Much of the evidence translation literature focuses narrowly on the use of evidence in the initial policy formulation stages, and downplays the crucial role of institutions and the inherently political nature of policy making. More recent approaches acknowledge the importance of institutional and political factors, but make no attempt to…

The authorizers of charter schools are an understudied piece of the charter reform process. The local school boards, state agencies, and higher education institutions that act as authorizers play a significant role in the market, determining which operators get to enter the market and which are forced to exit. This article provides an…

Explicates a conceptual framework for analyzing the politics of personnel evaluation in an educational context. Using several elements of the framework, discusses the politics of teacher evaluation in California in relation to the types of personnel evaluation decisions, the actors, their access to these decisions, sources and levels of power, and…

Planning traditionally employs a rational decision model that leaves the planner poorly equipped to deal with constraints of organizational process and governmental politics. To be more effective, the planner must now begin in depth to analyze the procedures related to organizational processes and political bargaining. (Author)

The political foundation of voluntary student financing of campus recreation facilities is examined. By combining Baldridge's Political Decision Making Model with Wildavsky's Clientele Strategy, the "Political Clientele Model" is proposed as a framework to analyze the process of constructing student funded recreational facilities. The…

A discussion of client evaluation is presented. One of the initial elements in performing an evaluation is "framing the decision context." In framing this context, the evaluator is faced with several key questions, for example, "Who are the decision makers or decision audiences to whom he will be presenting information?" and "What are the likely…

Examines three models of social science inputs to social policy formulation and argues that they are all inadequate, because they fail to account adequately for the nature of the policy process and the political environment. (Available from NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science, P. O. Box 9155, Rosslyn Station, Arlington, VA 22209; $19.00…

The bureaucratic politics model and the poliheuristic theory are used to examine how political advice presented in various contexts influences choice. Organizational advisers who offer endogenous political advice are compared with situations in which the decision maker is offered advice by a separate, or exogenous, political adviser. Results show…

Those who direct educational systems and institutions are losing public credibility. To reverse this trend educational planners must involve the public in educational decision-making. They can do this through the design and development of cooperative procedures for planning changes in education. (Author)

Among the purposes of this paper is the goal of describing, further developing, and clarifying the influence structure and decision-making process variables of K-12 political systems at the state level. (Author/IRT)

Rather than accept present theoretical approaches to the study of community political power as a basis for developing new theory, this monograph examines the saliency of the approaches themselves. By considering what kinds of data and questions are excluded by Hunter's "repute analysis" technique and Dahl's "issue analysis"…

This paper suggests that a first, important, step toward a broadening of the skills of the educational planner is a clear conceptualization of some implications that accompany differing styles of decision-making. It has been suggested that planning traditionally employs a rational decision model that leaves the planner poorly equipped to deal with…

Perceptions of college institutional research directors concerning the quality of executive decision making at their institutions were studied. Perceptions were assessed using a theoretical model of Groupthink developed by Janis, who postulates that a high amount of environmental stress should lead to a greater degree of…

The history of evaluation utilization in policy making and political features of program evaluation are discussed. A five-part continuum describes the evaluation process. Evaluation practice modifications contribute to real growth in evaluation use in congressional policy making as evaluation research improves the quality of information available…

Models for university planning must adapt to the political process of decision making, and to the structures and priorities of each institution. In this regard, the limitations of conventional models are discussed, and an approach to model-building that emphasizes institution-specific devices is described and applied to the University of…