Never before has more been asked of State Education Agencies (SEAs), commonly known as state departments of education. In recent years, policymakers at the state and federal level have viewed the SEA as the default entity for implementing new and sweeping K-12 initiatives--everything from Race to the Top grants and SEA waivers to teacher…

Caught between extraordinary public expectations and relatively modest constitutional authority, U.S. presidents historically have fashioned all sorts of mechanisms--executive orders, proclamations, memoranda--by which to move their objectives forward. William Howell asserts that under President Barack Obama's administration, presidential…

For the last decade, in districts big and small, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has emerged as the largest private funder of educational efforts. This began with an initiative around small schools in the early to mid-2000s, mostly abandoned now, and has gained traction in the past few years in areas such as teacher evaluation, the Common…

Despite all intentions in the course of the Bologna Process and decades of investment into improving the social dimension, results in many national and international studies show that inequity remains stubbornly persistent, and that inequity based on socio-economic status, parental education, gender, country-of-origin, rural background and more…

O'Connor and Penuel (2010) argue that viewing research in education as a human science requires explicit attention to social, cultural, historical, and institutional dimensions of human activity, to the agency of participants in learning research, and to the importance of incorporating "emic" perspectives that shift the voice of the…

Political processes that shaped the introduction of Mutual Welfare Leagues in New York prisons at the turn of the century demonstrate politicians' indifference to reforms, conflicts between reformers, and the blurring of distinctions between reformers and politicians when reformers engage in political activities in order to initiate reform. (SK)

The history of the Gary school campaign in New York City firmly suggests the way in which the schools reflected the internal conflicts and tensions, as well as the shared values and assumptions, of the larger society. (Author)

Outlines a planning philosophy and a preliminary model that links the State's role in trying to effect change with that of the Federal government and of other constituencies. Describes how New York State has implemented the model in two specific projects. (Author/WM)

Between 1795 and 1993, elementary and secondary schooling in New York State shifted from a private/local to a public/state activity. That shift from local to state control and identity involved a lengthy political struggle and reveals the historical working-out of two conflicting themes in the American political tradition: popular democratic…

Under a new plan, the federal government will pay $400 million to 42 teaching hospitals in New York over six years. In return the hospitals will cut by 20-25% the number of residents they train by 2002. The intent is to reduce drain on the Medicare Trust Fund providing graduate medical education subsidies. Other reforms are included in the plan.…