EPS 765
ISSUES IN EDUCATIONAL POLICY ANALYSIS
Fall 2013
Thursdays, 9am–12pm
Education Sciences 218
Professor Erica O. Turner
Educational Policy Studies
Email: eturner4@wisc.edu
Office: Education 227
Office hours: Wednesdays 1-2:30 pm or by appointment
To sign up for a slot, please log on to:
timetrade.com/book/CDXZC
I am also happy to talk briefly before or after class.
Course Description
This graduate-level seminar is an introduction to education policy and analysis. In this course,
we will explore: (1) the purposes of education/policy; (2) theoretical and conceptual approaches
to policy analysis; (3) policy processes, (4) models of education policy, and (5) the act of policy
analysis. While focused on K-12 education policy in the United States, the course is organized to
examine models of education policy so that students may draw connections to issues in higher
education and comparative international education, if they choose to do so. In considering
contemporary, K-12 education policy in the U.S., we will pay attention to: current debates,
policy designs and their assumptions, and findings on implementation and (intended and
unintended) outcomes. In addition, unlike many courses in policy analysis, we will turn a critical
eye to the act of policy analysis itself, considering what it means to be a policy analyst and what
kind of policy analysis students might engage in as part of their practice.
Learning Outcomes
The course is guided by the following objectives:
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You will be knowledgeable about the policy design, assumptions, implementation and
outcomes of contemporary models of education policy
We will identify the strengths and weaknesses of different conceptual and theoretical
approaches to explaining education policy and policy processes
You will have the opportunity to think critically and creatively about contemporary and
enduring questions of education policy
We will reflect on different values, goal, and purposes of education and ethics and social
responsibility in the practice of policy analysis
1 Expectations
The essence of learning is about being introduced to and contemplating new ideas and ways of
thinking. Essential to learning and gaining new ideas is the scholarly exchange of ideas in both
oral and written form. With this in mind, this course emphasizes reading, written work and
classroom discussion. All three are important to developing our individual and collective
understanding of the course content and to being engaged scholars.
To get the most out of class and contribute to the learning of others, everyone is expected to:
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Do the readings and come prepared to discuss these.
In most cases, I’ve ordered the readings in a particular way, so you may find it helpful to
read them in the order presented in this syllabus. As you read, please be attentive to and
take notes on the main ideas and arguments of each reading, the study design, the lens
(theoretical, analytical, methodological) that the author is using and the quality of the
evidence supporting the author’s claims. Additionally, it is very helpful to note your
questions, connections (to other readings, issues, arguments, etc.) and reactions to the
readings. Your notes will help you prepare for class discussion, writing assignments, and
future milestones in your graduate school career.
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Actively engage in class discussion and activities.
Your participation is essential to your learning and that of your classmates. Participation
in class discussion may include, but should not be limited to, describing your own
experiences. Your participation should be connected to the topics, themes, and
scholarship of the course, and the contributions of other class members. This means
grounding your comments in a specific reading or in reference to a colleague’s earlier
remarks. To do this, you must come to class prepared and listen carefully. Please
participate, but please do so in a way that is respectful of others in the classroom:
challenge ideas, not individuals, and be open to hearing differing points of view.
Attendance will be taken and is part of your class participation grade. Please email me
BEFORE class, if you will be absent.
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Communicate with me.
If you have any particular learning needs or strategies, please be in touch with me to
discuss how we can create an effective learning environment for you.
Learning accommodations – To request academic accommodations due to a disability,
contact the UW Madison McBurney Disability Resource Center (263-2741). Please
present a letter of confirmation from this Center no later than the third week of the
semester. Additional information is available at http://www.mcburney.wisc.edu/
Religious Observances – Students who miss course activities to participate in religious
activities will be allowed to make up missed work, provided that they inform the
professor and teaching assistant of such obligations (via email) during the first two weeks
of the semester.
2 Written Assignments
Being in a community of engaged scholars also means entering into conversations that have
already begun. Writing is one of the ways that we do this.
When you draw on the work of others, please be careful to correctly represent that work and to
attribute it to the appropriate sources. If you have questions about how to do this, please consult
the American Psychological Association’s Publication Manual. Parts of this document are
available online or you may find it in the library or bookstore. I also encourage you to consult
with the campus Writing Center (http://www.writing.wisc.edu/) on these issues or any other
writing concerns. They are a wonderful resource.
