State Education Policy Makers: Who Are They and How Do They Approach the Policy-Making Process?

• In Event: 58.054 - Power and Politics in State and Federal Policy: Polarized Discourse, Shifting Governmental Arrangements, Subversive Messages, and Influential Policy Networks

Abstract

State legislatures, as part of their constitutional responsibility to provide public education, have long held authority to determine education policy. However, for most of American history, state legislatures have deliberately chosen to reallocate policymaking power to more localized units of government, namely local school boards. In recent history, however, these special governance arrangements have begun to erode (Henig, 2013). As state policymakers – including both state legislators and state board of education members – reassert their power in the education policymaking process, it is critical to understand how these individuals think about their roles in the education policymaking process. In this paper, I examine how individual characteristics as well as institutional arrangements shape how state policymakers approach the education policymaking process.

Author

• Rachel Sue White, Old Dominion University