Education, Today and Tomorrow

Abstract

If needed significant educational change is to be achieved, some countervailing power source capable of confronting administrative bureaucracy and making it conform to the present needs of the public must be established. Community control, the subdivision of the large system into appropriate communities and the control of each community by its local citizens and their appointees, merits a trial. Among the actions needed to save our public schools are: making school board membership a fulltime, paid assignment; drastic curriculum revision; reform of educator selection and training methods and criteria; staffing schools with skilled organizers and advocates who will work with the people of the community at their direction and on their behalf; finding new, stable sources of public revenues to finance public schools; clarifying the role of parents and teachers in the socialization of children in this urban-industrial world; making educational planning a joint school-parent venture; and, preparing the educational system to provide continuous education and reeducation to adults of all ages and backgrounds as well as to children. This paper was prepared for a book entitled, "Urban Education in the 1970's," edited by A. Harry Passow, to be published by Teachers College Press, Fall 1970. [Not available in hard copy because of marginal legibility of original document.] (JM)