Considers the impact of recent legislation on local inspectorates' role in monitoring educational quality and fostering school improvement in Britain. Compares and contrasts approaches of successive Labour and Conservative governments, explores inconsistent demands on inspectors, analyzes accountability/improvement tensions, and suggests a…

California Senate Bill 620, "Healthy Start," was sponsored by Governor Pete Wilson as the centerpiece of his prevention-focused initiative for children. The program involves schools in community partnerships to restructure children's services. The first projects were funded in 1991-92 with a $20 million appropriation. Key concepts and…

Educational systems' academic and occupational training may be categorized as compartmentalized (tracked), systematically connected (linked), or fully integrated (unified). Such a typology might be used to model strategic change at higher levels of the UK system of postsecondary training. Successive governments have employed numerous agendas…

Reports findings from an ethnographic study of educational restructuring at an institute of technical and further education in Australia. Documents Australian governments' adoption of hyperrational educational-improvement strategies by reworking institutional roles framing daily practices. Countersteering geared to other values and priorities…

Britain's 1988 Education Reform Act allows schools to opt out of Local Education Authority control and become grant-maintained by central government. Supporters claim the practice will increase parental choice and improve standards; critics say it will reintroduce selection. This paper examines the measure's background and discusses five research…

Explores some theoretical issues raised in Hatcher and Troyna's critical discussion (in this issue of "Journal of Education Policy") of author's work on educational policy. Many of their criticisms are misplaced and rest upon flaws and limitations in their own theoretical work. Their discussion employs a set of unhelpful conceptual…

The papers in this special issue view teachers and their ongoing development as central to Canada's educational restructuring efforts. This introductory article presents snapshots of the Canadian educational system, teachers' professional lives and careers, and Canadian teacher education strategies and briefly examines the policy-making…

Although the Hawke government's general strategy of corporate federalism may dominate educational policy in Australia, higher education (excluding teacher education) is an exception. Because the Commonwealth assumed full financial responsibility for higher education, it has increasingly employed coercive federalism or simply ignored the states.…

Analyzes the full-service schools movement and policy development process, focusing on examples of the new state policies as scattered, vulnerable, and promising new developments. Analyzes the Kentucky and New Jersey movements in terms of the strength of state role. The movement needs time to mature before being stringently evaluated. (Contains 28…

Analyzes the design of French Socialist egalitarian education policy, highlighting the education system's organizational aspects, financial aspects, and size. The Socialist government's performance suggests that schooling structures tend toward great continuity, despite small victories for egalitarianism. Pressures from teacher unions and…

Frank Coffield's essay praising England's Learning and Skills Council in a previous "JEP" issue misinterprets the new lifelong-learning legislation, which specifically excludes higher education and administers all nonhigher education learning within the new "umbrella" organization--an unenlightened policy direction. (MLH)

The federal government has had a small role in financing education since the adoption of the Constitution. The federal politics of education should be studied because such study illustrates and furthers conceptual analysis, information is abundant and accessible, the federal politics of education represents a singular set of institutions, and the…

Critiques two recent White Papers representing future policy directions for British post-16 education and training. The higher education White Paper exemplifies the government's quest to enhance efficiency in pubic-sector organizations by introducing commercial-sector models. By prompting higher student enrollment without increased funding and…

The corporate federalism concept illustrates the way a national approach to policy development for Australian schooling has been utilized by the Hawke Labor government. Negotiated consensus at the Australian Education Council has been used to arrive at these policies and to circumvent politically the constitutional and financial realities of…

Explores implications of the globalization/localization process for state feminism, focusing on Australia. Localization is one response to globalization, exemplified by devolution to self-managing schools. However, global/local relations have gendered effects that resonate cross-nationally. Problems will emerge as the state withdraws from its…