against a colonial government that tried to impose modest taxes on it from afar. In education, lessonplansforart this sentiment came to be expressed as a staunch defense of local control of our schools. During most of the 19th century, the local school was the primary unit of educational governance for most Americans. An individual community built a school, hired a teacher, raised money through local taxes and fees, and implemented education on its own terms. Outside help was neither offered nor welcomed. This was the ultimate in local control. Even in large cities, control of education tended to rest at the ward level. Consider some numbers that suggest the radical degree of decentralization that has long characterized American education. It lessonplansforart was not until 1937 that we started recording information about the number of individual school systems in the country.

In that year, which was some 40 years after the start of a massive effort by reformers to consolidate districts into larger administrative lessonplansforart units, there were about 120,000 individual school districts in the U.S. This meant that on average there were only two schools per district. Now, that is really local control. Even now, after consolidation has continued for another 60 years, we still have about 15,000 lessonplansforart separate school districts -- each with primary control over financing, staffing, and setting curriculum standards for our schoolsCertainly state governments have taken steps over the years to assert greater control over these matters in K-12 schooling, lessonplansforart and even the federal government has made tiny and tentative moves in this direction. But all these efforts have been undertaken in the face of enormous resistance by local communities, which have vigorously fought to preserve the autonomy of their schools.

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