This paper reports on a study that explored the roles of district and community-based education structures (DCES) in preparing, implementing, and communicating education policy initiatives at the district and school levels. A descriptive multiple-case survey design involving three purposefully selected districts was employed. The study used a…

Policy debates about charter schools are often dominated by polarizing emotional narratives. However scholarly attention on narratives in education policy, and especially narratives about charter schools in local contexts, has been limited. The recently developed Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) approach offers guidelines to systematically study…

To assess the nature and importance of family support and education programs which have increased in number during the last decade, this prepared statement addresses three questions: (1) What is known about the ways in which context, defined as factors outside the nuclear family, affects a family's capacity to rear its children and build a…

This paper analyzes the potential of a specific public policy tool to further principles of programs devoted exclusively to the Integration of Education and Human Services (IEHS). Section 1 describes the nature of the problem in establishing the need for IEHS. Section 2 describes policy tools currently used to implement IEHS, introducing the…

Rapid residential growth in rural areas or on the fringes of urban areas brings both costs and benefits. Seven factors determine whether new homes and subdivisions generate more revenues than expenditures. Local governments can substantially influence four of these seven factors in order to reduce the public costs of residential growth. Less…

Results of two longitudinal studies in a southwestern city suggest that local interpretations of the legalization program of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act affected program outcomes by expanding the scope of the program beyond the participation rate projected by national policymakers. (SLD)

The report catalogs strengths, defines problems, and establishes goals for the next two decades for rural New York in the area of transportation. Describing where rural New York is today, section one lists 12 trends, 8 strengths, and 16 weaknesses affecting transporation. Trends include increased rural population inflow and demands on local…

Urban managers and legislators are faced with the task of ensuring that policy decisions really represent citizens' needs. One method of communicating with the public by government was the creation of the Community Representatives Office (CRO) by the city of Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1973. This position is similar to the office of the…

Using the 1981 Education Act of England and Wales as a case study, this paper develops a conceptual framework of education legislation as a significant reference point in the process of negotiation and bargaining that initiates legislation and continues throughout the period of policy implementation. A model of the policy process and the…

Trends, strengths and assets, weaknesses and problem areas, goals, and public policy questions in the area of human relations and community life in rural New York state are presented with supporting statistics. Trends considered include rural and elderly rural population increases; suicide, homicide, and domestic violence rate increases; demands…

The Defense Conversion Adjustment (DCA) Demonstration, administered by the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Work-Based Learning, consisted of 19 demonstration projects that used three approaches to alleviate the negative impacts of defense cutbacks on communities, firms, and workers: community planning, dislocation aversion, and worker…

France's employment policy has historically been governed by a strategy of interventions aimed at specific categories of individuals, including victims of industrial restructuring, entry workers, the long-term unemployed, and the disabled. Since the 1980s, France has had the following main lines of employment policy: (1) assistance to victims of…

In January 2002, Ireland's minister of state announced the establishment of the National Adult Learning Council to take effect in March 2002. One of the council's priorities will be to establish local adult learning boards (LALBs) to oversee development and delivery of adult education. An Irish government white paper recommended that LALBs'…