Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T16:22:20.995Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Governance and Educational Expectations in the U.S. States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Paul Manna*
Affiliation:
College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA
Timothy Harwood
Affiliation:
Editorial Projects in Education, Bethesda, MD
*
Paul Manna, College of William & Mary, Department of Government, Thomas Jefferson Program in Public Policy, PO Box 8795, Williamsburg, VA 23187 Email: [email protected]

Abstract

This article analyzes the relationship between U.S. state governance and policies designed to enhance educational expectations. It examines three policy areas: state participation in voluntary National Assessment of Educational Progress testing, state testing requirements for new teachers, and state high school graduation requirements in math and science. In general, it identifies associations between state institutional and political characteristics and the state policies under study. In particular, state policies that impose higher demands on local school districts are more likely to be present in states with more centralized control of their K–12 systems. Furthermore, state partisanship appears to suggest that Republicans favor policies that push power to lower levels of the U.S. intergovernmental system.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alt, James M., and Lowry, Robert C.. 1994. “Divided Government, Fiscal Institutions, and Budget Deficits: Evidence From the States.” American Political Science Review 88:811828.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bali, Valentia A., and Silver, Brian D.. 2006. “Politics, Race, and American State Electoral Reforms After Election 2000.” State Politics & Policy Quarterly 6:2148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumgartner, Frank R., and Jones, Bryan D.. 1993. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Beam, David R., and Conlan, Timothy J.. 2002. “Grants.” In The Tools of Government: A Guide to the New Governance, ed. Salamon, Lester M.. New York: Oxford University Press, 340380.Google Scholar
Beck, Nathaniel, Katz, Jonathan N., and Tucker, Richard. 1998. “Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series-Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable.” American Journal of Political Science 42:12601288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berkman, Michael B., and Plutzer, Eric. 2005. Ten Thousand Democracies: Politics and Public Opinion in America's School Districts. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Beyle, Thad L. 1988. “The Governor as Innovator in the Federal System.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 18:131152.Google Scholar
Briffault, Richard. 2005. “The Local School District in American Law.” In Besieged: School Boards and the Future of Education Politics, ed. Howell, William G.. Washington, DC: Brookings, 2455.Google Scholar
Campbell, Roald F., and Mazzoni, Tim. L. Jr. 1976. State Policy Making for the Public Schools: A Comparative Analysis of Policy Making for the Public Schools in Twelve States and a Treatment of State Governance Models. Berkeley, CA: McCutchan Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
Chubb, John E., and Moe, Terry M.. 1990. Politics, Markets, and America's Schools. Washington, DC: Brookings.Google Scholar
Dometrius, Nelson C. 1999. “Governors: Their Heritage and Future.” In American State and Local Politics: Directions for the 21st Century, eds. Weber, Ronald E. and Brace, Paul. New York: Chatham House, 3870.Google Scholar
Epstein, Noel, ed. 2004. Who's in Charge Here? The Tangled Web of School Governance and Policy. Denver, CO and Washington, DC: Education Commission of the States and Brookings.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., Wright, Gerald C., and McIver, John P.. 1993. Statehouse Democracy: Public Opinion and Policy in the American States. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fenno, Jr., F., Richard 1978. Home Style: House Members in Their Districts. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.Google Scholar
Government Accountability Office. 2005. No Child Left Behind Act: Additional Assistance and Research on Effective Strategies Would Help Rural Districts. Washington, DC: Author.Google Scholar
Gray, Virginia. 1973. “Innovation in the States: A Diffusion Study.” American Political Science Review 67:11741185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, Virginia, and Lowery, David. 1996. The Population Ecology of Interest Representation: Lobbying Communities in the American States. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanushek, Eric A., and Lindseth, Alfred A.. 2009. Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses: Solving the Funding-Achievement Puzzle in America's Public Schools. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heinrich, Carolyn J., and Lynn, Laurence E. Jr., eds. 2000. Governance and Performance: New Perspectives. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Henig, Jeffrey R. 2009. “Mayors, Governors, and Presidents: The New Education Executives and the End of Educational Exceptionalism.” Peabody Journal of Education 84:283299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henig, Jeffrey R. and Rich, Wilbur C., eds. 2004. Mayors in the Middle: Politics, Race, and Mayoral Control of Urban Schools. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hicklin, Alisa, and Meier, Kenneth J.. 2008. “Race, Structure, and State Governments: The Politics of Higher Education Diversity.” The Journal of Politics 70:851860.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howell, William G., ed. 2005. Besieged: School Boards and the Future of Education Politics. Washington, DC: Brookings.Google Scholar
