Week Four- Fowler Chapter Six

This chapter discusses the policy actors or participants in education law and policy.  Fowler felt focusing on the state level was important because little is known about state politics and govenment as opposed to these on the state level.  I find that to absolutely true--I know very little about the state level, and even less about the state level in Virginia since I grew up in New York/Pennsylvania.  It's ironic, as I feel like I should know more as a Virginia state employee.

Here are the players:

• Government
• legislature
• Executive branch--governors- "issue catalysts" in policymaking-- and other staff such as state boards
• judicial branch
• local-- 
• school boards- have to follow law but can use larger framework-- must meet minimum qualifications but can go above and beyond (ex- school year must be 180 days but can be longer)
• Superintendents-- see not below on Ole Boys club
• Nongovernment
• interest groups
• education--most important= teacher's union
• business-- most influential non-education interest group
• Policy networks
• Media

It was really interesting to read about the legislative branch and how most state legislatures are not viewed as highly professional.  I believe that many states do not have their legislatures as full-time.  I can understand the cost implications of this, but I also wonder (since many of them are in business/industry) if their loyalties lay with their constituencies or the interests of the employer who pays their larger paycheck?

Ole Boys Club

This theme kept emerging in Chapter 6, in some ways verbatim but indirectly in others.  Pg. 127 expresses that state legislators often do not demographically represent the people they represent.  State legislators are constantly running for re-election and must have independent sources of money to not necessarily hold another full-time job and connections to be able to keep running for election.  This severely limits who has the ability to run and hold office. 

Furthermore, demographics are not the case for superintendents within school districts.  Only 4% were African American or Hispanic in 2010 (pg. 135), and 25% were women.

Questions

The speaker of the house in VA-- Tommy Norment is a WM alumnus-- I wonder how this connection helps our students and the College in resources allocated in the legislature?  Or doesn't it?