Your choice
Thursday, October 31
Thursday, December 5
Thursday, December 19
Deadlines for Assignments
Reading reflections
Paper proposal and list of annotated references
Draft of policy paper to share with colleagues
Final policy paper
Reading Reflections
The reading reflections are an opportunity to reflect on assigned readings that are of interest to
you and to prepare thoughtfully for your participation in class. Each student is expected to write
7 reflections. Reflections should be no more than 1-2 pages. You might choose to focus on a
reading or two or to put several readings in conversation with each other. For each reflection you
should: (1) concisely summarize the main argument or part of the reading(s) you will discuss, (2)
detail the reactions, connections, critiques, and questions you have about the reading. Rather than
trying to capture all of your thoughts, it is generally more successful to try to focus on
developing one or two ideas. Using quotes and page numbers will make these reflections more
useful to you in class and in the future. You may turn the papers in to the appropriate class
dropbox anytime before the start of the class for which the readings are assigned.
You may choose to write their reflections anytime over the course of the semester. However, you
are expected to come to class prepared to participate in every session. The briefs will not be
graded, but will constitute a major criterion in judging class preparation and participation and in
allowing me to gauge students’ understanding of these complex topics.
Policy Analysis Paper
The major writing assignment of the course will be a policy analysis. One of the central goals of
policy analysis is to provide knowledge to inform policymakers’ (however you want to define
that) efforts to address key issues or social problems. This paper should be based on your
synthesis of existing research and policy texts (not collection of new data, though that could play
a part). The paper should be written to a specific policymaking audience (school, district, state,
or national level; parents, students, teachers, administrators, board members, state leaders,
national leaders, etc.) with the goal of informing but also arguing for a particular course of action
or approach. The paper should be 20-25 double-spaced pages.
The paper will be due in three stages:
3 1. Proposal and Annotated References – In your proposal (no more than 3 double-spaced
pages), you will:
• describe the issue, reform, or policy and identify a central or key question that you
will try to answer in your paper.
• Identify six to ten sources that you will use to write your paper, write a brief
annotation for each, and include that list with your proposal.
2. Draft Paper – You will bring two hard copies of your proposal to share with colleagues
and incorporate feedback from classmates in your final paper.
3. Final Paper
You may choose a subject based on your own research interests. The subject you choose may be
historical or contemporary; US-based or based in another country; early childhood education, K12, or higher education. When you select your topic, you may want to consider how this research
might inform your future master’s thesis or dissertation research. Whatever you choose to
investigate, this assignment should be based on your analysis of existing research rather than on
an empirical study that you conduct.
Your paper may take one of two approaches:
Analysis of a social or educational “problem”
If you choose this option, your paper should discuss how the problem has been framed,
how it should be understood, policy alternatives for addressing this problem, evidence of
their advantages and disadvantages, and a recommendation.
Analysis of a policy (reform, practice, etc.)
If you choose this option, your paper should discuss the theory of action of a particular
policy, evidence on implementation and/or outcomes (intended and unintended), and a
recommendation.
In addition, your paper will likely need to address issues of context and history of policy or
problem. You will also need to be clear about the audience for your paper. We will discuss this
assignment in greater depth in class.
Grading
Grading for this course is based on your class participation and writing assignments. Grades will
be calculated on the following basis:
Class participation = 25%
Reading reflections = 20%
Proposal and references = 5%
Policy Analysis Project = 50%
4 Required Readings
Ravitch, D. (2010). The Death and Life of the great American school system: How testing
and choice are undermining education. New York: Basic Books.
Stone, D. (2002). Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. New York,
W.W. Norton & Company.
Suggested Reading
Education Week
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (and other major city newspapers)
New York Times
Rethinking Schools
Education Next
(all of these also have online access)
Blogs, Email Blasts, and Other Social Media
Education Week blogs
Weekly Education News Brief by Penn State Department of Education Policy Studies
Contact: Saki Ikoma (sui114@psu.edu)
Public Education NewsBlast by Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP)
5 Course Schedule
*Schedule subject to change
at instructor’s discretion
PART I:
FOUNDATIONS
Week 1: (September 5) – Introduction
No assigned readings.
Week 2: (September 12) – What are the purposes of education and education policy?
Hochschild, J. & Scovronick, N. (2003). What Americans Want From Public Schools. The
American Dream and the Public Schools. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Read from p. 9 to
the top of p. 19.
Labaree, D. (1997). "Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle Over Educational
Goals," American Educational Research Journal 34(1), pp. 39-81.
Stone, D. (2002). Policy as Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. Revised edition.
(Chapter 2: Equity), pp. 39-60.
Freire, P. (1974). Pedagogy of the oppressed. (Rev.) New York: Continnum. (Chapter 2) pp. 5267.
Week 3: (September 19) – What is the U.S., K-12 educational “system” and who are the
players?
Kirst, M.W. & Wirt, F.M. (2009). Overview of the Education Political System. The Political
Dynamics of American Education. Fourth Edition. Richmond, CA: McCutchan Publishing
Corporation. (p. 3-34).
