-PDF Download- The State And Education Policy EBOOK

The State of Education Policy Research

Author: David K. Cohen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 9780805858341

The State of Education Policy Research is a comprehensive, insightful evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of education policy research in the U.S. today. Editors Susan Fuhrman, David Cohen, and Fritz Mosher examine key issues facing policymakers and researchers including race, education equity, teacher quality, early education, privatization, and the politics of education policy. Collectively, the chapters present a complex mosaic of education policy research that integrates the views of policy experts from education, economics, and related disciplines. Important topics discussed in this influential new text include: Politics of education—Covers research on key political groups including teachers’ unions, business roundtables, parent and/or religious advocates, as well as state and federal lawmakers. Race—Discusses race as an issue as well as a non-issue and includes a discussion of the testing gap. State policies— Provides an overview of state policies directed at improving teacher quality and discusses the reality of a teacher shortage. National Trends—Analyzes current trends toward centralization and standardization and the growing influence of federal and state mandates. This book is appropriate for advanced courses in education administration, politics, and policy. It will also appeal to policy researchers in education, economics, and political science, to policy makers at the federal, state, and local levels and to the academic libraries serving them.

The States and Public Higher Education Policy

Author: Donald E. Heller

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2011-09-01

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 142140477X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Affordability, access, and accountability have long been among the central challenges facing higher education—and they remain so today. Here, Donald E. Heller and other higher education scholars and practitioners explore the current debates surrounding these key issues. As students and their families struggle to meet rising tuition prices, and as state funding for higher education dwindles, policymakers confront issues of affordability within state and institutional budgets. Changing demographics and challenges to affirmative action complicate the admissions process even as colleges and universities seek to diversify enrollments. And issues of institutional accountability have forced the restructuring of higher education governing boards and a reexamination of the role of public trustees in governance. This collection analyzes how issues of affordability, access, and accountability influence the way in which state governments approach, monitor, and set public higher education policy. The contributors examine the latest research on pressing challenges, explore how states are coping with these challenges, and consider what the future holds for public postsecondary education in the United States.

The State and Education Policy

Author: Roger Dale

Publisher:

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The Politics of Education Policy in an Era of Inequality

Author: Sonya Douglass Horsford

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-12-07

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1317397916

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In a context of increased politicization led by state and federal policymakers, corporate reformers, and for-profit educational organizations, The Politics of Education Policy in an Era of Inequality explores a new vision for leading schools grounded in culturally relevant advocacy and social justice theories. This timely volume tackles the origins and implications of growing accountability for educational leaders and reconsiders the role that educational leaders should and can play in education policy and political processes. This book provides a critical perspective and analysis of today’s education policy landscape and leadership practice; explores the challenges and opportunities associated with teaching in and leading schools; and examines the structural, political, and cultural interactions among school principals, district leaders, and state and federal policy actors. An important resource for practicing and aspiring leaders, The Politics of Education Policy in an Era of Inequality shares a theoretical framework and strategies for building bridges between education researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.

Learning Policy

Author: David K. Cohen

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2008-10-01

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 0300133340

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Education reformers and policymakers argue that improved students’ learning requires stronger academic standards, stiffer state tests, and accountability for students’ scores. Yet these efforts seem not to be succeeding in many states. The authors of this important book argue that effective state reform depends on conditions which most reforms ignore: coherence in practice as well as policy and opportunities for professional learning. The book draws on a decade’s detailed study of California’s ambitious and controversial program to improve mathematics teaching and learning. Researchers David Cohen and Heather Hill report that state policy influenced teaching and learning when there was consistency among the tests and other policy instruments; when there was consistency among the curricula and other instruments of classroom practice; and when teachers had substantial opportunities to learn the practices proposed by the policy. These conditions were met for a minority of elementary school teachers in California. When the conditions were met for teachers, students had higher scores on state math tests. The book also shows that, for most teachers, the reform ended with consistency in state policy. They did not have access to consistent instruments of classroom practice, nor did they have opportunities to learn the new practices which state policymakers proposed. In these cases, neither teachers nor their students benefited from the state reform. This book offers insights into the ways policy and practice can be linked in successful educational reform and shows why such linkage has been difficult to achieve. It offers useful advice for practitioners and policymakers seeking to improve education, and to analysts seeking to understand it.

Between the State and the Schoolhouse

Author: Tom Loveless

Publisher:

Published: 2021-04-13

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9781682535905

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Between the State and the Schoolhouse examines the Common Core State Standards from the initiative's promising beginnings to its disappointing outcomes. Situating the standards in the long history of state and federal efforts to shape education, the book describes a series of critical lessons that highlight the political and structural challenges of large-scale, top-down reforms. Education policy expert Tom Loveless argues that there are too many layers between the state and the classroom for a national standards approach to be effective. Specifically, he emphasizes the significant gap between states' roles in designing education policy and teachers' roles as implementers of policy. In addition, he asserts that top-down policies are unpredictable, subject to political and ideological pressures, and vulnerable to the pendulum effect as new reforms emerge in response to previous ones. One of the most ambitious education reforms of the past century, the Common Core aimed to raise student success, prepare larger numbers of students for both college and careers, and close achievement gaps. Yet, as Loveless documents, a decade later there remains a lack of significant positive impact on student learning. Between the State and the Schoolhouse marks an important contribution to the debate over the standards movement and the role of federal and state governments in education reform.

