Core 5. Educational Policy
(3 credits; 30 hours plus conferences; 15-20 students per offering)

Proposed Course Outline

1. The Policy Process in Education

A. Overview of the Policy Process:

• The complexity and importance of educational policy and politics
• Layers of government and policy development: federal, state, local
• Policy perception and impact at the school level
• Financial interests, stakeholder commitments
• Analyzing intersecting and interdependent issues

B. Systemic Educational Policy: Conceptual Frameworks

• Historical perspectives
• Sociological perspectives
• Economic perspectives
• Political science perspectives
• Legal perspectives
• Educational perspectives
• International perspectives
  

2. Designing Coherent Educational Policy in the United States

A. Governmental Policy-Making:

• Official educational policy-making
• Policy implementation, evaluation, and change
• Relations among federal, state, and local policy-making processes

B. Interest Groups:

• Unofficial policy-making
• Role in implementation
• Policy influence

C. The Role of Research and "The Research Community"

• Relationships between research and policy
• Research and policy analysis

D. Issues of Equity in the Policy Process

Examples:

• Education for Students with Special Needs
• Education for Language-Minority Students
  

3. Policy Analysis

A. What is Policy Analysis?

• Relationships between policy analysis and social science
• Relationships among policy analysis and policy, politics, decision making and professional practice

Example: Policy analysis of the merits of the "Systemic Reform Movement".

B. Policy Language and Policy Documents

• The registers and genres of policy documents
• Critical reading of policy documents
• Legislative and legal documents

Examples from U.S. Department of Education, N.Y. State Education Department

C. A Contemporary Policy Theme: Restructuring Schools

• New standards
• Teaching concepts and organizational reform
• Rethinking school governance
• Restructuring in process: districts on the cutting edge
• Integration of special education

D. Key Issues Confronting Policy-Makers Today

• Financing the schools: underfunding versus overtaxing
• Postindustrialism and institutional change in education
• Privatization and competition
• The academy in the marketplace
  

4. Exploring Policy Analysis through Case Studies [Sample listing]

Note that the Case Studies will be used throughout the course. Listed here are only some current and classic examples; others will be selected each term by the course instructor.

• Literacy: California reading controversy and the New York City case
• New York City school decentralization and comparable cases elsewhere in the U.S.
• Kentucky school reform a political systemic reform "success"?
• Special education: New York State's effort to include special education in all aspects of school reform
• Evaluation of alternative policy paradigms for public education in the U.S. and other countries
  

5. Fieldwork

As an integral part of Core 5, students will be involved in (a) fieldwork (usually focused on a particular issue, e.g., one arising in faculty-initiated research)

Fieldwork Study Focal Issues:

• 1998 teacher education reform policies in New York State; responses by LEAs and institutions of higher education
• 1996 NYC school governance law and its implementation; Chancellor Crew's plan for school leadership teams and evaluation of principals
• NYS and LEA efforts to include special education concerns in systemic reform policies
• New high school graduation standards: interviews and surveys to identify perceptions, fears, hopes, assumptions, and political dynamics in enacting and implementing the new standards
• Bilingual education: study of current efforts to roll back, defend, or reform: interviews, surveys, policy analysis.
• Choice in education: studying the movement for vouchers, charter schools, and choice policies, in New York and the U.S.

  Preliminary Bibliography

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Boyd, William L. & Herbert J. Walberg. Choice in Education. McCutchan, 1990.

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