BUILDING FOR SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY - Kennedy Bibliothek

158. Even though the intention to decentralise decision-making seems to
have been a reason for McPherson's election it was also a reason for his
dismissal in 1973- According to the new superintendent, Dr Harry Howard,
his predecessor proceeded too fast in giving schools their autonomy and
by doing so set back the decentralisation movement about ten years. In
spite of its internal problems and conflicts, and in spite of the lack of
prototypical processes, Ann Arbor, nonetheless, achieved a series of
innovative products in a remarkably short period of time- The most complete
of these was Mack School which will be described in more detail
later. Others are the physical and educational master plans which will
now be described.
b) The Physical Master Plan
159. In the case of Ann Arbor, for the various reasons outlined above,
the master plan and action.plans were developed simultaneously. The master
plan which grew out of experiences at the local level makes no attempt at
precise projections in terms of population or physical settlement patterns.
Instead it presents an infrastructural net in which the Board of Education
is regarded as one service agency among others servicing the various
components of the net. Local amenities are considered as time-spaceresources
for the school and its programs. Citizens, parents, teachers and
pupils are regarded as human resources. Instead of forecasting what the
future will be like the plan concentrates on showing how various public
and private agencies operate today and how their services may interrelate
in the future for the greater enrichment of the social and individual,
lives of the community.
160. In spite of its capacity to plan comprehensively, the Board of
Education as an autonomous metropolitan agency has not the power to
implement.its plan. For this it needs the co-operation of all the other
agencies. Neither the physical master plan nor the mini-systems have yet
been implemented. The new superintendent when interviewed expressed the
feeling that "the ground work wasn't done properly". The other possible
reason, according to other informed sources at the University of Michigan,
is that the Board of Education and the city planning and other agencies
do not work together closely enough to initiate the city-wide changes
necessary to tie the schools together in the way planned.
c) The Education Plan
161 . The creation of the education plan which deals mainly with the internal
educational organisation of the newly planned schools stems from the recognition
that the role of education had to change. Like in the majority
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