a schooladministrator must be cognizant ofimplications representing the subtlestructures and their vested interests.What is being referred to here is

sometimes defined as the "WhiteShoes" group which manipulatesthe vocal and obvious communitygroups. For lack of a better term wewill refer to this subtle and extreme-ly discreet power group as thoserepresenting the "iceberg" syn

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drome. As in the instance of theiceberg, the real weight and massare out of view below the surfaLe.However, the fad that it is difficult torecognize does nut diminish its iiii-portanLe. Every Lompeting interestgroup has behind it a subtle and yetextremely powerful and influential"iceberg group." The names ofthese individuals do not appear inlocal papers, no publicity is offeredon their behalf, and, in fact, theymake every effort to remain anony-mous and unknown. To be visibleand exposed implies a delimitingeffect. Yet this "White-Shoes" groupexisting in every community (re-gardless of size or locale) is un-questionably the most significant,powerful and persuasive element in-fluencing the vocal and obvious com-munity pressure groups. The knowl-edgeable and effective school ad-ministrator must somehow extendhis pipeline below the surfaLe inorder to be fully apprised andcognizant of events. Although hewill never be a part of these groups,and will rarely interact at an intimatelevel, he must somehow accuratelyassess their whims and objectives.To be unaware of the impact ofthese political groups is to inviteserious complication and difficulty;to ignore their existence complete-ly is an invitation to chaos.

Obvious Community PressureGroups

Consistent with the above con-cerns, the politics of desegregationmust address itself to the inter- andintra-concepts. aspirations and valuesystems displayed by communitygroups. Recent studies dearly indi-L.ate. dramatic differences within theLoncepts, attitudes and processes ofactualization applied to differentialcommunity groups. Whereas the tradi-tional pressure groups of the pasthave been concerned with what hasbecome categorically defined aswhite, protestant and middle class,the divergent pressure groups todayare concerned with speak vestedinterests. For example. a community

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group reflecting the disadvantagedstrata might concern itself with ed-ucational programs pursuant to viableand relevant vocational- technicaltraining progranis. At the same time,a group reflecting the advantagedmiddle class might concern itself

ith educational adiv ities principallyoriented toward academics as ap-plied to the college bound candidate.A vocal group of citizens may bandtogether insisting upon expandedearly childhood centers to be fol-lowed by an equally dediLated groupLonLerned with increased educa-tional opportunities for the giftedstudent. The superintenent must con-sider and evaluate the conflicting de-sires and aspirations of these com-munity pressure groups. Unquestion-ably. the events of desegregationhave given emphasis to communitygroup involvements. and the impacton the nation's school administratorsis, to say the least, substantial.

Obvious Parental PressureGroups

In addition to the communitygroups mentioned above, the schooladministrator concerned with thepolitics of desegregation must ad-dress himself to the subtle and theobvious parental pressure groupswhich have decided effects on schooloperation. These obvious parentalpressure groups, which have becomeevident in PTA and other standardparent oriented activities, are not anew concern. We have developedprocesses and techniques of interac-tion for the obvious parental groups

while not entirely satisfadoryhave been reasonably satisfying.Within the unrest and anxiety atmos-phere of deseeregation the subtleparental pressure groups must begiven more direct attention. To ignorethese groups is to invite unexpectedconfrontation with parents, often re-sulting in unreasonable and impossibledemands.

