Fowler: Chapter 10

Implementation-- how do we actually get policies implemented??
Implementation can never be taken for granted- p. 241.  Fowler goes on to say that educators need to be actively engaged in the implementation process, as their jobs are heavily tied to policy implementation.

Who are the players?
-Formal- government officials
-Intermediaries- formal implementer delegates responsibility-- will and capacity of intermediaries is what affects successful policy implementation

Reasons why implementations cannot work in educational policy? Implementation is difficult!

1. didn't understand change
2. didn't know how to use new pedagogy
3. materials needed to establish open classrooms not available
4. culture of institution not consistent with new policy
5. teachers became discouraged and lost motivation 

Examples from 1984 study by Hiberman and Miles- p. 247

Highly successful implementations-- administrators deeply committed to new program.  new policy fit with institution

Relatively successful-- crusading atmosphere among teachers-- helped each other

relatively unsuccessful- supportive at first, offered little assistance

failures- poorly designed and leaders never really interested in implementation

With implementation, there needs to be a good amount of cognitive dissonance-- people use their previous experiences and learning to develop new schemas, but it's hard to bring something new into that schema.  They want to understand bast on past experiences, and it is up to the leaders to lead the charge to help teachers and others to learn new schemas.

Scaling up-- deliberate expansion of externally developed school-restructuring design that previously has been used successfully in smaller settings.

--internal and structural changes the hardest.  culture of many schools does not support collaborative in the way that many reforms require.  external challenges also exist with testing and individual state mandates schools must adhere to.  

How to implement a new policy?

Mobilization

Must answer three key questions in the affirmative:

Do we have good reasons for adopting a new policy?

Is the policy appropriate for our school or district?

Does the policy we are considering have sufficient support among key state holders?

Planning for implementation

Planning is essential-- and whether is is a large or small steering committee, it must include building principals and teachers.

Forward mapping

Money-- most policies supported through grants

Time

Personnel-- espeically a project director or coordinator

Space

Equipment and Materials

Stages of Implementation

Early-- first months will be rough.  be careful in deciding to midgetizing-- by making some of the policy changes smaller, one can make it less worthwhile and meaningful.

Late-- depends on if early was successful.  Decide what works, what doesn't, and eliminate the ineffective components and replace with more effective ones.

Cross-cutting themes- monitoring and feedback, ongoing assistance, coping with problems

Resistance-- self-interest, conflicts with professional values-- exit, voice, and disloyalty
Coping with resistance is key!!!

Under final points, Fowler argues that there is no excuse for failure.  But then why does it still happen if we have the tools?

Fowler- Chapter 7

Fowler's chapter seven discusses issue definition and agenda setting.  Fowler used a great story to start the chapter with the moral of the story being that as human beings, "we have a powerful desire to perceive the reality we think we should perceive."  pg. 148.  This certainly has strong implications for policy as well as the idea of playing the game.  Education leaders need to play the game and be ahead of the game, so that they are not blind-sighted with new policies that require implementation.

Figures 7.1-7.3 discuss problems in schools, how they relate to policy, and how policies relate to student motivation.  The big thing that stands out to me is motivation, incentives, and morale--with morale crossing over with every point.

EPPRC- Education Policy Planning and Research Community-- loosely linked set of institutions, para private
Funding- outright donations, endowment, grants, contracts
***I knew the Gates Foundation was a big player, but I did not realize that in less than 10 years of its founding in 2004, it is the third most important education organization, after Congress and USDOE.

I liked when Fowler talked about research and how many say that basic research isn't practical-- BUT without basic research, there would be nothing to build on for the more advanced research (like applied and integrative research).

"Food is essential to a successful think tank" (pg. 156).  This applies not only to think tanks, but for anything.  Food is a good incentive to get people to show up.  Think about any community, work, or student related event.  Yes, the content is important but without the food, there would be barely anyone there to listen, discuss, and share.

Elements of Skillful Issue Definition

1. Claims
2. Evidence
3. Solution
4. Discourse-- powerful language
5. Broad Appeal-- but does this then water down the policy?

Policy Agenda-- systematic agenda (people outside government-- (1) professional agenda, (2) media agenda, (3) public agenda) and governmental agenda.

 **Access to policy agenda is highly competitive!

Nondecision-- failure to act.  Sometimes easier to push aside than to have an outright now-- at least for the government officials, not those this policies affects.  

From Fowler's text, attention to an issue is what helps a policy attract support and to keep it in the public eye.

Influencing Agenda Setting- knowledge, allies, organizational effectiveness

Fowler-- Chapter 9 and 11

Chapter 9
An important part of being a school leader is to look at policies and scrutinize them as administrators are the ones to develop policies in some instances and implementing others' policies in other cases.

