State Governance of Education

The authors report on major trends and emerging issues in state education policy-making. Two parts cover, first, the history, status, and future of educational governance and, second, the alternatives open to state leaders in structuring and using education commissions. In accounting for trends in educational governance, the authors consider such influences as teacher recruitment, the impact of technology, the needs of special students, and changing administrative practices. The governing structures of elementary/secondary education are classified in four models, emphasizing the differing roles of governors, legislatures, state school officers, and boards and departments of education. The present structures and issues in state governance of higher education are also identified. The second section reports the findings of two studies conducted by the Educational Governance Center. In the first study, interviews with participants in seven states from nine educational commissions provided information on the selection of commission members, their specific duties, the logistics of their meetings, the political climates, the specifying of goals, and comparative commission structures. Another study on the influences on legislative voting analyzed votes on school finance reform to discover legislators' priorities in votes on educational funding.