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…

Describes the establishment and functions of 20 regional education service centers in Texas. (Author/DN)

In 1997, the Illinois legislature passed House Bill 542 (Public Act 90-548) which changed teacher tenure requirements to a four-year, multi-tiered system that called for the accumulation of professional development credit for all teachers. The primary purpose of this study was to examine district responses to the 1997 legislation. To what degree,…

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)

State legislatures appear to be opting for one of several schemes to provide equalized local initiative and thus preserve the State-local partnership of K-12 funding, which scheme could be called creeping State funding.'' (Author)

To understand state-local ties involved in state education politics, policy effects and linking mechanisms in the reform-minded Public School Approval mandate in Vermont were studied using semistructured interviews. Results showed minimal involvement from board members, superintendents, principals, and teachers regarding policy formation. All…

Describes current practices in Illinois where a personnel reimbursement formula is used to finance special education. Summarizes the basic components of the Resource Cost Model (RCM), a complex school finance formula, and compares and contrasts RCM with Illinois' current method of financing special education. (MLF)

Comprehensive Statewide planning requires a change to a more open political style that will enlarge the opportunities for educators to exert their leadership in the mix of politics and planning. Wider discussion of objectives, more realistic appraisals of education's role as a state resource, and reaching essential agreements with political…

The focus of this article is upon an approach to allocating educational resources which is structured to minimize existing inadequacies in distribution procedures. It also presents some practical problems encountered in initiating a new allocation procedure at the State level. (Author)

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…

After explaining briefly the history of educational funding in the United States, the authors discuss the current revenue sources and fiscal status of American public school facilities financing. Included are three tables with state-by-state information concerning bond referenda, public school bonded indebtedness, and debt loads. (JBM)

Affirming the basic value of the emphasis in much recent literature on the need for increased school effectiveness, the author argues that more attention should be given to the problem of "school climate" and to a resolution of the tension between state-mandated uniformity and school-level autonomy. (JBM)