Fowler presents three lenses in which to critically look at policies:

1. Lowi's Techniques of Control
• three basic types of policies-- distributive (bestow gifts such as goods and services to citizens), regulatory (formal rules applied to large groups of people), redistributive (shifts resources from one social group to another)-- each has its own political arena
• not one of Lowi's policies fits, in many cases they are overlapping.  Fowler argues that in the long term, all policies are both regulatory and redistributive (pg. 219).
• Lowi's policies help manage policy change in the long-term.  Fowler suggests that wise leaders shouldn't make too many changes at once and to ensure that many people are not at the end of too many changes,
2. McDonnell and Elmore's Policy Instruments
• mandates-- rules that consist of language and penalties for those who do not comply with the rules.  The MOST popular.  
• inducements-- money transferred to indiv/agencies in return for goods and services
• capacity building-- money given in purpose of investing in intellectual or human resources
• system changing-- transfers authorities among indiv/agencies
• persuasion (fifth added later)-- sends a signal that goals and actions are considered a high priority
• COMBINATION-- coherence is an effective combo of the above policy instruments
3. Cost Analysis and Cost-effectiveness Analyses
• combo of personnel, facilities, and required client inputs
• also consider tangible and intangible costs and benefits
• systematic way to compare alternative methods to reach goals

Chapter 11
This chapter considered evaluation and if policies really do work.  On pg. 278, Fowler discusses that many policies are never evaluated or at least not evaluated carefully, so no one is able to act on the findings.  Evaluations are "nervous making".

Important terms for policy evaluation-- evaluation, project, program, stakeholder

Basic steps

1. determine goals of policy
2. select indicators
3. develop how data will be collected
4. collect data
5. analyze and summarize data
6. write evaluation
7. respond to evaluators' recommendations

Methodologies that can be used

• quantitative
• qualitative
• holistic-- use both

Evaluations are almost always political :( and there are maneuvers to prevent a good evaluation 

Acting on an evaluation report-- a variety of options

• inaction
• minor modifications
• major modifications-- replacement, consolidation, splitting, decrementing
• termination

Fowler Chapter Four

The Political System and Political Culture

We have a distinctive political system-- "clumsier" than parliamentary system, which is still considered to be more efficient.

pg. 63-- Political culture- particular pattern of orientation to political action in which a political system is embedded

Federalism-- several governments share sovereign powers among themselves.  It's a pendulum over time where more power is given to states than the federal government and vice versa.  With new federalism, "the overall effect...was to reduce the relative importance of the federal government in education policymaking, while increasing the relative importance of the states" (pg. 69)

--Although states normally give power to local school districts for education policy implementation and curriculum-- sometimes, state governments step in to take over for floundering school districts.  Of course, when the state gives money to local districts, they want to know where the money goes.  This struck a chord with what Kelly Hastings said (from Lou Baretta's office).  One of her complaints about Race for the Top is that money was given to states without having to account for it back with the federal government.

--Competition among governance bodies-- everyone wants money and power and will jockey to get more.  What else is new?

Elections- this compared the US (in constant state of election) to Parliamentary systems (elected officials serve as long as their party has public support).  I don't know which one is better-- I guess parliamentary systems make the party stronger than any individual-- do officials have to stay directly along party lines to stay in favor?
--Windows of opportunity- often with a change of administration there is an opportunity for innovative policy.  Know this will happen if Romney is elected-- what/will anything change if Obama is re-elected?  Networking is key-- taking advantage of windows of opportunity

Three political cultures (can be grouped by states in general but always pockets of different groups in an individual state)

• Individualistic
• dominant in south
• ambivalence toward market and unrestrained commercial enterprise
• government positive source in society
• local elite involved
• Moralistic
• New England
• favor activist government
• believe education is part of the common good
• also seen in college towns, more educated communities
• Traditionalistic  
• Mid Atlantic
• politics is a type of marketplace-- businesslike, pragmatic, economic orientation

Fowler- Chapters 2 and 5

Chapter 2- Power and Education Policy

What is power?-- the ability to affect the behavior of another actor.  Power is not absolute.  Someone with power in one setting can then be powerless in another setting.

Discourse- the language and talking in order to reach a policy decision (or just having a discussion)

• text
• social events
• social practice

Three Dimensional Model of Power- explicit uses of power, mobilization of bias, shaping of consciousness

Explicit use of Power- if not directly observable, then readily deduced from observable evidence

• Types of power- force (physical or psychic force to damage a self-concept), economic dominance, authority (authority depends on legitimacy), and persuasion (convincing that the desired behavior is good

Mobilization of Bias- in regards to race, parental involvement, gender, class, etc

Shaping of Consciousness

• Many social constructs are important in shaping this-- family, language, media, school, religion

Important quote-- "Achieving a policy goal often requires building power.  People build power by obtaining more, or different, power resources" (p. 38)

There are certainly dangers in power, and Fowler recommends discursive power ethically with respect, commitment to valid information, and freedom of choice.  

