Theoretical Perspectives on School District Decentralization.

Drawing largely on data from Los Angeles, but with reference to other cities where appropriate, this paper attempts to clarify the distinctive positions taken by advocates of community control as opposed to proponents of administrative decentralization. While community control is essentially a political demand, oriented toward citizens influencing actual policy making, most decentralization plans, though responding to demands in the political arena, are primarily organizational, facilitating local participation in the implementation of policies already decided. Though different, both approaches represent attempts to deal with the relatively low levels of achievement and high dropout rates characterizing schools in minority areas. Whereas proposals for community control regard the poor outcomes of schooling as centering on the question of staff accountability, an organizational system perspective suggests that school ineffectiveness results from local administrators lacking both adequate resources and sufficient discretion in the use of such resources as are available. It is argued here that at issue are alternative definitions of the situation, one based on the theoretical perspectives of a political system model, the other on those of an organization as an open system, responsive to environmental constraints and contingencies. (Author/JM)