It is apparent that formal education has become a subject of high public interest and a source of social conflict; consequently, it is not surprising that there has developed a variety of pressures for the rearrangement of the power to control education. The most obvious manifestation of this power is the formal authority available at different levels of government. This article is an attempt to identify and account for the major recent trends in the patterns of government authority for education in England, the United States, and Australia, and on the basis of those trends to forecast the likely future roles of central, intermediate, and local government bodies in the control of education.
References
1.
‘Public education’ refers here to education which is both required by and controlled by the state, and excludes that provided by private interests.
2.
For a history of the central government role in education in the United States of America, see Tiedt, S. W., The Role of the Federal Government in Education. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. For England and Wales, see Gosden, P. H. J. H., The Development of Educational Administration in England and Wales. Oxford: Blackwell, 1966. For Australia, see BowkerE., The Commonwealth and education 1901–69. Chapter 6 in CleverleyJ.LawryJ. (Eds.), Australian Education in the Twentieth Century. Camberwell, Vic.: Longman, 1972, 144–170.
3.
MerantoP.The Politics of Federal Aid to Education in 1965: A Study in Political Innovation. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1967. Also Murphy, J. T., Title 1 of ESEA: the politics of implementing federal education reform. Harvard Educational Review, 1971, 41, 35–63.
4.
Ministry of Education. Half Our Future. A report of the Central Advisory Council for Education (England). London: HMSO, 1963 (the Newsom Report); Department of Education and Science, Children and Their Primary Schools. A report of the Central Advisory Council for Education (England). London: HMSO, 1967 (the Plowden Report).
5.
Schools, People and Money. The President's Commission on School Finance, Final Report. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972.
6.
From 1945 to 1963 salaries had been the subject of negotiation between the Association of Education Committees (the national organization of the Local Education Authorities) and the Teachers' organizations, who together provided the membership of the Burnham Committees. In 1963, Sir Edward Boyle, as Minister for Education, rejected the negotiated settlement and reconstituted the committee placing appointees of his own, drawn from the Department of Education and Science, on the panel. The minister also asserted the right to determine the total size of the salaries bill, whilst leaving the final say on the distribution formula to the Local Education Authorities.
7.
This opinion is not shared by Stuart Maclure, editor of Times Educational Supplement. In the opening chapter of the History of Education Society's publication, Studies in the Government and Control of Education since 1860, London: Methuen, 1970, he asserts: “I am highly sceptical of the suggestion that larger units of local government will lead to a devolution of control: stronger local government units will cause the central government to be even more firm in reserving control to the centre.” (p. 3.)
8.
The decision of the Supreme Court of the State of California in the case Serrano v. Priest is printed in full, together with editorial comment by William N. Greenbaum, in Harvard Educational Review, 1971, 41, 501–534.
9.
Education in South Australia. Report of the Committee of Enquiry into Education in South Australia 1969–70. Adelaide: Government Printer, 1971 (Karmel Report).
10.
SeeTurnerI. S., A plea for decentralization in Australian education, in FrenchE. L. (Ed.), Melbourne Studies in Education 1958–59. Parkville, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1960, 135–147.
