This paper asserts that whether the issue is teen pregnancy, sexual harassment in schools, or the underutilization of women's leadership in schools, little funding goes to research or programs putting women at the center of these issues. At first glance, the deliberations of school boards, deans, judges, lawmakers, and professional associations appear as orderly, rules-driven, decision making informed by estimates, evaluations, and technical analyses provided by experts. The central thrust of the federal policies for gender equality was opening access to white male domains. Title IX "sounds" impressive, but to this date only 11% of school superintendents are female, there is still sexual harassment in schools, and disproportionately high expenditures for football programs for boys exist along with under funded extracurricular programs that girls can participate in. Deeper analysis is needed to develop stronger policy centered on women. Critical theorists place at the center of analysis the power, policies, and structures that resist access. Insiders in policy debates are creating the master narrative, so that the analyst (an outsider) must identify the value-laden and various interpretations of those insiders, studying policies from the inside, uncovering evaluative presumptions and "policy makers theoretical premises and actions." Feminist theory-driven questioning will not only inform gender equity issues, it will expand the questions, models, and methods--demonstrating openings for a rich and democratizing agenda for education policy analysts to embrace, demanding that these issues be included in all policy analyses: gender, the public sphere and master narratives; counter-publics' policy issues; state intervention; "outing" symbolic policy and simplistic tendencies; the historical and comparative perspective and the effects of political/economic shifts; moving beyond essential labels; and critiquing bureaucracy, leadership, power, and community. To expand research methodologies, feminist theory-driven questions must be employed. (Contains 12 notes and 68 references.) (BT)