Public Schools: Decentralization Dilemma

There are two persistent complaints about the nation's big-city school systems: 1) they are burdened down with top-heavy bureaucracies, and 2) they are unresponsive to the special needs of the neighborhoods they serve. One obvious way to ease both problems is to break up big systems into smaller ones — and, indeed, almost every major U.S. city is now considering some form of decentralization. Not surprisingly, New York, which has both the biggest system and the worst problems, is debating the most drastic remedy: a plan to create up to 60 semiautonomous neighborhood school districts.

The proposal was put forward by a blue-ribbon advisory panel headed by Ford Foundation President McGeorge Bundy and including former U.S. Education Commissioner Francis Keppel.

The panel envisioned suburban-like school districts within the city, each with its own superintendent and a policy-setting board that would have full power to hire and fire personnel, design the curriculum and spend centrally allotted funds. The plan has been approved by Mayor John Lindsay, and will be debated in the next session of the New York legislature, which must change existing state laws if it is to go into effect.

Selection by Race. The discussion is certain to be lively. The plan has been assailed as going too far and too fast by New York City's Board of Education. Superintendent Bernard Donovan claims that it would lead to the selection of teachers and principals on the basis of "pull, influence, race, or some other way instead of merit." Albert Shanker,*president of New York's United Federation of Teachers, con tends that it would create "chaos" through conflict between districts and confusion in contract negotiations; if the plan is approved, he predicts that teacher unrest would lead to "thou sands" of resignations. Most Puerto Rican and Negro civil rights organiza tions, however, strongly endorse the Bundy proposal in the hope that local control of schools will lead to better education for their children — and they now give such improvement a much higher priority than enforced integration by bussing pupils around town.

Many other U.S. cities have moved toward decentralization — although not to the degree envisioned by the Bundy panel. Most of the plans have kept power in central boards, delegating only limited authority to district superintendents. The aim has been to give in dividual schools, and sometimes citizens' advisory boards, a more forceful voice at central headquarters while avoiding a bottleneck of minor decision-making at the top.

Order of the Day. Philadelphia this year gave the superintendents of its eight school districts some power over curriculum, and is now studying a plan to let them decide how to distribute available school funds within their area. Philadelphia Superintendent Mark Shedd, an advocate of decentralization, sees dangers in local autonomy but argues that "the alternative risk of increased community alienation toward the schools is greater." To complaints that local districts tend to freeze racial boundaries, Shedd points out that "de facto segregated schools for many youngsters are going to be the order of the day for many years."