Attention to the politics of education particularly as operated within urban school boards using the concept of elite-arena councils is drawn in this paper. A brief summary of the data and the political-anthropological concepts used to analyze the data, conclusions and recommendations based on those data, and their analysis are presented. The analysis is seen to recommend changing the political structure of education governance in New York City toward a more arena-type council. One structure for accomplishing this would be to submerge education totally in the city government. Since total submergence of education into urban city government is held to be politically and culturally impractical, a second method is suggested that accomplishes the same goal by developing a structure that places education parallel with, and in some elements fused with other urban government structure. Based on data collected by three separate boards from 1967 to 1970, it is concluded that the structure of the New York City educational governance system is not only elite but incapable of producing policy in response to the multifaceted demands of the pluralistic culture of the city. A design for restructuring the governance system is proposed. This paper is said to demonstrate that political anthropological concepts can be fruitfully employed in understanding this important area of American politics. (Author/AM)