ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on educational politics in the USA. It expresses that educational politics are changing. The Constitution is the major and basic frame within which claims in educational politics can be advanced in the USA. The general Political Progressive movement launched a strong attack on corruption and waste in the city government. The chapter explores three points in relation to local control. First, the importance of professional efficiency in education was negotiated over time in American educational and political history and was part of a wider political debate about national and local government. Second, professional and especially administrative efficiency in American education is an idea which has ideological force. Thirdly, professional efficiency in education is also a set of institutional practices. Teacher training programmes would be system-like, business-like, and based in behavioural social science.
