La descentralización educativa. ¿Una solución o un problema?

Decentralization processes, which sometimes lead to institutional autonomy, have been a constant concern in recent decades. As an alternative to the traditional way of planning and managing the educational system, they have faced various doubts and questions and have adopted diverse and varied responses. This work addresses, therefore, a fascinating subject and attempts to respond, from a current perspective, to questions that have to do with the meaning of decentralization, its justification (why yes and why not?), its extension (when and where to develop it?) and its application (how to take advantage of the benefits while reducing the risks?). The intervention of the centralist State exists and remains in many of the decentralization processes, although its operating mechanisms adopt very diverse and subtle forms of control. An example can be represented by the Spanish reality: one of the problems that decentralization is generating in Spain is the tendency of the autonomous communities to strengthen themselves as government institutions by recentralizing educational issues and stifling any process of development of the territories and educational centers. These topics are addressed in the different chapters by their authors, who come from very diverse disciplinary fields and have varied experience in relation to educational systems.