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Parent-led councils have also been handicapped by their lack of training, particularly in budgetary matters. The city's board of education has promised help but has been slow to deliver it, giving rise to charges that the central bureaucracy is not committed to change. "The concept is real good, but they have set us up to fail," says Leroy Johnson, whose daughter is a ninth-grader at Morgan Park High School.
Advocates of reform continue to believe the radical restructuring of Chicago schools will ultimately help lower the city's 41% dropout rate and raise college entrance examination scores, now ranked among the lowest in the U.S. "Who has the purest commitment to the education of children?" asks State Senator Arthur Berman, who chaired the committee that drafted the 1988 decentralization law. "The answer is the parents."
Other cities might dispute that theory. New York City decentralized in 1969; since then, many of the 32 district school boards have become nests of political patronage and criminality. A third are currently under investigation for charges ranging from embezzlement to drug dealing. At the same time, there is little doubt that many old-fashioned centralized school boards are in need of major overhauls. In October the state of New Jersey stepped in and took over the Jersey City school district because the system was found to be rife with fiscal mismanagement.
The Chicago turmoil, meanwhile, is far from over, and more trouble could erupt this week. Uno, a Hispanic group active in the principals controversy, is expected to pack a meeting of the board of education. Unquestionably, the highly charged atmosphere robs students and teachers of precious classroom time. But, for the moment at least, many Chicagoans take some comfort in the notion that parent-led councils, while imperfect, could not possibly make the city's beleaguered school system any worse. "All we've done now is empower people to make decisions that may or may not be right," says Professor Bakalis. "It's a mistake to believe only people with Ph.D.s know what to do."