Cooling Out the Community

The Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York directed the State Education Department to develop a strategy to revitalize urban school systems. In 1968, the State Legislature, under Subdivision 12, Section 3602 of the Education Law, began such a program. The districts in most need of funds received them. Naturally these districts had the highest rates of poverty and large minority residential patterns. The criteria which the state employed for funding districts were: (1) the per cent of children receiving Aid to Dependent Children; (2) the number of children in the sixth grade who were reading on fourth level or below; and (3) the weighted average daily attendance. Of the total appropriation of $54,172,920 for 1969-70, the Quality Incentive Program was allotted $32,672,920, divided between the summer program, the programs planned centrally and administered locally, and the decentralized district program. This program, of which $13,000,000 was budgeted for fiscal year 1973, is the heart of this research. One of the program's innovative features was the inclusion of community participation at every level, including the fiscal level. The report says the following about community participation: Implicit in the granting of the funds is that members of the community will share, in an advisory capacity, in the planning of the programs to meet the needs of the school population. This is readily feasible since the major part of the state's allotment is decentralized and within the district's sphere of planning.'1

Compensatory education · Political science · Politics · Program evaluation · Diverse Education Studies and Reforms · Law · Parental Involvement in Education · Public Administration · School Choice and Performance