While policy formation frameworks are commonly used to understand public policy developments, scholars rarely have used them to reflect on arts education policies. Such analysis is important because it can assist both in identifying the genesis of past policies, including who the important actors are, how issues are framed and problematized, and…

In the United States, as public demands for quality teachers have escalated, there has been a corresponding increase in national policy efforts to tie the standards of student success to teacher preparation, licensing, and evaluation. This conceptual paper examines how national authorities used specific policy tools to usurp the state's…

The Michigan English Language Arts Framework (MELAF) offers an illustrative case of top-down and bottom-up confluences in curriculum policymaking. In several distinct ways, state policy met local initiatives to create dynamic partnerships to spread change. State systematic reformers looked to the grass roots for ideas and percolating initiatives.…

The Board on Testing and Assessment of the National Research Council convened a workshop in 1994 to help policymakers and others better understand the complex issues emerging from the standards-based educational reform movement. This bulletin synthesizes the workshop discussions. It is organized around four major themes that emerged from the…

The National Education Goals, Goals 2000, were signed into law by President Clinton in 1994. From 1989 to 1994 the goals existed in a symbolic context with minimal funding to support them. An unpredictable series of events sustained the National Education Goals through a period of potential obscurity to enactment. The goals appear to be unique in…

By setting academic standards, America takes its first critical step toward providing a plan that will create an excellent educational system for the 21st century. It is important for those working on standards and those educating students with disabilities to work together as standards are being developed. Four kinds of standards need to be…

Discusses the role of the courts in educational policymaking and educational quality improvement. It examines the courts' success in using state constitutions to mandate educational policy, the influence of the Goals 2000 initiative in school financing, the factors attributed to the state's increased legal exposure, and the court's impact in…

This paper examines the determinants of systemic education reform in the American states. Socioeconomic, political, and cultural variables are all found to affect the level of systemic education policy in each state. Unlike many studies of policy determinants, urbanization is negatively associated with this particular policy. The political factors…

Examines opportunity-to-learn (OTL) standards, which define conditions that schools, districts, and states must meet to ensure students an equal education. Offers an explanation of the states' historical inability to influence equal education, and proposes principles for designing new state policies. Includes recommendations to the states for…

Each state has the opportunity to participate in Title III of the Goals 2000 Act. To participate, the state must have or develop a comprehensive strategy for improving education on the basis of clear and challenging standards. To assist the states, the Council of Chief State School Officers has prepared this report of baseline information for each…

The National Education Standards and Improvement Council (NESIC) was established in the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. One of NESIC's duties is to identify areas in which specific educational standards ought to be developed. Several complex issues arise in carrying out this duty, such as: the need for standards in such non-content areas as…

This document traces the Goals 2000: Educate America Act and the School-to-Work Opportunities Act as they proceeded through Congress. The following papers are included: "Preface" (Douglas Bedient and Michael D. Usdan); "Introduction" (John F. Jennings); "The Goals 2000: Educate America Act. Providing a World-Class…

Volume 19 of the newsletter of the National Association for Bilingual Education, which spans the period from September 1995 to August 1996, contains a variety of articles on issues and developments in bilingual education policy and programs, including: two way bilingual education; language information from the 1990 Census; cultural influence and…