Policy Studies for Educational Leaders An Introduction

by Fowler, Frances C.

• ISBN13: 9780132678117
• ISBN10: 013267811X
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-03-14
• Publisher: Pearson

Summary

In this Fourth Edition of renowned authority Frances Fowler's Policy Studies for Educational Leaders,future educational leaders and actual K-12 administrators get a solid, comprehensive grounding in education policy and the policy process and the important political theories upon which it is based. Included is essential background information about the cultural, economic, demographic, and institutional roots of educational policy and an incisive look at the history of educational policy.

Author Biography

Frances Fowler worked as a classroom teacher in Tennessee for 15 years. During that time she was active in both her union and her school district and was also involved in state and local politics. Eventually, she became so interested in politics and policy that she completed her Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she majored in educational administration with a concentration in educational politics and policy. In 1990 she accepted a tenure-track position at Miami University, where she taught educational politics and policy for 19 years, ending her higher education career as a Full Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in her department.  Frances retired in 2009 and she remains politically active at the local level and is active on the Education Committee of the Cincinnati Area League of Women Voters. In addition to this book, she is also a co-author of Educational Governance and Administration

Table of Contents

The Background of Education Policy	p. 1
Policy: What it is and Where it Comes From	p. 3
Why Study Policy?	p. 3
School Leaders in Oz	p. 3
Defining Policy	p. 4
A Brief Definition	p. 4
Policy and Expressed Government Intentions-Racial Segregation	p. 5
Policy, Law, and Racial Segregation	p. 6
The Transformation of the Education Policy Environment	p. 9
The Way it Used to Be	p. 9
The New Policy Environment	p. 9
Reasons for these Changes	p. 10
Changed Roles of School Leaders	p. 12
The Policy Process	p. 14
Policy Issues	p. 14
Applying the Stage Model to Standards-Based Reform	p. 15
The School Leader and Policy Studies	p. 18
Administrators as Policymakers	p. 19
Administrators as Implementers of Policy	p. 19
Administrators as Followers of Policy Issues	p. 19
Administrators as Influencers of Policy	p. 20
Final Points	p. 20
Power and Education Policy	p. 22
Introductory Comments	p. 22
Defining Power	p. 22
A "Contested" Concept	p. 22
A Working Definition of Power	p. 23
Discourse and Power	p. 24
School Administration as Talk	p. 24
Texts	p. 24
Social Events	p. 24
Social Practice	p. 25
The Three-Dimensional Model of Power	p. 25
The First Dimension of Power: Explicit Usescof Power	p. 25
The Second Dimension of Power: The Mobilization of Bias	p. 30
The Third Dimension of Power: The Shaping of Consciousness	p. 35
Power in Educational Settings	p. 36
The Power of Education Policy Actors	p. 36
Building Power	p. 38
Power and Distributed Leadership	p. 41
Ethical Issues Surrounding Power	p. 41
The Dangers of Power	p. 41
Power as Means and End	p. 42
Using Discursive Power Ethically	p. 43
Final Points	p. 44
The Economy and Demographics	p. 46
Why Analyze the Policy Environment?	p. 46 .
Defining Policy Environment	p. 46
Policy and Its Social Context	p. 46
The Economic Environment	p. 47
The Importance of the Economy	p. 47
An Overview of U.S. Economic History	p. 48
Short-Term Economic Changes	p. 52
Long-Term Economic Trends	p. 54
Demographics and the Policy Environment	p. 57
The Importance of Demographics	p. 57
Long-Term Demographic Trends	p. 58
Implications for Education Policy	p. 61
