Discontinuities are often found between top-down language education policies and local language policy enactments, as de facto language policymaking results from stakeholders' negotiation and interpretation of policy mandates. Teachers occupy a particular role in the execution of language education policies, as they are the "final…

The praxis orientation is proposed as an approach to school-based evaluation that enables professionals to understand power relationships and act toward empowerment of the local school community. The orientation is offered as an alternative to the positivist power-control approach, which is critiqued. (TJH)

This paper reports a 2-year study of education policy that sought to identify, describe, and analyze the essential building blocks of state-level education policy and to discover the factors responsible for creating differences among states in their use of these elements to construct an overall framework for school regulation and support. Sample…