ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the extensive body of literature related specifically to governing central city schools. The governance and management of public education typically receive little attention in the literature on local government, yet the work of local government professionals and school administrators are linked by common social, economic, and political factors. The literature relevant to the current conditions of practice for central city educational administrators alternates between emphasizing detailed documentation of seemingly insurmountable problems and describing significant achievements and cutting-edge innovations. The solutions reformers proposed were grounded in the ideals of "centralization, expertise, professionalism, nonpolitical control, and efficiency". The desegregation of central city education is often cited as one of several examples of "how some of the remedies prescribed for the ills of urban schools have become part of the problem". Urban educational governance is characterized by an array of counterpressures for the simultaneous centralization and decentralization of power and authority.
