Public officials are increasingly contracting with the private sector for a range of educational services. With much of the focus on private sector accountability on cost-effectiveness and student performance, less attention has been given to shifts in democratic accountability. Drawing on data from the state of New York, one of the most active…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires that two accountability strategies--raising standards and public pressure through publicizing performance data--be implemented simultaneously. However, when coupled, they may produce an inappropriate consequence for public opinion. The public may misunderstand the drop in achievement that occurs when the bar is…

Although theorists and policy makers agree that schooling should be democratic, what this exactly means often varies. This article establishes a conceptual model for analyzing education policy in democratic societies, based on the key concepts of equality, diversity, participation, choice, and cohesion. The model facilitates the design,…

Courts hearing school finance reform cases have recently begun to consider several issues related to standards-based accountability policies. This convergence of school finance reform litigation and standards-based accountability policies represents a chance for the courts to reallocate decision-making authority for each type of reform across the…

When courts engage in educational policymaking through what is called "public law litigation," they set foot in unsettled territory. Framing the authors' work in legal studies literature, this article relays how one court engaged in a sweeping reform of special education in Chicago and teacher certification in the entire state of Illinois. Based…

Many political scientists maintain that public policies diffuse across states and that proximate states, in particular, influence one another's policy activities. Using state-funded merit aid for college as its case, this article takes a new approach to the study of the diffusion phenomenon, leaving behind conventional techniques used by…

The focus of this study is on higher education policy analysts and the competencies they employ to perform their work. The research focuses on responses from a U.S. sample of policy analysts to (a) define a meaningful list of competencies for higher education policy analysts and (b) empirically test whether those competencies meaningfully…

Administrators, particularly those who engage in instructional leadership, play a key role in school improvement. Past research describes the types of activities instructional leaders engage in but has paid little attention to how they do it. The authors use the case of one school to unpack instructional leadership as a practice, paying close…

This article examines the relationship between the mathematical knowledge of 438 K-8 California teachers and the demographics of the schools in which they work. To measure mathematical knowledge, we used a series of multiple-choice problems meant to represent both the content teachers teach and the specialized knowledge of mathematics that…

New accountability requirements contain provisions that mandate the participation of students with disabilities in large-scale assessments and the public reporting of these students' performance along with other important educational outcomes. Discusses the technical, legal, and practical challenges to implementing the new accountability mandates.…

States that central to any efforts to improve urban schools is the relationship between the school managers and the teachers' union. Recommendations include creating learner-centered schools; focusing on improving the knowledge and skills of teachers; negotiating "Living Contracts"; and expanding school choice by making public schools more like…

Historically many students with disabilities did not participate in accountability systems. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) requires that students in all targeted subgroups, including students with disabilities, have the opportunity to learn challenging material that is linked to content standards and to participate in statewide…

The purpose of this report is to highlight some of the more interesting and compelling research on arts education. The focus is on two major reports: "Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning" and "Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development." Together, these provide enough initial information to…

This study examines the role of governors in the P-16 education reform movement through their influence in the adoption of policies creating statewide P-16 councils. Network theory is used to distill three sets of hypotheses to predict how leadership influences of governors, the structure of state educational governance organizations, and…

In 2001, Texas became the first state to pass an in-state resident tuition policy that benefits undocumented immigrant students, a majority of whom are of Latino/a origin. This analysis estimates the effect of the Texas in-state resident tuition policy on students likely to be undocumented. Using a differences-in-differences strategy and two…