Chapter 5- Values and Ideology

This chapter focuses on the importance of people's own ideas, but recognizes that leaders in today's schools have to understand the surrounding politics, so they can think intelligently about education policy.

Ideas, beliefs, and values are important

1. shape how people define policy problems
2. constrain people's ability to perceive possible solutions (limit)

General Social Values

1. Order
2. Individualism
3. liberty
4. equality
5. fraternity
6. efficiency
7. economic growth
8. quality

Values in US Politics

• 1950s-1980s- everyone acted in self-interest
• Self-interest values- economic, power
• 1980s- present- act in both self-interest and other values like personal principles-- ideological, philosophical, or religious.  Fowler believes people are more like this, but it may, unfortunately, be too optimistic.  
• Social values- order, individualism
• Democratic values- liberty (freedom, choice), Equality (opportunity and./or results), fraternity (perceive closeness with others, sense of responsibility for them, can turn to others for help)
• Economic values- efficiency and economic growth

There are cyclical shifts in dominant values-- Low's policy type perspectives.  There is a constant search for balance.

Ideology certainly affects policy, particularly with politics

• Conservatism
• Business- motivated by self/economic interest
• Religious- resurgence of religious fundamentalism 
• Tea Party- less government, lower taxes, greatly reduced national debt
• Liberalism
• New Democrats- skeptical of entitled groups, especially those designed to give help to disadvantaged-- addressing symptoms instead of causes
• Progressive Democrats- suspicious of bug business and large companies, want to enhance power of ordinary citizens

Another section discusses how school leaders are caught in the ideological crossfire.  This is highly problematic at every level-- and in many cases, politics (particularly religion) does not have its place in the school system (my opinion...)  I don't know how to keep it out, but it always seems to seep in... 

Fowler- Chapter 8

Chapter 8 in Fowler discusses the third and fourth stages in the policy process- formulation and adoption.

I learned a lot from this chapter that I never really thought about before.  "Battles fought on two fronts:  words and money" (p. 174). One piece was language.  On page 173 Fowler discusses that policy makers understand that their choice of words really matters.  For example- in saying may rather than must, it gives a lot of leeway to those enacting the policy and almost the option of not enacting anything when the language is "may."  The other is funding and that policy can be passed into law but the government passing these laws have no obligation to fund them.  Seriously?  Then what's the point?

Legislative Proposals and Where They Come From

• legislature
• more power- only group that can introduce directly into legislature
• president or governor
• administrative agencies 
• interest groups

Important Quote to note-- p. 177- "Education leaders may find it sobering that education interest groups were relatively unimportant; even more sobering is that both instances of education interest groups influence teachers' groups"

The next section discussed how bills move through a legislature and how a policy is adopted with policy actors.  I underlined and made stars by the term companion bill-- if only the lower and upper houses would coordinate-- think of how much more efficient our government would be!

With budgets at the state-level, I do not agree or like that in many states governors can have line-item vetoes   The example of Texas was great where the governor can sent the spending ceiling, and it is up to the legislature how the money is spent and allocated.

After laws comes rules, and administrative rules are made for a variety of reasons

1. fill in gaps from laws
2. defining key terms
3. administrative agencies use them t define their own internal procedures
• complaints with this include that the rule making here is undemocratic and inefficient/rigid

Judges can also act as policy actors-- and often their political ideologies influence how their interpret rules and how they implement case law.  Nevertheless, judges can only react when a case is brought to them; they cannot seek to change laws on their own.

How do people keep up with all the new and different rules and policies?  Fowler on p. 196 believes that it's everyone's responsibility-- but in many cases, it falls on principals and superintendents.  

To influence policy formation and adoption, there are three general approaches-- with all "the time to make friends is before you need them" (Turner as quoted in Fowler, p. 198)

1. government relations
2. working through professional organizations
3. lobbying

Another quote that stood out to me- "Legislators will make laws with or without you.  They will make better ones with you"  (p. 200)

-Great examples in this section, but they weren't the most heartwarming.  In most cases, bills passed and minor exceptions were made-- still didn't seem like legislators listened to other policy actors as much as they should :(

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?

Week Three- Fowler Reading

Chapter One
Summary and Reaction

I love that the book started with a Wizard of Oz reference.  Besides for being one of my favorite movies, the quote, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," is very relevant to where we are in educational policy. We don't know if the direction we're going in is the correct one (NCLB) but going in another direction is an uphill battle and other potential directions are unclear.

Fowler offers her definition of policy, but also provides other definitions.  I liked reading through these, and there were certainly some that resonated with me.