Implications of the Business Cycle	p. 61
Implications of Long-Range Trends	p. 62
"Do More with Less"	p. 63
"Do a Lot More with a Little More"	p. 63
"Do a Lot More with a Lot Less"	p. 64
Reading Between the Lines	p. 64
Final Points	p. 65
The Political System and Political Culture	p. 67
The Importance of the Less Obvious	p. 67
The U.S. Political System	p. 68
Federalism	p. 68
Separation of Powers	p. 71
Fragmentation of Governance	p. 71
Focus on Elections	p. 73
Judicial Review	p. 74
Implications of the Political System for School Leaders	p. 74
Competition Among Governance Bodies	p. 74
Multiple Veto Points	p. 76
Timing Policy Concerns with Elections	p. 76
Network and Coalition Building	p. 79
Political Culture	p. 81
Defining Political Culture	p. 81
Traditionalistic Political Culture	p. 81
Moralistic Political Culture	p. 83
Individualistic Political Culture	p. 83
Political Culture and Education Policy	p. 84
Implications for School Administrators	p. 86
Final Points	p. 89
Values and Ideology	p. 91
The Importance of Ideas	p. 91
Basic Values in U.S. Politics	p. 92
Self-Interest and Other Values	p. 92
Self-Interest Values	p. 93
General Social Values	p. 94
Democratic Values	p. 95
Economic Values	p. 99
Values Interacting with Each Other	p. 103
Cyclical Shifts in Dominant Values	p. 103
Important Value Conflicts	p. 104
Ideology	p. 107
Defining Ideology	p. 107
Major U.S. Ideologies	p. 107
Conservatism	p. 107
Liberalism	p. 110
Other Ideologies	p. 112
Extremist Ideologies in the United States	p. 112
Ideologies in Other Countries	p. 113
School Leaders Caught in Ideological Crossfire	p. 115
Schools as Contested Terrain	p. 115
Dealing Effectively with Ideological Conflicts	p. 116
Final Points	p. 120
Policy Actors and the Policy Process	p. 123
The Major Education Policy Actors	p. 125
The Dramatis Personae of the Policy Drama	p. 125
Government Actors	p. 126
The Legislative Branch	p. 126
The Executive Branch	p. 130
The Judicial Branch	p. 133
Local Government Actors	p. 134
Nongovernmental Policy Actors	p. 136
Interest Groups: What they are and What they Do	p. 136
Education Interest Groups	p. 137
Noneducation Interest Groups	p. 137
Policy Networks	p. 138
Policy Planning Organizations	p. 139
The Media	p. 139
Identifying and Learning about Policy Actors	p. 142
Overall Approach	p. 142
Locating Elected Government Officials	p. 142
Identifying Appointed Officials and Groups	p. 144
Identifying Policy Planning and Related Organizations	p. 144
Locating the "Neglected Stepchild"	p. 146
Setting the Stage and Getting on It: Issue Definition and Agenda Setting	p. 148
Perception and Reality in the Policy Process	p. 148
Issue Definition: Setting the Stage	p. 149
Defining Issue Definition	p. 149
The Education Policy Planning and Research Community	p. 150
The Policy Agenda	p. 161
Defining Policy Agenda	p. 161
Types of Policy Agendas	p. 161
How Agendas Relate to Each Other	p. 162
Getting on the Governmental Policy Agenda	p. 164
Staying on a Policy Agenda	p. 166
Nondecisions	p. 167
School Leaders and the Early Stages of the Policy Process	p. 167
Following the Early Stages	p. 167
Influencing the Early Stages	p. 168
Final Points	p. 171
Getting the Words and the Money: Policy Formulation and Policy Adoption	p. 173
The High-Visibility Stages of the Policy Process	p. 173
Policy Formulation and Adoption in Legislatures	p. 174
A Conservative Process	p. 174
Legislative Proposals and Where They Come From	p. 175
How Bills are Drafted	p. 177
How Bills Move Through a Legislature	p. 178
The Politics of Getting a Policy Adopted	p. 180
Obtaining Funding	p. 182
Policy Formulation and Adoption in Administrative
Agencies	p. 186
Rule Making	p. 186
Rule Making in the States	p. 190
Policy Formulation and Adoption in the Courts	p. 190
