This article examines early implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act's (NCLB) accountability provisions. Theoretically, the author explains how executing education policy in the United States requires federal officials to employ tactics designed to assert control over state implementers while persuading them to adopt federal priorities as…

A theory of policy implementation, as opposed to policy results, would allow analysts to estimate how government programs would actually work. To help achieve such a theory, a general framework is presented along with testable propositions about the implementation of federal programs. Implementation is defined as including two components: the…

Named as Title I director for the Espanola (New Mexico) School District in the mid-1960s, Gilbert Martinez redirected the early grants from equipment purchases to development of kindergartens, centralized elementary school libraries, and free lunch programs. New Mexico's program improvement mandates stress curriculum integration and evaluation…

This memorandum responds to a request from the House Subcommittee on Census and Population for information concering the planning for the 1990 Census. It identifies eleven major issues concerning the implementation of the 1990 Census: (1) determination of who shall be counted; (2) provision of data for apportionment and redistricting; (3)…

Federal education policy should: (1) define objectives and targets of its activities more precisely; (2) define minimal conditions of organizational performance; (3) distinguish among sources of variability in state-local program implementation; and (4) specify the relationship between strategy and structure. (CJ)

The United States Department of Education's tenth annual report on the implementation of Public Law 94-142 contains improvements but shows overdependence on reporting numbers of students without descriptions of evolutions in service delivery, and raises questions about the effectiveness of monitoring efforts carried out by the Office of Special…

This paper provides additional guidance to states in the form of supplemental questions and answers to facilitate the development of policy for service delivery areas (SDAs) and other subrecipients of funding under the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) Amendments, which took effect on July 1, 1993. Topics covered are the following: definitions,…

The aim of this paper is to indicate how Project Follow Through can contribute to a better-integrated and rationalized federal programming strategy. The first section identifies areas in which federal programs have consistently succeeded or failed and presents reasons why those outcomes are probably the inevitable results of the policy tools that…

The intent of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 to eliminate the large exploitable subclass of undocumented immigrants living within the borders of the United States cannot be achieved through the methods chosen for its implementation. IRCA was designed to legalize the status of undocumented immigrants and to prevent more…

Implementation is actually a complex and continuous process of policy evolution. Thus, the implementation of a policy idea will vary because not all the policy's many potentialities will be recognized and because any given idea will be interpreted differently in different settings. (Author/IRT)

This report examines how Head Start programs have implemented teacher salary increases mandated and funded by the 1990 Head Start Expansion and Quality Improvement Act. It is based on quantitative data found in local grantees' and delegate agencies' reports to the Head Start Bureau on salaries and related questions, as well as qualitative data…

Rural schools, which comprise 67% of the nation's school systems, experience distinct educational environments and have unique strengths and weaknesses. Quality research to assess the effectiveness of rural education has been hampered by inconsistently applied definitions of "rural" and inadequate data to compare rural and urban…

Discusses effects of federal educational funding on procedural changes, structural changes, personnel opportunities, and student access at local levels since 1965. Suggests that federal programs have had the most pervasive impact on minority group education and that impacts have been greater than the percentage of federal dollars allocated to…

The problem of differential and uniform treatment of states, from the federal government's point of view, is examined, including the federal role and the various instruments available for achieving federal purposes. State governments' perspectives are also examined, including ways in which states differ, implementation of federal policy, and…

There has been an expansion of the role played by organized labor in vocational training. The number of apprenticeable occupations has been increasing with the growing addition of nontraditional skill areas. Government-funded training programs provide necessary resources for program development and implementation. (CT)