Reckhow, S. (2010). Disseminating and Legitimating a New Approach: The Role of
Foundations. Between Public and Private: Politics, Governance, and the New Portfolio Models
for Urban School Reform. Ed. Katrina E. Bulkley, Jeffrey R. Henig, and Henry M. Levin.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
Meyer, J., & Rowan, B. (2008). The structure of educational organizations. Schools and society:
A sociological approach to education, pp. 217-25.
Hochschild, J. & Scovronick, N. (2003). What Americans Want From Public Schools. The
American Dream and the Public Schools. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Read from p. 19 to
p. 27.
6 Week 4: (September 26) – How have scholars conceptualized education policy and policy
formation?
Stone, D. (2002). Policy as Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. Revised edition.
(Introduction and Chapter 1), pp. 1-34.
Shipps, D. (2003). Pulling together: Civic capacity and urban school reform. American
Educational Research Journal, 40(4), 841-878.
Levinson, B.A.U., Sutton, M., & Winstead, T. (2009). Education Policy as a Practice of Power:
Theoretical Tools, Ethnographic Methods, Democratic Options. Educational Policy 23: 767-95.
Anyon, J. (2005) “What ‘Counts’ as Educational Policy? Notes Toward a New Paradigm,”
Harvard Educational Review, 75(1): 65-88.
*revisit Meyer and Rowan
PART II:
POLICY PROCESSES
Week 5: (October 3) – Problem Definition and the Achievement Gap
Stone, D. (2002). Policy as Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. Revised edition.
(Chapters on problem definition, symbols and numbers, pp. 133-187).
Rothstein, R. (2004). Class and schools: Using social, economic, and educational reform to
close the black-white achievement gap. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute. (Chapter 1:
“Social class, student achievement, and the black-white achievement gap,” pp. 1-60).
Gutiérrez, R. (2008). A “gap-gazing” fetish in mathematics education? Problematizing research
on the achievement gap. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 357-364.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). “From Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding
Achievement in U.S. Schools,” Educational Researcher, 35(7): 3-12.
Week 6: (October 10) – How do we explain a policy decision?
Hochschild, J. & Scovronick, N. (2003). School desegregation. The American Dream and the
Public Schools. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 28 - middle of p. 36.
Dudziak, M. L. (2004). Brown as a Cold War case. The Journal of American History, 91(1), 3242.
7 Heck, R.H. (2004). Punctuated-Equilibrium Theory and the Advocacy Coalition Framework.
Studying Educational and Social Policy: Theoretical Concepts and Research Methods. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. (Chapter 5: Pp. 101-127).
* Review Shipps
Week 7: (October 17) – What explains the disconnect between education policy and
education practice? (Policy Implementation)
* Mid-term evaluation will be completed at the end of class.
* We will split these up these readings
Anagnostopoulos, D. (2003). The new accountability, student failure, and teachers' work in
urban high schools. Educational Policy, 17(3), 291-316.
Spillane, J.P., Reiser, B. & Reimer, T. (2002). “Policy Implementation and Cognition:
Reframing and Refocusing Implementation Research.” Review of Educational Research 72:387–
431.
Diamond, J. B. (2007). Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Rethinking the Connection Between
High-Stakes Testing Policy and Classroom Instruction. Sociology of Education, 80(4): 285-313.
Stein, S. J. (2001). These are your Title I students: Policy language in educational practice.
Policy Sciences 34: 135-156.
Wells, A. S., & Serna, I. (1996). The Politics of Culture: Understanding Local Political
Resistance to Detracking in Racially Mixed Schools. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 93–
119.
*review Levinson, Sutton, & Winstead
Week 8: (October 24) – What is program evaluation and what role does it play in policy?
Rossi, P. H., Lipsey, M. W., & Freeman, H. E. (2004). Education: a Systematic Approach. 7th
ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. (Chapter 1: An Overview of Program
Evaluation, Chapter 5: Expressing and Assessing program theory)
Henig, J. (2009). The New York Times/AFT Charter School Controversy. Spin cycle: How
Research is Used in Policy Debates: The Case of Charter Schools. Washington, DC: Russell
Sage Foundation. (pp.1-14).
Coburn, C. E., Toure, J., & Yamashita, M. (2009). Evidence, interpretation, and persuasion:
Instructional decision making in the district central office. Teachers College Record, 111(4),
1115-1161.
8 Oakes, J. & Rogers, J. (2006). Futures: Students disrupting high school inequality. Learning
Power: Organizing for Education and Justice. New York: Teachers College Press. (p.43-70).
PART III:
EDUCATIONAL ISSUES AND MODELS OF SCHOOL REFORM
Week 9: – (October 31) – Rationalization: Standards, Accountability, and Testing
* Proposal and annotated references due in class
Smith, M. S., & O'Day, J. (1991). Putting the pieces together: Systemic school reform (CPRE
Policy Brief, RB-06-4/91). New Brunswick, NJ: Consortium for Policy Research in Education.
