Describes and analyzes an ambitious project in which a state education department instigated, facilitated, and "jump-started" the formation of professional development school partnerships between middle schools and teacher preparation institutions. Provides a case summary and explores the options available to a state department of education…

The Holmes Group's concept of professional development schools challenges conventional assumptions about how practitioners acquire knowledge of educational practice and how theory and practice are related. This article examines these assumptions and their implications for administrator preparation in professional development schools by analyzing…

Uses Cobb and Elder's theory of agenda setting in public policy arena to assess the politics and effects of school finance during the 1970s and 1980s. Four triggering mechanisms catapult issues to the formal policy agenda: unanticipated events, technological changes, ecological changes, and biases in resource distribution. Four categories of…

Uses recent survey data to determine whether ethnic-racial composition of various types of higher education systems has changed from late 1970s through 1980s; and how the chances of attending various types of institutions have changed for students from different racial-ethnic backgrounds. Minority group distribution at most colleges remained…

Examines trends in the incidence of retention, remediation, and identification of students as handicapped in 12 New York State elementary schools across a period of high-stakes assessment and public accountability (1978-79 to 1988-89). A significant increase in the proportion of children retained in grade or identified as handicapped occurred…

Examines a policy providing for the differential distribution of educational resources in urban Toronto, Canada. Although this policy addressed systemic social inequality through schooling by placing increased resources in the hands of innercity school staff, it also reaffirmed a normative relationship between mass compulsory schooling and the…

In 1959, France passed the Debre Act, inaugurating massive subsidies for private education by contracting secular instruction to private schools signing contracts. The policy has successfully provided parents with school choice without increasing social stratification but has led to some financial and political accountability problems. Choice…

Thomas Popkewitz's book "A Political Sociology of Educational Reform: Power/Knowledge in Teaching, Teacher Education, and Research" (1991) is essential reading for those trying to understand the implications of postmodern and poststructural theories in critical education studies. Modernist ideals should not be abandoned, but rather appropriated…

Despite recent state leadership in educational reform, the national reports have primarily framed issues and priorities. The articles chosen for this special issue demonstrate the interplay of state and local politics of reform with national concerns. This article highlights Florida's contributions to first and second wave reform efforts. (MLH)

To increase understanding of the educational reform movement, the Center for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) embarked on a five-year study of the implementation and effects of state education reforms in six states (Arizona, California, Florida, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania) with diverse reform approaches. This article presents the center's…

Explores Florida teachers' failure to accept state-legislated learning models imposed on them. Although 86.7 percent of teachers surveyed identified "reaching" students as the major intrinsic reward in teaching, 74 percent claimed that legislated learning questioned their competency and limited the scope of their work and/or political…

Compares the Florida Educational Reform Act of 1983, a teacher merit pay program, with similar programs in other states and countries. Studies the reform's inception, implementation, and decline, using the concepts of coalition-building, fiscal support, and various work arenas (legislative and executive, administrative, professional organizations,…

Posits policymakers' and researchers' mutual inability to communicate in compatible language and imagery. Explores several rationales for the divergence between two separate cultures (the academic and the political), referring to an "ecology of games." Illuminates gaps with case material from policymaking in Florida, and develops semantic…

Explores the public's misconception about lotteries' intended purpose and actual use. To avoid attacks on its legitimacy (and bloated bureaucratic structure), government is relying on lotteries as policy tools. Generating public funds through lotteries appears to meet education's needs while masking the relative drop in tax-based public finance.…

Given that education is a highly politicized institution whose benefits are shared inequitably among its supporters, it should be evident that educational reforms fail (or succeed) more often for political reasons than because of technical or programmatic differences. To illustrate, this article examines a large international assistance project,…