ABSTRACT
The organization of the U.S. school system reflects the underlying democratic assumptions of the public school crusaders and is unique in that the community “owns” the schools. Schools were envisioned to be extensions of their communities and reflect local values (Brunner, 1998; Kaestle, 1983). Over time, however, schools became structured organizationally and politically to exclude rather than include parent and community voices. Today, researchers and policymakers frequently revisit the issue of public school “ownership” and what that means for schools organizationally. How public is public education? There has been increasing consensus that districts and schools have created, through policies and administrative behavior, a more detached relationship with their communities (Crowson, 2003; Driscoll, 1998; Schutz, 2006). As Tyack and Cuban (1995) suggest, many educators have become “too intramural,” and because of this, federal, state, and district-level engagement policies have surfaced to try to create greater connections between schools and their communities. For example, the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) required districts to support schools in efforts to be more open and transparent in their operations, to communicate more often with outside stakeholders, and to partner with parents in the learning process.
