Research based on followup interviews with some "key actors" at the federal level about the most significant recent events in education identified five topics: the cutbacks in federal education spending, the deregulation and decentralization embodied in provisions of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA), proposed and de…

This issue summarizes study findings on how education agencies in California, Nevada, and Utah are responding to federal cutbacks, consolidation, and deregulation. Using the term "school improvement" to refer to a wide variety of activities and services, negative factors identified by the researchers include: elimination of many…

Federal education policy preferences of the Reagan Administration include both procedural and substantive elements. The overarching procedural policy is devolution--the transfer of the authority and responsibility for education policy and program development from the federal to state and local levels. Federal activities intended to advance…

This essay reports on a roundtable of higher education leaders, association heads, government officials, and public policy experts that examined the changes in policymakers' attitudes toward federally sponsored research. Since World War II national science policy has made universities the principal locus of basic research in the United States. But…