Authoritarian PressureGroups

The politics of desegregationfrequently brings into conflict or

harmony, contingent upon events,authoritative pressure groups reflect-ing federal levels, state levels andlocal administrative boards. To bemore specific, the Department ofJustice, the U.S. Office o; Educationin conjunction with Health, Educa-tion and Welfare, legislative acts ofthe state in conjunction with theState Department of Education andthe regulations and policies of thelocal school board all reflect unrestand considerable administrative pres-sure. Administrators involved in thepolitics of desegregation can testifyto the fact that competition, con-flict, anxiety, and, in some instances,animosity exist within and betweendivergent administrative authoritygroups. The urgency of the admin-istrator's concern in these instancesis indeed obvious, to fail to complywith a duly authorized and legal bodyis an invitation to legal or profes-sional censure. The administratoralso resides in a local setting and,therefore, must give extended con-sideration to the immediate environ-ment. When local policy is found tobe incompatible with state or federalpolicy, the expeditious administratormust make an effort to interpret, toclarify and to advise pursuant toproblematical responses. Therefore,continued dialogue is mandatorybetween the local administrator andmultiple authority agents; the localsuperintendent and his representativesmust continue to maintain dialogueand open lines of communicationwith the state and federal agencies.Regrettably, no clear charts existfor this course of action. Occasionalconfrontation will be experienced;implications must be carefully as-sessed. Regardless of the outcome,the effective administrator under thepolitics of desegregation must beinformed, must honestly advise, andmust take steps to protect his legaland administrative role as the re-sponsible agent of the school.

Surface and Sub-SurfaceStudent Groups

For the first time in the history ofAmerican education, and particularly

as a result of desegregation, admin-istrators must carefully assess theeffects of student pressure groups.The student unrest movement origi-nating on the college campus is un-questionably migrating downward tothe secondary schools. Whereas manyadministrators are disgruntled andopenly resent student involvementand student demands, the fact is thatstudent groups remain a powerfulfactor. Many administrators nowrecognize that students should haveinput into specific concerns of thelocal school. After all, the studentsare what it is all about. Althoughchronological age patterns of studentbodies have not changed significantlyover the years, the sophistication,tools and perceptions of studentsthemselves have changed in a markedand rather dramatic fashion. Studentconcern for school environment andwhat happens to them in the educa-tive process is an unrest factor deserv-ing consideration. In this vein oneneed only to consider the active aswell as the passive resistance stu-dents are displaying toward theadministrative "establishment." Tobe sure, this is symptomatic of theunrest factors and anxiety patternscited earlier. Perhaps it is conceivablethat the unrest displayed by studentsgoes deeper than the surface demandswhich are more obvious. We havebeen guilty on many occasions of afaulty diagnosis. It is conceivablethat student citizens are more cog-nizant of certain realms of socialresponsibility than the adult citizens.Regardless of one's perception, theschool administrator can find him-self unwillingly trapped in the posi-tion of conflict between studentexpectations and the pressures ofdivergent groups which reflect cross-elements of society. Nonetheless, thesecondary students of today are thevoting citizens of tomorrow. Theskills, aspirations, frustrations andjudgmental references underlyingstudent behavior will ultimately betransmitted to parental and com-munity involvements. To ignorestudent requests today is to inviteunreasonable demands tomorrow.

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Surface and Sub-SurfaceProfessional Groups

Professional personnel, at boththe sub-surface and surface levels,must be considered within the totalcomplex of human relations ap-plied to politics of desegregation.Many teachers (at the public verballevel) openly applaud the more mas-sive movements of student popula-tions reflected within the desegregatedschool setting. There is, however,an opposite side of the coin whichreflects teachers exhibiting more orless resistance to the unified school.This does not connote responses by aparticular minority or majority teach-ing group, but rather reflects at-titudes and values of individualteaching personnel. Teachers, as isthe case with all human beings, aresubject to bias and prejudice acquiredduring past exposure and prior ex-perience. Though many attitudesare subtle and diminished, they arediscernable. Southern schools as wellas northern schools frequently en-counter teachers displaying some-what hostile reactions to particularstudents With the advent of teachersrepresenting divergent racial back-grounds, the predictable "whiplash"effect is being observed. Those teacherswho for too long have been sup-pressed and relegated toward inferiorroles are now included in the desegre-gated school setting and are accord-ingly exhibiting negative interper-sonal responses Teachers and otherprofessional personnel set the emo-tional climate for learning withinthe desegregated schools. Further-more, their attitudes, comments,and interactions with the multiplegroups served by the school reflectthe problems of desegregation. Inorder to remain effective and fullyfunctioning, the administrator mustbe cognizant of the intrinsic and ex-trinsic dimensions of unrest as trans-mitted by professional personnel.

