Citizen Participation in Selected Bilingual Education Advisory Committees

Abstract

The Federal government has developed a variety of opportunities for public involvement in its political processes, and in recent years increasingly has attached requirements for citizen participation to Federal grants distributed to school districts. In keeping with the program regulations of Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, citizen advisory committees have been formed by school districts as the primary formal mechanism for facilitating the community participatory function envisioned by Federal officials. This article discusses salient findings of research conducted to determine the degree to which Federally-mandated citizen involvement had been achieved in 15 Texas ESEA Title VII Citizen Advisory Committees. A five-level typology developed at Temple University was employed as the principal research tool for comparing levels of citizen participation planned by school officials with those expected by the U.S. Office of Education and the courts. The investigator was able to demonstrate, through the application of the typology, that at no point was a high level of participation fully accomplished. Moreover, the level of responsibility considered appropriate for parentclients, including the mechanisms established for their participation, suggested fundamental differences in the philosophies under which the different community involvement programs operated.