In the fifth volume of a 10-volume report, the development of federal dissemination-related school improvement policy is depicted through short case studies of nine distinctly different programs sponsored by the Department of Education: Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title III/IV-C, the Joint Dissemination Review Panel, the National Diffusion Network, ESEA Title I, the Follow Through Program's Resource Centers, the Handicapped Children's Early Education Program Outreach Centers, the Market Linkage Project created by the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped, and ESEA Title II's Basic Skills Improvement Program. Assumptions about the transfer of information and practices and the ways in which these assumptions and the developing dissemination knowledge base influenced individual program strategies are explored. Thirty-two specific recommendations for restructuring and redirecting federal school improvement efforts are discussed. (TE)