New Curricular andAdministrative Models

Regardless of one's geographicproximity, the !widest and most

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vocal cry pursuant to the politics ofdesegregation reflects a universalconcern for the maintenance ofquality education As a result, thequestion now arises as to what isquality education; quality educationimplying certain educational ex-2eriences for one group, with yetanother rather different set of educa-tional criteria applied to anothergroup The search and demand forquality education, therefore, hearsroots in (lie very foundations ofcurriculum structure A standard andstereotyped curriculum reflecting pe-destrian teaching practices will nolonger stand the test of reles ant andproductive pedagogics. The concernfor quality education has givenemphasis to an overdue examina-tion of productive curriculum modelsand can only be defined in terms of anew and comprehensive set of educa-tional objectives. The test of qualityeducation over the past decades hasbeen predicated upon a deferredvalue judgment, education reflectingopportunities which had no im-mediate value but which, ultimately,would yield skills and conceptsapplied at sonic future point. Today,within the setting of the desegregatedschool, we are forced to test thehypothesis of relevancy.

Relevancy implies not only thequestion of what to teach but, ofequal importance, the question ofhow to teach effectively within thedesegregated model Teaching pro-ficiency and teacher accountabilityare responses to interest engenderedby the multiple publics involved.The degree of actual student ac-complishment and specific learningoutcomes reflect professional andcurricular unrest in the desegregatedschool setting. In our haste to resolvecurrent concerns w ithin the deseg-regated school, there is a normal

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tendency to replace an older set ofcurricular structures with another,yet equally restricting, new set ofstructures. The task is not this easy.For example, the assessment ofmathematics achievement, readingproficiency, grammatical sequenceand biological phylum is relativelysimple. On the other hand, the as-sessment of total language develop-ment, ens ironmental relationships,economic interdependence and selfactualization is not so easily ac-complished. Recent studies clearlyindicate dramatic differences in con-cepts, attitudes and self actualiza-tion processes as applied to disergentsub-groups. When one's self percep-tions reveal low aspirational levels,weak (or even negative) self conceptand social perceptions of a differentorientation, it cannot but make adifference in w hat is really a relevantcurriculum. Desegregated schools,in order to honor their commitmentto public education, must reflect apositive climate supporting grow thwithin related sociopersonal pro-files in a similar manner as grow thwithin academic profiles. As a resultof socio-curricular considerationswhich come to the foreground w ithinthe desegregated setting, the searchfor a relevant curriculum recognizingthe value and capabilities of everyindividual student must be reflectedin new school models. In brief,the unfolding curriculum of the 70'swill determine the maintenance ofpublic education for the twentyfirst century.

SummaryThe public school administrator

today is faced with new problems,multiple pressures and divergentgroups competing for interest, powerand leadership. The administratorcapable of survival must include an

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active consideration of the multiplepublics. Foremost among these are:(a) power structures including the ob-vious and less discernible; (b) vocaland nonvocal community groups; (c)obs ious and subtle parental pressuregroups, (d) administrative groupsreflecting divergent strategies; (e)surface and sub-surface student groups;and (f) disergent professional re-sponses within and between themulti-ethnic groups. Of equal impor-tance is the search, with a test ofrelesancy for new curricular andadministrative designs satisfying theidealisms of youth, yet compatiblewith the traditions of the past.

The task appears almost over-whelming. Yet, the nation's schooladministrators have never failed toimplement and operate effective schoolprograms. At the present time ofcrisis and unrest public schools con-tinue to improve.

Contrary to the beliefs of many,the long-range effects of the politicsof desegregation will ultimately yielddramatically improved school pro-grams throughout the nation. Thequasi-standard and sometimes un-productive limitations attached to

traditional schools of the past can nolonger survive, politically compre-hensive and unified school programswill reach all children in a morepositive manner. Unquestionably,as the throes and uncertainties ofmassive desegregation become re-solved, learning opportunities for allstudents will improve. The nation'sschools now have before them theopportunity to implement inclusivelearning laboratories recognizing in-dividual and social contributions.The opportunity to provide multiplelearning experiences, reflecting the

inherent right of self-attainment andself-fulfillment within the democraticsetting, is within our grasp.

