Sources of political support for decentralization of the educational system and its relationship to public support for education

Abstract

This research started with the fundamental question, where does the political support for decentralization come from? The purposes of this study are to gain conceptual clarity with respect to decentralization and to examine how the preference of the decentralized educational system is associated with demographic factors and attitudinal factors--desire for participation, the level of information, support for tax increases, and confidence in schools. For these purposes, the following research questions were asked: (a) Who wants more decentralization of the school system? (b) Who supports the public school system more? (c) Who wants more participation in the local public school matters? (d) Who are well informed about the local public schools? (e) What are the empirical relationships between the preference for decentralization, the desire for input into the public schools, the level of information about the public schools, support for the public schools, and confidence in schools? The 18th and the 19th annual "Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes toward the Public Schools" data were analyzed using a descriptive analysis and Log Linear Model.

The result indicated that: (a) there were substantial preferences for decentralization of educational system and for participation into it, but the majority of the public resisted raising taxes for the support of the school system without much information about it, (b) there were, however, some significant differences among subgroups of the public, (c) the support for the public schools and the desire for input into them had significant positive relationship with the preference for decentralization, (d) confidence in schools had a negative relationship with the preference for decentralization, but (e) the knowledge about the public schools had no significant relationship with the preference for decentralization.