Ravitch, Chapters 3, 4, 6, 8 [We will split these up]
Committee on Incentives and Test-based Accountability in Public Education (2011). Incentives
and Test-based Accountability in Education. Hout, M. & Elliot, S.W. (Eds.). Washington, DC:
National Academies Press. [Executive Summary]
Booher-Jennings, J. (2005). Below the Bubble: “Educational Triage” and the Texas
Accountability System. American Educational Research Journal, 42: 231-268.
Week 10: (November 7) – Choice, Competition, and Privatization: The Market Model
Ravitch - Chapters 7 (you might also want to read chapter 5 which is about what some would call
“corporatization”)
Pedroni, T., & Apple, M. (2005). Conservative alliance building and African American support
of vouchers: The end of Brown's promise or a new beginning?. The Teachers College Record,
107(9), 2068-2105.
Gleason, P., Clark, M., Tuttle, C. C., and Dwoyer, E. (2010). The Evaluation of Charter School
Impacts: Final Report (NCEE 2010-4029). Washington, DC: National Center for Education
Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of
Education. [Executive Summary]
Week 11: (November 14) – Professionalism: Teachers and the Conditions to Support Them
National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future (1996). What Matters Most: Teaching
for America’s Future. New York: National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future.
[Executive Summary].
Hess, F. (2001). Tear down these walls: The case for a radical overhaul of Teacher certification.
www.dlc.org/documents/teacher_certification.pdf
9 Ravitch, chapter 9
Boyd, D., Grossman, P., Lankford, H., Loeb, S., Ronfeldt, M., & Wyckoff, J. (Forthcoming).
Recruiting effective math teachers: How do math immersion teachers compare? Evidence from
New York City. American Education Research Journal.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The Flat World and Education. New York: Teachers College
Press. Pp. 194-233.
Bascia, N. & Rottmann, C. (2011): What’s so important about teachers’ working conditions? The
fatal flaw in North American educational reform, Journal of Education Policy, 26:6, 787-802 To
link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2010.543156
Week 12: (November 21) – Community Resources: “No Excuses” vs. Community Schools
Traub, J. (2000). What no school can do. New York Times Magazine. Available at:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000116mag-traub8.html
Tough, P. (2006). What it takes to make a student. New York Times Magazine. Available at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/magazine/26tough.html?pagewanted=all
Tough, P. (2004, June 24) The Harlem Project. New York Times Magazine. Available at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/magazine/the-harlemproject.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
Otterman, S. (2010). Lauded Harlem schools have their own problems. New York Times.
Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/education/13harlem.html
Curto, Vilsa E., Roland G. Fryer, and Meghan L. Howard (2011). “It May Not Take a Village:
Increasing Achievement Among the Poor.” In Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Murnane, eds.,
Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances. New York and
Chicago: Russell Sage Foundation and Spencer. Ch. 23, pp. 483- 505.
Tough, P. (2011). Reforming the Reformers. New York Times Magazine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/magazine/reforming-the-school-reformers.html
Scott, A. (2013). One School, One Year: A Look inside Oyler school. Marketplace (Marketplace
Special Report). American Public Media. Available at:
http://www.marketplace.org/sites/default/iframes/oneschool/index.html [Read all 6 pages]
Week 13: (November 28)– No Class – Happy Thanksgiving!
10 Week 14: (December 5) – Democracy: Community Participation, Control and Organizing
*Draft policy paper due in class
*You will read one chapter assigned from Perlstein and come prepared to represent the
person/group profiled in the chapter you read in a debate about community control of the
schools.
* Everyone reads the others.
Perlstein, D. (2004). Justice, Justice: School Politics and the Eclipse of White Liberalism. New
York: Peter Lang. (Chapter 1, 2, 6 & 8). [add another chapter]
Warren, M. (2005). Communities and Schools: A New View of Urban Education Reform.
Harvard Educational Review, 75, 133-173
Designs for Change. (2012). Chicago’s Democratically-Led Elementary Schools Far OutPerform Chicago’s “Turnaround Schools”
http://www.designsforchange.org/democracy_vs_turnarounds.pdf
PART IV:
TOWARDS A NEW POLICY ANALYSIS?
Week 15: (December 12) Rethinking policy analysis & Wrap Up
Fisher, F. (2003). Reframing Public Policy: Discursive Politics and Deliberative Practices.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Chapter 11).
Dyrness, A. (2011). Mothers United: An Immigrant Struggle for Socially Just Education,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, (“Conclusion: Participatory Research and the
Politics of Change,” pp. 199-221).
The California Collaborative for District Reform (n.d.). What is the Collaborative? Available at:
http://www.cacollaborative.org/about-us/what-is-the-collaborative/
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