Number Twelve

Competition, NotCooperation, Is theName of the Game

Practically, and especially po-litically. local interagency coopera-tion is a misnomer. More accuratelyit is local interagency competition.And the competition is really a gam-ing situation. Norton Long' cites thelocal community as an ecology ofgamesa territorial system in whicha variety of games occur. The gamesprovide such things as structures,goals, roles, strategies, tactics andpublics to the players. Players in eachgame make use of those in othergamesfor example, the local su-perintendent uses the banker, thepolitician or the newsman and, inturn, is used by them in their games.Interaction among these games, Longsuggests, produces unintended butsystematically functional results forthe ecology. Overarching top leader-ship and social games provide avague set of commonly shared valueswhich promote cooperation in the sys-tem.

However, the sheer "density ofevents," described by Karl Mann-heim,' as in the case of multiplegames being played, makes thepossibility of a natural balancethrough competition or through mu-tual adaptation more and morehopeless. Reinforcing the problemsspawned by competition, the Con-sensus-Dissensus Theory' points outthat different strategies of coopera-tion are used depending upon the levelof agreement between organizationsas to objectives and the specific meansby which they are to be attained.When discrepancies in objectives aregreat, the likelihood of any real inter-agency cooperation is remote.

But even competition is a formof cooperation. Unfortunately.though, in most competitive settingsthere have to be losers as well aswinners. And, too, there are thoseeven less fortunatethose who, fora host of reasons. often have noteven been able to compete. Until

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most recently the argument has beenthat only the winners could assist thelosers and others less fortunate.Pragmatically, this has meant thatpeople with greater resources haveshared them with others who haveless. To accommodate this sharingan extensive network of eleemosy-nary agencies has emerged. Like-wise, within governmental units the"principle" upon which legislationpurportedly is formed and tax fundscollected and distributed is one ofcollecting resources where they aremost plentiful and committing themwhere they are most needed. Thethrust of the principle, while it ap-parently has wide acceptance, doesnot, however, acknowledge man'sdesire to help himselfwhatevermay be his relative advantagementor disadvantagement. Nor does itresolve the many problems aboutwhich C. Northcote Parkinson, Law-rence J. Peter and Raymond Hullhave writtenproblems which arisewhen people work together in groupsand when each man considers whatsatisfies him.

An example of competitionamong local agencies is to be foundin the 1970 United Foundation drive.Where Torch Drive yields were belowset quotas, participating agencieshave to be concerned with whetherthere will be an across-the-board cutin funding or whether there will bedifferential cuts. In Detroit, forinstance, as a result of a two-yearstudy, the United Foundation board ofdirectors has approved changes inTorch Drive spending which allocatemore support for blacks and low-income families, aid for unmarriedparents, specialized outpatient medi-cal care and efforts to improve racerelations. The new emphases are upon

Samuel A. Moore, H, professor,Administration and Higher Educa-tion, Michigan State University,East Lansing, prepared this ar-ticle, "Local Interagency Coopera-tion," for The School Administrator.It is the last in a series of 12essays on the general subject,"Politics and Education."

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preventive services, involving re-cipients in program development andactivities which have a discernableneighborhood base. Concurrently,these changes will probably reducethe U F. funding of such agenciesas Travelers Aid, YMCA, YWCA,Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts Thereis no inference here that the agenciesto receive proportionally less TorchDrive money r' not worthy socialwelfare organizations, although somepeople do argue that these agenciespredominately serve white subur-banites.

