This qualitative study explored Teach for America (TFA) alumni teachers' discourse on Arizona language policy, conducted with eight teachers in the Phoenix metropolitan area who received their professional teacher preparation from TFA, a national organization that uses alternative paths to certification to place teachers in low-income schools.…

How can teachers' understandings of policy as local knowledge inform policy implementation in schools? This article investigates policy understanding and implementation in urban primary schools and locates the inquiry in the transitional South African context. The author illustrates teachers' understandings of policy in times of transition and…

Investigates problems in the Chicago Public Schools by examining political and legislative processes, key players, and key events that created the Illinois legislature's unprecedented decision to turn total control of this school district over to the Chicago mayor's office. Addresses this issue through Kingdon's work on the first two phases of the…

Identifies how teacher discourses influenced the educational policy process by drawing from an ethnographic study of a school-supported integration initiative for pregnant and parenting teens in a high school in a small Canadian city. Conservative and liberal points of view about the program are explored. (SLD)

Reform policy adoption and implementation is examined in the states of Colorado and Maryland. The cases illustrate how three theoretical perspectives (institutional, rational/technical, and interpretive) facilitate an understanding of policy sustainability and adequacy. (MMU)

It is very difficult to know who controls such educational agencies as the home, television, the churches, youth groups, and factories. Control of the schools shifts a little bit daily among such forces as social class, American business, the sexes, teachers, administrators, racial and ethnic groups, the citizenry, the courts, and the young. (JM)

Argues that "no one and everyone" controls Catholic schools, and that empirical investigation is needed to determine who controls any particular Catholic school. However, "the chaos of organization the obscurity of control, the general structural messiness of Catholic education doesn't seem to do much harm to anybody." (Author/JM)

Discusses the arguments for and against expanded public participation in educational policy making and considers examples of several forms of public participation drawn from the U.S., France, Italy, England, Sweden, the German Federal Republic, and the People's Republic of China. Also explores some of the probable consequences of expanded public…

Discusses federal control of education, focusing on higher education. Concludes that there is no grand coordinated federal plot to control universities. Rather, "federal control is created by the actions of scores of agencies and hundreds of bureaucrats each tailoring alterations to fit their idiosyncratic view of education." (Author/JM)

Reassesses the role of the school in the black community, concluding that the devaluation of the power of the school to politically, economically and culturally develop the community has hidden "the profound and pervasive influence of the school in shaping the lives of black Americans." (Author/JM)

Discipline policy is discussed as a reflection of broader concepts of education. Alternatives presented include: retraining administrators in organizational management and leadership; increasing student participation in policymaking; building supportive relationships within the school; culturally pluralizing school policies; and making…

This paper discusses and analyzes the federal government's and the state's role in school desegregation and how state and federal policies interface on this subject. (AM)

This essay outlines the theoretical framework surrounding the debate on school desegregation and offers a reanalysis of the role of research in school desegregation. (Author/AM)

Serves as an introduction to four subsequent articles of this issue and notes that these articles identify and examine a number of issues central to the school law social change relationship. (Author/AM)

Examines legislative and judicial interventions in the schooling process and discusses some consequences for teachers, administrators and school board members. (Author/AM)