Radical Decentralization and the Role of Community in Polish Educational Reform

Most citizens throughout postcommunist Europe did not, in fact, abandon their systems of education after the fall of communism, as Czech philosopher Oldrich Botlik urged. However, for many people the broad consensus was that the central state could no longer be trusted to govern schools, and most other public institutions for that matter. Public distrust was most potent in Poland, where opposition to the communist party-state was most fierce and widespread, and gave great impetus to pushing the central state out of education. Decentralizing the school system was widely viewed as the most expedient way to do this--to "break the monopoly" of the state over education. This article examines the impact of decentralization policies on the Polish school system and the emergence of educational alternatives to the state system. Regarding the latter, it focuses on community schools as a particular case of decentralized educational reform that has roots in the social activist and communitarian traditions of Solidarity [Solidarność] but has also found a timely consonance with broader European perspectives on the organization of schools and the socialization of school-aged children

Communism · Decentralization · Distrust · Economic growth · Economics · Monopoly · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Socialization · Sociology · Solidarity · Diverse Education Studies and Reforms · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Education and Cultural Studies · Law · Public Administration

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