The reordering of priorities bythe U.F. board in Detroit meets theprinciple of allocating resourceswhere they might best serve today'ssocial welfare needs But how muchpersuasion is this going to have withthe volunteer and staff workers inagencies being cut? Clearly, thesepeople have vested interests, eitheremotional or financial, in the agencieswith which they are associated.Moreover, the money to support theU.F. does not come heavily from theareas where it is to be spent It is inthe suburbs where the real test willoccur. When one engages in discre-tionary giving of himself or hismaterial resources, the nature andextent of his giving indicate whatvalues he holds and, of course, theextent to which. in the case cited,he agrees with the new foci ofthe U.F.

Cooperation Is the Resultof Participation

Yes, there is empirical evdence. Michael Aiken,' for one, hasdemonstrated that there is a positivecorrelation between participation andthe extent to which there is diffusionof power within the community. Butpart of the argument is paranoid- -outof a condition of restiveness and in-security, some agencies are maintain-ing contacts with other agenciesshould it become neLessary for agen-cies to merge. Lack of visible and50

persuasive relevancy to the currentscene always portends the risk of dis-solution, and relationships with ad-junctive agencies provide a bufferagainst being wiped out. In the faceof what may be artificial and super-ficial relationships among agencies,Martin Landau' suggests that over-lapping serviceredundancyisnecessary because it enables a great-er reliability, especially in the pro vsion of necessary social services.

While redundancy may De ad-visable, especially to ensure thatnecessary social services are accom-plished, the very idea of redundancyinvolving multiple agencies arguesthat there may be extensive in-efficiency. Given the urban setting,this may not be an immediate prob-lem. Herman Turk" studied the flowof federal poverty monies to 130

of our largest cities, in many ofwhich the headquarters of nationalassociations are located. With someexceptions he found that the morenational headquarters there werein a city, the higher was thelevel of interorganizational activity.But what really is interorganizationalactivity? Is it a collaborative effortto see that funds generated are bestallocated to needed social service?Or is it a display of competitive con-cern with who gets what? For inter-agency cooperation the answer toboth questions is yes. Both self-serving, or Parkinsonian, needs andhumanistic social service needs willhave to be met. And while these needsare distinctively different they alsoare inextricably tied together. Therationale is simple. Participants in in-teragency cooperationboth thedoers and the recipients of the serv-icescannot be expected to exertany particular thrust if their personalneeds are not being met.

Not only are personal needs di-verse, they are often difficult to

satisfy. And there is yet a furtherbuffer to cooperative participation.As Samuel Tenenbaum' writes,"Since emphasis in the Americanculture is on individualism, ongoing it alone and doing it alone,no one ever feegdat his good is

merged in a cooperative tribal sense."There are ways by which "role

models" for cooperation can be de-vised with high visibility. An ex-ample of this would be what thelate Whitney Young, executive di-rector of the National Urban League,said to President Nixon regarding theneed for cooperative efforts to con-quer social problems. Young's basicmessage was that there must be greaterLooperation between government andnonprofit social service agencies.Further, he argued that the govern-ment will have to use its domesticappropriations more efficiently than ithas in the past and that one strategyfor this would be for the govern-ment to engage in more contractingwith established private communitygroups and agencies to carry outvital programs. Not only would thegovernment be a very visible rolemodel of cooperative participationbut, as Young stated, participationof black people presents an opportu-nity to use black pride, dignity andskills for tangible benefitsthe veryessence of responding effectively toman's desire to satisfy his personalneeds.

Where in the MosaicDo Schools Fit?

Ivan Illichs suggests that schoolstoday perform three functions com-mon to powerful churches throughouthistory: they are a repository ofsociety's myth; they institutionalizethat myth's contradictions and theyform the locus of the ritual whichreproduces and veils the disparitiesbetween myth and reality. A principalmyth perpetuated by the school is

that it, the school, is the crucialway-point in the rite of passage toadulthood.

