A study was conducted of the social and economic costs of persistently high youth unemployment in Australia. The impact of youth unemployment and education, training, and employment policies that might help the situation were also studied. Data were obtained from 13 focus groups, involving 102 young people who were not employed or were from…

In 1989, national attention was given to the unusual amount of cooperation and social connections among key policy actors in a major school-finance lawsuit in Kentucky. The case resulted in a judicial ruling declaring the entire state's school system unconstitutional. Accounts of this ruling attributed the unprecedented decision partly to…

This paper examines the way changing notions of "risk" have shaped federal educational policy. Section 1 of the paper presents a broad history of federal K-12 legislation and suggests that these programs have been motivated by different conceptions of "risk." Section 2 offers a portrait of the 1994 reauthorization of the…

As mandated by the Immigration Act of 1990, a bipartisan Commission examined and made recommendations about the implementation and impact of the U.S. immigration policy. In examining the immigration policy, the Commission conducted more than 40 public hearings, consultations, and site visits in the United States and some foreign countries. This…

This booklet examines performance-based education accountability systems in the United States. It defines the four components of these accountability systems--standards and assessments, multiple indicators, rewards, and sanctions--and discusses which ones are found in each state and whether or not they appear in law or regulation. All four…

A comprehensive review of research and professional literature on the development of year-round education in the United States is presented in this synthesis, with a focus on policy implementation issues in California. The first part presents an overview of year-round schooling and descriptions of California legislative mandates. Next, a…

This report reviews the information policies that are concerned with, or relevant to, the scientific and technical information of 17 industrialized countries: Australia, Austria, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany (Federal Republic), Hungary, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United…

The last decade has seen the convergence of three trends in the United States: a decline in the well-being of America's children; increasing overlap between the educational policy agenda and a broader policy agenda for children; and a shift in responsibility for social policy from the federal to the state level. This paper examines the current…

Progress made by African governments toward improving their educational policies is described in this collection of papers, which were presented at a conference cosponsored by the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Since the mid-1980s, several educational policy adjustment programs have been initiated in…

The relationship between policymaking and implementation and its impact on educational change is explored in this descriptive study of a proposed doctoral research project. Attention is given to how the theory-practice relationship is conceptualized by key participants in the formation of a particular reform. Methodology will involve interviews…

Historically, policies and funding guidelines for most federal educational programs have not adequately recognized the diverse nature of rural schools. A dichotomy of rural and urban, or, even a tripartite classification (urban, suburban, and rural) would mask the internal diversity of rural schools. Current efforts to understand the condition of…

Findings of a study that explored how California school reforms are initiated and revised and how differences between the judicial and legislative areas affect policymaking are presented in this document. Two themes--financial reform and retrenchment--are examined at two levels: as a case study about the politics of school finance reform and also…

This paper analyzes the merits of proposals to encourage saving for college by permitting families to use funds accumulated in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA's) to pay postsecondary education expenses. The paper argues that tax treatment of such expenditures might parallel that for expenditures of IRA's for retirement purposes--deferring tax…

The diverse literature on policy design and policy instruments is reviewed in this paper, which also addresses such issues as the definition of a policy design perspective, the categorization and variables of policy instruments, and improvement of the design process. The first part presents a general discussion of the perspective of policy…

This report completes phase 1 of a study of the school choice issue, by summarizing information regarding school choice options currently proposed or implemented in Virginia and other states. Methodology involved: (1) a survey of 127 out of 135 total school divisions; (2) a literature review; (3) interviews with school division personnel, other…