Stresses key areas of political conflict in the certification of a national curricular content and explores trade-offs a national-standards approval group must make. The article analyzes left-wing support for explicit opportunity-to-learn standards and right-wing objections to educational outcomes and focuses on initial approval stages, not…

This paper outlines the complexity of the politics of education and the difficulty of dealing with 19,000 districts and fifty States, each of which is relatively unique. A case is made for increased research efforts in this field. (LLR)

The best response to this period of retrenchment and lack of support for education is more aggressive political activity at the state and local levels. The key to success is building coalitions among educational interest groups and potential allies in other services. Although the federal government greatly expanded its support of education in the…

California was a pioneer in new forms of student assessment through a system entitled the "California Learning Assessment System" (CLAS). For different reasons, several interest groups objected to the CLAS, which has been discontinued. The history of the CLAS program sheds light on the future of testing policy in California and perhaps…

Recent analyses of the linkages between policy analysis and politics suggests that contemporary focus on the first had been poorly attenuated to the theoretical needs of the second. This paper specifies the kinds of research in educational politics that should ensue if the politics-of-education field is to become less oriented to specific policies…

Local control is emphasized in this examination of the roles of state, federal, and local governments in education policy and change. Federal and state role priorities should be to provide resources and stimulation for the major decisions and changes at the school site. The role of the state in school district governance, which has steadily been…