The problem of where the schooltits is tilled V, ith paradoxes. On theone hand, the school seems willingin an ad,litie fashion to expandwithout limit the array of activitiesit sponsors, yet, on the other hand,the school has found it neLessary toreduce the intrusion of some com-

1

munity groups wishing to use studentsas a captive audience. More specif-ically, local planning commissionsknow, as do educators, that the siteof a school can predict demographicchanges in a community. But it isalso well known that if the schoolis competing with the highway de-partment for a particular tract, thedesires of the highway departmentoften are given a higher priority.Likewise, the school may engageextensively in preventive medical ac-tivities, but it may not cross intothe curative domain of the medicalpractitioner. Unquestionably schoolsare concerned with the developmentof sound character in youth, but overtuse of sectarian materials is currentlybanned. If the school is to be aviable part of interagency coopera-tion the problems above are onlyadumbrative of choices which willhave to be made between follow-ing the dictates of protective ration-ales or making a commitment tomore social and humanistic con-siderations.

What does this mean for theschools? Paul Briggs, uperintendentof schools, Cleveland, Ohio, con-firmed the issue when he observedthat the hot breakfast program inCleveland had done as much to helpyoung people as had their manyexperimental reading programs. Butthe school cannot go it alone. Thequestion remains, How can the school,together with other community agen-cies, effectively intervene in im-proving the lot of youth and society?Also, there is an ever present fear ofthe development of an interlockingdirectorate of agencies concernedwith social welfare. Milton Kotter,"for example, argues that city hallthe Mandeprives neighborhoods oftheir political significance. And, headds, pushing the neighborhood as a"viable cultural unit" only tends toreinforce the strength of the down-town political hierarchy.

Interagency cooperation de-mands that the relationships devel-oped not erode the distinctivenessof the several cooperating agen-cies. Special concern must be given

to protecting "frail" groups oragencies which have close affilia-tions with sectors of the communitybut which may have a low visibilityin the community-at-large.

Where a school fits in themosaic of community life may de-pend upon whether the school sees it-self only as a receiving agencyan agency which seeks to get sup-port from withoutor as botha receiving and giving agencyac-tively engaging in reciprocity withother community groups and agen-cies. Illustrating this basic differ-ence in type are the superintendentwho, when he attends a civic clubmeeting, talks only about schoolmatters and the other superintendentwho listens to and hears what othermen at the meeting have to sayabout the particular activities inwhich they are interested.

Who Makes Out Doesn'tCountOr Does It?

When we talk about socialservice activitiesespecially thoserequiring a collaborative effort--zero sum games are out. Karl Jas-pers° wrote, "Majorities . . . hateanyone basically different fromthemselves." Over time, publicschools have enjoyed the majorityposition as a near single-franchiseagency for providing formal educa-tion. Even our preparatory programsfor educational administrators have,until most recently, urged the prac-titioner educator to assiduously avoidbecoming tainted with political in-volvement in the community. Thesimple fact has been that whenone was ensconced in the majorityposition for an activity he did notnecessarily have to be responsiveto the social milieu in the communityabout him.

Today it is different. The ma-jority position does not have theinsularity it once enjoyed. Inter-agency cooperation involving theschool no longer is limited to theJunior Red Cross. Police liaison of-ficers assigned in school buildings

t7.

evidence a responsiveness of theschool to growing restiveness andphysical confrontation among youth.But, when school millage issues failand the public at the same timesupports improved police and fireprotection, it must be asked whetherthe very separateness of these agen-cies is not a divisive force mitigat-ing against a necessary closeness forcooperation. Who makes out countsvery muchespecially when agen-cies and groups must compete forresources.

Legislators make or break manysocial service agencies, includingthe schools. Scrutinized by their con-stituents, legislators tend to supportlegislation which is for the greatergood of man. But is there equiv-alent evidence that, once passed,these enactments are sufficientlyfunded to impact upon public wel-fare? Often there is no appropriation.Neither establishing a commissionnor developing guidelines for ac-tivities serves effective purpose if re-sources are not committed to enablea sufficient effortan effort whichholds the promise of success.

Nor is prudential fundingenough. Resources allocated to agen-cies tend, historically, to be spentin essentially the same ways theyhave been in the past. If anything,the current press for accountabilitywill heighten even more a relianceupon past practicethe practice ofmaintaining a relatively independ-ent operation and using well-estab-lished reporting procedures.

