Luvern L. Cunningham Novice G. Fawcett Professor of Educational Administration Faculty of Educational Administration The Ohio State University Lila N. Carol Director, Coalition of Religious Congregations Columbus, Ohio Sentiments ebb and flow about school desegregation. Few, if any, public policy matters arouse people as much. How, in the face of such opposition, can rights be preserved, the Constitution obeyed? How in a school situation, where the prevailing feelings seem stacked strongly against a court order to desegregate, can the order be enforced? And to what end? Such questions have led federal district courts to establish citizen monitoring committees. There ought to be embedded somewhere in this emerging practice, an elegant theory, an enlightened belief of some sort. And maybe there is. Oversight, auditing, and monitoring are popular terms these days.1 But in school desegregation it seems that the courts simply need help. They need help from citizens whom the court can trust, citizens who will insure that the will of the Court be done, and responsibly so. The court is not an administrative body, at least in most instances. The ordinary tools of the court for enforcement are not enough in school desegregation cases. Police departments can assist with safety matters. Mayors can issue reassuring statements. Truant officers can make sure that children attend school. That is not sufficient. There has to be more. This article is a review and analysis of this most unique new form of citizen involvement in education: court ordered citizens monitoring committees. These new instrumentalities have emerged within the last several years and stand as an example of a new form of participation in local school district policy making and governance. Recent school desegregation cases, those of the past dozen years, have produced concerns on the part of the courts about the role and responsibility of school boards and administrators in the implementation of school desegregation court orders. Thousands of citizen groups have been working in the interest of public and private education in the last half century. The earliest citizens groups actually began at the start of public education in the United States, especially in the urban area. They are hardly a new phenomenon. But the court ordered monitoring mechanism is of recent vintage. In fact, the existence of such bodies is not very well known nor is there any serious evaluation of their contribution to the governance and management of educational institutions. On May 31-June 1, 1977, the Community Relations Service of the United States Department of Justice2 and the College of Education at The Ohio State University sponsored jointly a national conference on court ordered monitoring committees. It was the first meeting of its kind ever held. The conference was attended by members of monitoring committees, superintendents, school board members and other
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