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Implementing State Standards for Science Education: What District Policy Makers Make of the Hoopla
Author(s) -
Spillane James P.,
Callahan Karen A.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of research in science teaching
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.067
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1098-2736
pISSN - 0022-4308
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1098-2736(200005)37:5<401::aid-tea2>3.0.co;2-d
Subject(s) - science education , construct (python library) , national science education standards , state (computer science) , policy analysis , academic standards , science policy , policy sciences , education policy , next generation science standards , school district , process (computing) , perspective (graphical) , political science , public administration , sociology , higher education , pedagogy , law , computer science , algorithm , programming language , artificial intelligence , operating system
Premised on the assumption that school districts play an important role in the implementation of state and federal policy, this article explores the districts' response to state science standards. Adopting a cognitive perspective on the implementation process, the authors examine the ideas about science education that district policy makers construct from science standards. Our analysis illuminates how the ideas about reforming science education that district policy makers come to understand from new science standards contribute to these standards being adapted at the district level in ways that miss or misrepresent their core intent. The article identifies prominent patterns in district policy makers' understandings of the science reforms. Based on this analysis, the authors argue that a cause of implementation failure, rarely examined in the literature, concerns the ways in which local implementers miss or misconstrue the intent of policy proposals. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach: 37: 401–425, 2000