Across the United States the state education agency (SEA) is a "sleeping giant" with untapped potential to build instructional capacity in the nation's 110,000 public schools. The SEA is positioned to build the system-wide synergy requisite to achieve the unprecedented school-level student outcomes mandated by the No Child Left Behind…

Facing a growing population and the demands of No Child Left Behind, the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) is finding itself destitute in the recruitment and certification of highly-qualified educators. Because of extremely low average salaries and the existence of critical-need areas, the MDE has decided over the past decade to create an…

Historically and constitutionally, state education agencies (SEAs) have directly influenced education at the local district level. This article reviews the services SEAs offer to local districts; examines the agencies' scope and functions; identifies their fiscal, policy, and leadership constraints; and lists improvement prerequisites. Includes 10…

Discusses the relationship of accountability to educational goals, objectives, assessment and evaluation, teacher evaluation, and state boards and departments. It also discusses models of accountability. (IRT)

An adversary relationship seems to exist in states where no formal structure has been set up to relate to multidistrict agencies. (Author/IRT)

Evidence from one source indicates that the Education Commission of the States (ECS) has little impact on state education policy making. Perhaps this slight impact is all that is desirable or feasible. (Author/IRT)

Describes the historical development of educational service agencies in U.S. public education, highlighting agencies' administrative and instructional functions, organizational patterns and characteristics, advantages and disadvantages, and future roles. Because of advances in data transmission, shifts in service delivery philosophy, and limited…

Examines the emerging role of New York State in education and considers the decentralization of the State education agency to a regional level. (Author/DN)

Focuses on the emerging role of the State Department of Education (SDE) and attempts to present the results of a few recent publications dealing with the types of services that an SDE should provide in the decade of the seventies. (JF)

Sets forth some generalizations about the involvement and influence in state education policy-making of four kinds of actors: state boards of education, chief state school officers, governors, and educational interest groups. (Author)

An essential administrative responsibility accorded to state and district-level education leaders is the task of planning for staffing needs, including the recruitment of competent leaders to fill principal vacancies. Here, Winter et al develop empirical measures to allow state departments of education and school districts to assess their…

Designed to address school safety concerns, the Unsafe School Choice Option (USCO) is another less publicized and brief component of the No Child Left Behind legislation, the centerpiece of Pres George W. Bush's educational agenda. The legislation mandates that state education agencies and local education agencies develop policies and procedures…

Using the Delphi Technique to poll 29 experts on declining enrollment revealed a number of ideas about how local school districts, state departments of education, and administrator training programs might approach the problem; two themes--expanded comprehensive planning and more flexible building utilization--were dominant. (Author/JM)

Examines current thinking on the nature of intergovernmental relations, examines the data on the development of the Michigan compensatory education program and the issues that have characterized its administration, and draws some conclusions about the state-local interaction in education and about the leadership capacities of state education…

An analysis of structured interviews conducted in 1973, 1979, and 1984 with state legislators and school lobbyists and 14 case studies that investigated issues in Minnesota state school policymaking reveal that influence relationships do not correspond to the bureaucratic model. Political leaders influence policymaking far more than do…