"Policy sometimes is formed from a compromise among political participants...none of whom had quite in the mind the problem to which the agreed problem responds."  Some things to note with this:

• compromise-- policy develops through people giving in to constituencies and no one quite being happy with the result
• one problem "solved", even more problems to combat/understand and deal with 

Fowler took time to go through the history of policies, specifically racial segregation in the schools.

As with statutes, these rules are regulations provide important clues as to what the policy really is.  It is especially important to note whether the rules are written narrowly or broadly.  pg. 6

Policies are always altered during implementation.  pg. 8

School officials had adopted a pattern of inaction that was tacitly supported by the inaction of their state governments.  pg. 9

I believe these quotes summarize implementation of rulings such as Brown v. Board.  I can see many rules and laws being put in place (particularly with compromise) that makes them written very broadly-- making implementation inconsistent among states, districts, etc.  If each group can view the statue differently and implement it as they see fit, the spirit of the law is not met even if techinivally the letter of the law is met.

Figure 1.1 on page 16 shows a diagram of the political process where it flows from one point to the next and vice versa:

Issue Definition

Agenda Setting

Policy Formulation

Policy Adoption

Implementation

Evaluation

Fowler discusses how this happens in different examples through political administrations.  In today's school systems, this system doesn't just exist at the macro level but also in micro levels in school systems, where school officials have to have their hand in policy making and in the individual schools.  

Week Two- Fowler Reflection

Chapter 12
Summary
Four Theoretical Frameworks (to help guide later discussions of policy)

1. Competing values- values are cyclical with importance in US culture.  They change and shift between order and individualism, democratic values, and economic values.
2. Lowi's policy types- historical periods influence/dictate what type of policy is used/wanted at the time.
3. Institutional choice- policy incorporates five different types of institutions (and can incorporate more than one to varying extents)- bureaucracy, legalization, professionalization, politics, and the market
4. International convergence- our systems overtime become closer to those of international systems

Chapter 12 focused on going through time periods and showing how the four theoretical frameworks were applied, with a focus on the educational system.  It started with the birth of the US as a country (young republic) where education wasn't a national focus to the rise of common schools in the mid 1800s where education and some form of compulsory education began to take form.  The scientific sorting machine and searching for a new paradigm take us to present where issues of tracking at the school level and more bureaucratic at the national level begin and continue to take effect.

No Child Left Behind is discussed at a policy level and why it was allowed/passed into law and if it is in fact achieving its goals.

Reactions
I found it interesting that we started with Chapter 12 rather than Chapter 1 or another chapter close to the beginning of the book, but I appreciated the non-linear nature of reading the Fowler book.   In going through history and seeing how educational policy has changed, it is almost amazing to me how legalized education has become.  I see this contrast at the law school-- we were the first law school, starting with John Wythe teaching whatever he felt like to this highly rigid form of education.  The founders did just find with poor apprenticeships with lawyers to be the leaders of a nation, yet we critique lack of experience for all leaders today.  I get it; it just amazes me about how far we came.  Did we move in the right direction?

Some quotes that stood out to me:
pg. 314- "Americans have long regarded education as a cure-all for whatever ails the nations"
In defense of NCLB (the quotes are, not necessarily me)
pg. 319- "represent the resolution of the education reform movements of the 1980s and 1990s"
320- "might have found it impossible to pull together the votes to pass an education reform law if 19 terrorists had not flown airplanes into the World Trade Center..."
320- "teeth or enforcement mechanisms"
321- "pay more attention to certain children than they have in the past"
325- "It is extremely difficult for people whose salaries are paid with public money and who operate schools and school systems using public money to sounds credible when they object to standards and assessments"

Chapter 3
Summary and Reactions
This chapter talked about the economy and demographics.  What stood out to me was how the economy at the time greatly affects policy and school spending (no surprise there).  In addition, I enjoyed reading about demographics within the country and how the suburbs are increasing, urban schools get less funding as poverty rates increases in urban and close suburban areas to city centers, and how diversity is increasing.

Long-range trends in regards to funding were in three ways:  do more with less, do a lot more with a little more, and do a lot more with a lot less.  This puts the burdens on the school systems and private industry to education children through the system.  Chapter 12 said that many times education is seen as a cure-all for whatever ails the nation, but if there isn't an investment in education, how can it cure anything?

I was interested in the pro-con debate:  should the schools teach all children a core curriculum?  I initially thought yes, they absolutely should.  When I thought about it more, I was thinking of a core curriculum like in a college setting, rather than a prescribed everyone do exactly the same thing in order to graduate.  I do think there should be some commonalities across schools and classes, but there needs to be some flexibility for students as individuals and for the community that the school interacts with.