In recent years, the federal government (under Republican and Democratic administrations alike) has encouraged the outsourcing of core parts of public education's work, including testing and test preparation, teaching and tutoring, data collection, and human resources management. However, researchers have found little evidence to support policy…

Of the numerous public policy debates currently taking place throughout the United States, perhaps no issue receives more attention than the persistence of "chronically" low-performing public schools. As of 2009, approximately 5,000 schools--5% of the nation's total--qualified as chronically low performing (Duncan, 2009d). Certainly,…

Uses the rapid rise and fall (within two years) of Clinton's industrial technology policy as an example of the creation and delegitimization of political ideas in federal government. Compares the shifting opinions on this policy to similar experiences with other policies, most notably nuclear power. (MJP)

In the 1980s and the early 1990s Congress failed to approve enterprise zone legislation which sought to help revitalize areas of high unemployment, poverty, and crime and low educational achievement by reducing taxes, relieving regulation, and eliminating other barriers to development. Establishment of comprehensive and sustained enterprise zone…

The effectiveness of state enterprise zone programs was examined by using a hypothetical-firm model called the Tax and Incentives Model-Enterprise Zones (TAIM-ez) model to analyze the value of enterprise zone incentives to businesses across the United States and especially in the 13 states that had substantial enterprise zone programs by 1990. The…