If interagency cooperation is tobe effected the several agencies andgroups to be involved must be in-ternaliy strong enough to give awaysome of their domain without a con-comitant feeling of loss. A relianceupon demonstrable incremental gainsmust be abandoned. The frequency ofinterorganizational contacts, the num-ber of people involved, the em-ployment of coordinative personnelnone of these "measures" speakstt; the quality of cooperative ven-tures. None of these indices speaks atall to whether there is an accrual ofvalue for the recipients of social serv-

51

icesyouth and society.Probably the most recent (and

now dated) ellort at a broadly basedLooperative venture was the develop-ment of a Lommunity Lalendar. Notout of altruism, but out of a concernthat potential audiences might besplintered, the Lalendar sakes toassure that each group has its shutat the full population potential.

Today, communities are toocomplextoo many activities occurat the same time. The youth whowas not able to make it on aninterscholastic team finds that hischoice of a substitute activity con-flicts with a practice session for thecommunity recreation league. And

he cannot get to either aLtivit)anyway, his mother does not get thecar until her husband Lomes homefrom work and she wants the wholefamily to go to the county healthdepartment mobile X-ray an tocheck for respirator) diseases.

Interagency Looperation meanstranscending merely ha% ing a Low-inanity Lalendar. The open sharingof resources both material and per-sonaland intimate involvement ofa broad array of interested people inmultiple community agencies areessential. It means too that many peo-ple in each agency must be engagedin interagency ventures. The conta-gion of cooperation is not served best

by designating someone as the agencyliaison person. Roland Warren'ssensitive inquiry into the interorgani-zational field evidences this w henhe sa} s, "There is some indicationthat excellence in a city's urban re-newal program, or public schoolsystem, or transit *Stein is oftenbrought about largely through thepassionate commitment of relativelysingle-minded individuals and/or or-ganizations.""

Anatole France in the idiom ofpresent-da) speech --got it all to-gether when he said, "I would preferthe errors of enthusiasm to the in-difference of wisdom."

FOOTNOTES

1. Long, Norton E. "The Local Academy of Political and SocialCommunity as an Ecology of Science 385 (September 1969), 76-Games." The American Journal of 89.Sociology 64:3 (November 1958),251-61.

2. Mannheim, Karl. Man and So-ciet) in an Age of Reconstriation.Studies in Modern Social Structure.New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951.p. 157.

3. Warren, Roland L.. and Hyman,Herbert H. "Purposive CommunityChange in Consensus and DissensusSituations." Community MentalHealth Journal 2:4 (Winter 1966).293-300.

4. Aiken, Michael. "CommunityPower and Community Mobiliza-tion." The Annals of the American

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5. Landau, Martin. "Redundancy,Rationality and the Problem ofDuplication and Overlap." PublicAdministration Revielt 29.4 (JulyAugust 1969). 346-358.

6. Turk, Herman. "Interorganiza-tional Networks in Urban Society:Inital Perspectives and ComparativeResearch." American SociologicalReview 35:1 (February 1970), 1-19.

7. Tenenbaum, Samuel. "The In-suflerable Lot of the American Mid-dle Class Child." Educational Lead-ership 27.3 (December, 1969), 277-80. 52

8. Illieh, ham "Schooling: The Rit-ual of Progress." The New York Re-view of Books 15:10 (December 3.1970), 21.

9. Kotter, Milton. NeighborhoodGovernments. The Local Founda-tions of Mahal Life. Indianapolis.Bobbs-Merrill, 1969.

10. Jaspers, Karl. The Idea of theUniversity. (Ed. by Karl W. Deutschand trans. by H.A.T. Reiche andH. F. Vandersehmidt.) Boston: Bea-con Press. 1959. p. 129.

I I. Warren, Roland L. "The Inter-organizational Field as a Focus forInk estigatioa." Administrative Sci-nce Quartet I) 12.3 (December

1967), 419.