In May and June 2015, the ninth annual "Education Next" survey was administered to a nationally representative sample of some 4,000 respondents, including oversamples of roughly 700 teachers, 700 African Americans, and 700 Hispanics. The 2015 survey posed many new questions exploring opinion on curricular and other issues that have never…

At the turn of the century, the United States was trying to come to grips with a serious education crisis. The country was lagging behind its international peers, and a half-century effort to erode racial disparities in school achievement had made little headway. Many people expected action from the federal government. George W. Bush and Barack…

What do citizens of the United States and Germany think about their schools and school policies? This paper offers the first broad comparison of public thinking on education in the two countries. We carried out opinion surveys of representative samples of the German and American adult populations in 2014 that included experiments in which we…

Network theory has recently been suggested as providing a useful framework for developing a change strategy by which the federal government can induce educational reform. In this paper the potential contributions of network theory are assessed by showing its close relationship to group theory. Then three critiques of group theory and…

Some historical differences have begun to wane in recent years as the politics of education in the United States show some signs of taking on a more British'' character. At lease this is what is suggested by a review of the literature on the politics of education in Britain and the United States. (Author/CB)

A study of the implementation of six major federal education policies in four urban school districts (Baltimore, Maryland; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; San Diego, California; and Dade County, Florida) generally supported a new theory of federalism. Research data were drawn from statistical reports and from interviews with over 150 persons at local,…

This document presents findings of an independent committee that was organized by the Twentieth Century Fund to study the Federal role in shaping educational policy, and includes the comprehensive background paper (prepared by Paul E. Peterson) on which the task force discussions were based. The report describes current problems in elementary and…

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits government (which includes public schools) from imposing religious beliefs and practices in schools. Examines court decisions interpreting the First Amendment, distinguishes state action from private action, and explains the notion of "limited open forum" with regard to…

In an effort to develop a comprehensive theory of the relationships between different levels of government in the implementation of federal programs, the authors of this report conducted a study of four federal programs operating in both Baltimore (Maryland) and Milwaukee (Wisconsin). Three hypotheses were tested: first, that when program goals at…