Jacoby, William G., and Schneider, Saundra K.. 2001. “Variability in State Policy Priorities: An Empirical Analysis.” The Journal of Politics 62:544568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jencks, Christopher, and Phillips, Meredith, eds. 1998. The Black-White Test Score Gap. Washington, DC: Brookings.Google Scholar
Jones, Bryan D. 2001. Politics and the Architecture of Choice: Bounded Rationality and Governance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Karch, Andrew. 2007. Democratic Laboratories: Policy Diffusion Among the American States. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knott, Jack H., and Abigail Payne, A.. 2004. “The Impact of State Governance Structures on Management and Performance of Public Organizations: A Study of Higher Education Institutions.” The Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 23:1330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koch, Michael, and Gartner, Scott Sigmund. 2005. “Casualties and Constituencies: Democratic Accountability, Electoral Institutions, and Costly Conflicts.” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 49:874894.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, David E. 2007. “Testing Pendleton's Premise: Do Political Appointees Make Better Bureaucrats?The Journal of Politics 69:10731088.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowry, Robert C. 2001. “Governmental Structure, Trustee Selection, and Public University Prices and Spending: Multiple Means to Similar Ends.” American Journal of Political Science 45:845861.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lusi, Susan F. 1997. The Role of State Departments of Education in Complex School Reform. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Manna, Paul. 2006. School's in: Federalism and the National Education Agenda. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Marschall, Melissa J., Ruhil, Anirudh V.S., and Shah, Paru R.. 2010. “The New Racial Calculus: Electoral Institutions and Black Representation in Local Legislatures.” American Journal of Political Science 54:107124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masters, Nicholas A., Salisbury, Robert H., and Eliot, Thomas H.. 1964. State Politics and the Public Schools: An Exploratory Analysis. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
McCubbins, Matthew D., and Schwartz, Thomas. 1984. “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols Versus Fire Alarms.” American Journal of Political Science 27:165179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGuinn, Patrick J. 2006. No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press.Google Scholar
Mintrom, Michael, and Vergari, Sandra. 1998. “Policy Networks and Innovation Diffusion: The Case of State Education Reforms.” The Journal of Politics 60:126148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, Joseph, ed. 1990. The Educational Reform Movement of the 1980s: Perspectives and Cases. Berkeley, CA: McCutchan Publishing.Google Scholar
National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (NASDTEC). n.d. NASDTEC Manual. Whitinsville, MA: Author.Google Scholar
National Commission on Excellence in Education. 1983. A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
National Governors' Association. 1986. Time for Results: The Governors' 1991 Report on Education. Washington, DC: Author.Google Scholar
Nicholson-Crotty, Jill, and Kenneth J. Meier. 2003. “Politics, Structure, and Public Policy: The Case of Higher Education.” Educational Policy 17:8097.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Petrocik, John R. 1996. “Issue Ownership in Presidential Elections, with a 1980 Case Study.” The Journal of Politics 40:825850.Google Scholar
Ravitch, Diane. 1995. National Standards in American Education: A Citizen's Guide. Washington, DC: Brookings.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, Alan. 1998. The Decline of Representative Democracy: Process, Participation, and Power in State Legislatures. Washington, DC: CQ Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenthal, Alan. 2001. The Third House: Lobbyists and Lobbying in the States (2nd Ed.). Washington, DC: CQ Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spring, Joel. 2002. Political Agendas for Education: From the Religious Right to the Green Party (2nd Ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Tucker, Richard. 1999. BTSCS: A Binary Time-Series Cross-Section Data Analysis Utility (ver. 4.04). Accessed February 2011 from http://www.prio.no/CSCW/Datasets/Stata-Tools/.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Education. 2009. Digest of Education Statistics. Washington, DC: Author.Google Scholar
Wattenberg, Martin P., McAllister, Ian, and Salvanto, Anthony. 2000. “How Voting is Like Taking an SAT Test.” American Politics Research 28:234250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, James Q. 1989. Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Wong, Kenneth K., Shen, Francis X., Anagnostopoulos, Dorothea, and Rutledge, Stacey. 2007. The Education Mayor: Improving America's Schools. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar