BUILDING FOR SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY - Kennedy Bibliothek

school to widen its uses to include, the general public.
10. With the assumption of responsibility for public education by school
agencies and various levels of government in the middle of the 19th
century, the school district developed as the organisational entity
for public education. Since then, the citizens within each district have
the right to convene meetings, to make decisions about capital investments
(for construction of the schools), running costs (teacher's salaries) and,
therefore, the amount of their taxes to be devoted to the maintenance of
the school. With this school organisation and the support of the local
citizenry, the school remained a community institution in small towns.
With the growth of cities, however, the influence of ordinary citizens
diminished. In urban and rural areas a tendency toward stronger centralisation
of school agencies appeared, in other words, a movement toward
ever larger administrative entities. These centralised school systems
became, in the passage of time, so arbitrary and inaccessible to the
influence of the citizenry, that many of the earlier educational reformers
of America pleaded for the right and competency to break up school
districts into smaller units again.
11. The organisation and practice of education in America today is
still controversial. Many people are of the opinion that the traditional
school, which has developed as it is today - with an administration which
guarantees its independence and with an institutional arrangement which is
totally directed toward the purpose of instruction - is worth its price.
Others find this isolation of the school vulnerable for economic reasons.
Some argue for a change from an educational point of view. It is from
the latter groups that the movement for "community education" has received
its original impetus.
Educational Reforms since 1900: the Beginnings of Community Education
12.' In the reform period around 1900, when the first far reaching results
of technological and industrial development could be perceived, the
dissatisfaction with the public school system was also widespread. The
criticism was characterised by charges that the school was too far removed
from the real life of the society and the community and was not addressing
itself to their problems. The critics were referring not only to the
curriculum and instruction but also to the school buildings which, with
their narrow isolated classrooms, did not conform to the wider uses for
community purposes. At this' time, John Dewey, who had developed an
experimental school at the University of Chicago, argued for education
that was related to life: "Learning, of course, but above all living
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