Judges as Policy Actors	p. 190
Taking Cases to Court	p. 191
How Judges Formulate and Adopt Policy	p. 192
Examples of Education Policymaking by Judges	p. 193
Influencing Policy Formulation and Adoption	p. 195
General Principles	p. 195
Influencing Legislatures and Agencies	p. 197
Working Through Professional Organizations	p. 200
Lobbying	p. 203
Final Points	p. 210
Looking at Policies: Policy Instruments and Cost Effectiveness	p. 213
Learning to Analyze Public Policies	p. 213
Lowi's Techniques of Control	p. 214
Distributive Policies	p. 214
Regulatory Policies	p. 216
Redistributive Policies	p. 218
Do Lowi's Categories Overlap?	p. 219
Using Lowi's Categories in School Leadership	p. 219
Exercises on the Techniques of Control	p. 222
McDonnell and Elmore's Policy Instruments	p. 223
Mandates	p. 223
Inducements	p. 225
Capacity Building	p. 226
System Change	p. 227
Hortatory Policy, or Persuasion	p. 228
The Use of Policy Instruments in the States	p. 229
Using McDonnell and Elmore's Ideas in School Leadership	p. 230
Exercises on the Policy Instruments	p. 232
Cost Analysis and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis	p. 232
Thinking About Costs	p. 232
Cost Analysis	p. 233
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis	p. 238
Final Points	p. 239
Policy Implementation: Getting People to Carry Out a Policy	p. 241
The Surprising Difficulty of Implementation	p. 241
The Research on Implementation	p. 242
Defining Implementation	p. 242
A Rapidly Growing Field	p. 242
First-Generation Research-The Difficulty of Implementation	p. 243
Second-Generation Research-Analyses of Failure and Success	p. 245
Third-Generation Research-Implementing Complex Policies	p. 248
Implementers as Learners	p. 249
Scaling Up	p. 252
How to Implement a New Policy	p. 255
Mobilizing for Implementation	p. 255
Implementation Proper	p. 265
Stages of Implementation	p. 265
Institutionalization	p. 270
Implementing Unpopular Policies	p. 271
Why Some Policies Are Unpopular	p. 271
Issues Surrounding Resistance	p. 272
Final Points	p. 276
Policy Evaluation: Determining if the Policy Works	p. 278
A Nervous-Making Topic	p. 278
Definitions Associated with Policy Evaluation	p. 279
A Brief History of Educational Policy Evaluation	p. 280
Early Evaluation	p. 280
The War on Poverty	p. 280
The Professionalization of Evaluation	p. 281
Characteristics of Policy Evaluations	p. 281
The Evaluation Process	p. 281
Criteria for Judging Evaluations	p. 283
Evaluation Accountability	p. 284
Purposes of Evaluations	p. 285
Methodologies Used in Policy Evaluation	p. 286
Indicators	p. 288
Facilitating Meaningful Policy Evaluations	p. 289
The Politics of Evaluation	p. 290
Suggestions for Achieving a Sound Evaluation	p. 292
Acting on an Evaluation Report	p. 296
Inaction	p. 296
Minor Modifications	p. 296
Major Modifications	p. 296
Termination	p. 297
Final Points	p. 297
Education Policy in the United States: Retrospective and Prospective	p. 300
If We Aren't in Kansas, Where are We?	p. 300
Four Theoretical Frameworks	p. 301
Competing Values	p. 301
Lowi's Policy Types	p. 301
Institutional Choice	p. 301
International Convergence	p. 303
Retrospective on U.S. Education Policy	p. 303
The Young Republic, 1783-1830	p. 303
The Rise of the Common School, 1831-1900	p. 306
The "Scientific" Sorting Machine, 1900-1982	p. 309
In Search of a New Paradigm, 1983-Present	p. 314
Is No Child Left Behind the New Paradigm?	p. 318
Overview	p. 318
The Passage of NCLB	p. 319
Major Provisions of NCLB	p. 320
Applying Four Theoretical Lenses to NCLB	p. 321
Will NCLB Be Repealed?	p. 324
What, Then, Should Education Leaders Do?	p. 325
Final Points	p. 327
Glossary	p. 329
Appendix	p. 331
References	p. 333
Name Index	p. 347
Subject Index	p. 353
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