Discussions at the local, state, and national level have been focused on the importance of providing access and opportunity for college attendance. While these discussions are important to raising public interest in higher education attainment, they often negate how community values influence the college attendance decision process. This study…

Recent research suggests the need for more intensive clinically-based teacher preparation programs. Many institutions of higher education, in partnership with school districts and education reform organizations, are responding to these findings. This article focuses on the experience of administrators and faculty in one urban teacher residency…

Evolving purposes for the United States educational system have driven legislative policy over the past 40 years, beginning with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, reauthorized as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in 2002. However, researchers have demonstrated US policy intents are often unrealized in educational practice,…

In the fifty years since Congress assumed the provision of financial assistance to schools in which students had "federal connection," such as American Indian students living on reservations or in public housing, this federal assistance came to be regarded as a replacement for state funding, not as supplemental funding. This study contends that…

The current curriculum reform agenda in Hong Kong is enmeshed in the politics of a post-colonial society. Yet, there is not a single view of what post-coloniality means for Hong Kong's school curriculum. This article focuses on analyzing the curriculum reform agenda that has emerged in post-colonial Hong Kong. This agenda was not only…

Designed to address school safety concerns, the Unsafe School Choice Option (USCO) is another less publicized and brief component of the No Child Left Behind legislation, the centerpiece of Pres George W. Bush's educational agenda. The legislation mandates that state education agencies and local education agencies develop policies and procedures…

Alignment means that in order to improve student achievement and learning, school districts need to have clear standards of attainment with which their curriculum and accountability measures must align. At the state level, this notion of alignment or coherence refers to the state-developed policies that comprise its accountability system. In the…

In this article, the authors explore whether educational systems have the institutional capacity to implement comprehensive, systemic reform, as envisioned in legislation such as No Child Left Behind. Drawing upon evidence from various state-level reform initiatives, the authors highlight the ways in which systemic reform appears to positively…

Before instituting any new selection criteria for admission to principal preparation programs, the author considers several factors that are likely to interact with admission criteria. These include the impact on program enrollment, effects on applicants' choices in the marketplace, benefits likely to accrue from any new measures vis-a-vis faculty…

This discussion has outlined the role played by program costs in the three-stage policy process--policy formulation, policy implementation, and policy evaluation. It has described both the relevance and a framework for education policy evaluation. (Author/IRT)

Seeks to determine the personal characteristics and career backgrounds of state legislators, what they believe about their policy role and about educational issues, to whom they turn for information on the public schools, and which actors, besides themselves, they perceive as influential in deciding school legislation. (Author/IRT)

Provides an analysis of the policy making process and examines various models and theories related to public and educational policy making. Minority writers have shown that in order for significant positive educational change to occur in minority communities there must be increases in the number of minorities in policy making positions.…

Economic analysis can help us understand the kinds of costs and benefits that might result from viable approaches that have been arrived at by policy analysis. (Author/IRT)

Evidence from one source indicates that the Education Commission of the States (ECS) has little impact on state education policy making. Perhaps this slight impact is all that is desirable or feasible. (Author/IRT)