Handbook of Education Policy Research

Author: Gary Sykes

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-09-10

Total Pages: 2586

ISBN-13: 113585646X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Co-published by Routledge for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Educational policy continues to be of major concern. Policy debates about economic growth and national competitiveness, for example, commonly focus on the importance of human capital and a highly educated workforce. Defining the theoretical boundaries and methodological approaches of education policy research are the two primary themes of this comprehensive, AERA-sponsored Handbook. Organized into seven sections, the Handbook focuses on (1) disciplinary foundations of educational policy, (2) methodological perspectives, (3) the policy process, (4) resources, management, and organization, (5) teaching and learning policy, (6) actors and institutions, and (7) education access and differentiation. Drawing from multiple disciplines, the Handbook’s over one hundred authors address three central questions: What policy issues and questions have oriented current policy research? What research strategies and methods have proven most fruitful? And what issues, questions, and methods will drive future policy research? Topics such as early childhood education, school choice, access to higher education, teacher accountability, and testing and measurement cut across the 63 chapters in the volume. The politics surrounding these and other issues are objectively analyzed by authors and commentators. Each of the seven sections concludes with two commentaries by leading scholars in the field. The first considers the current state of policy design, and the second addresses the current state of policy research. This book is appropriate for scholars and graduate students working in the field of education policy and for the growing number of academic, government, and think-tank researchers engaged in policy research. For more information on the American Educational Research Association, please visit: http://www.aera.net/.

Education and the State

Author: Carla Aubry

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-08-07

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 1317678222

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In most countries in the world, school education is the business of the state. Even if forms and functions differ, the imparting of elementary knowledge is universally regarded as a public function. Yet this is neither self-evident nor self-explanatory. The degree of involvement of state agencies in the supervision, financing and organization of the school system sometimes varies so much that the usual assumption of a common understanding of ‘the state’ seems to be an illusion. Making international comparisons and focusing strongly on the historical conditions of the current form of state education, this volume paints a nuanced picture of how the relationship between ‘education’ and ‘state’ has been and is conceptualized. Insights into this relationship are gained by considering and analysing both specific processes such as financing and bureaucracy; and conceptual ideas, for example community, authority, and political utopias. The book presents comparative studies and analyses of regional and local conditions, arguing that the history of each country or region is critical to educational success, and the relationship between the education and the state must be reconsidered, both internationally and historically, in order to be of actual conceptual value. Education and the State presents a broad variety of approaches and examples that provide a significant contribution to the understanding of the relationship between education and the state. It will be of key value to academics and researchers in the fields of the history of education, the politics of education, and educational administration.

The Science of Higher Education

Author: Mario C. Martinez

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-07-03

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 1000978443

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Perennial conclusions from state-by-state funding-per-student analyses of underfunding and weak state commitment have become so common that they have diluted the potency of the argument to state policymakers for more higher education funding. In addition, there has been little in the way of testing or questioning the assumptions embedded in traditional funding per student analysis and its accompanying conclusions.As state legislators balance the competing needs of education, health, transportation, and public safety budgets, they increasingly ask what return on investment (ROI) they get for the funding they provide, including from higher education. The ROI language, while potentially unsettling for its corporate-like and neoliberal connotation, will persist into the foreseeable future. We must ask questions both of adequacy (How much funding should the states provide?) and benefit (What benefits do states receive for the higher education funding they provide?). The focus on traditional funding per student analysis has remained static for over forty years, indicating the need for new ideas and methods to probe questions of adequacy and benefit.The Science of Higher Education is an introduction to a new paradigm that explores state higher education funding, enrollment, completion, and supply (the number and type of institutions in a state) through the lens of what are commonly known as power laws. Power laws explain patterns in biological systems and characteristics of cities. Like cities, state higher education systems are complex adaptive systems, so it is little surprise that power laws also explain funding, enrollment, completion, and supply.The scale relationships uncovered in the Science of Higher Education suggest the potential benefits state policymakers could derive by emphasizing enrollment, completion, or capacity policies, based on economies of scale, marginal benefits, and the return state’s get on enrollment and completion for the funding they provide.The various features of state higher education systems that conform to scale patterns do not alone provide definitive answers for appropriate funding levels, however. As this book addresses, policymakers need to take into account the macro forces, from demography to geography and the economy, that situate the system, as well the interactions between government and market actors that are at the core of every state higher education system and influence the outcomes it achieves.