The Detroit schools were "decentralized" into 8 regional boards by act of the Michigan state legislature in 1971. This came about in response to calls for greater "community involvement" in educational decision-making, and with the idea that local boards would be more responsive to local concerns.
What happened instead is that the boards became sinkholes of just the kind of behavior we see out of the central board today, but harder to check since it was happening out in the neighborhoods well away from most public and media notice. The boards themselves became not much more than political stepping stones for members, or power bases for local political gadflies and hangers-on.
With the enormous waste of money that went with having eight separate boards, eight superintendents, eight sets of administrators, and eight headquarter buildings, and the political corruption and hijinks involved, people soon tired of the whole idea. The schools were recentralized under a single board by Detroit voters by a 2-to-1 margin in 1981.
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