Tim L. Mazzoni

Analyzing State School Policymaking: An Arena Model.

Case study findings on the politics of public school choice in Minnesota are used to explore an arena perspective on how state governments might legislate controversial school restructuring initiatives. The initial conceptual model, which posits a shift from the subsystem arena to the macro arena as being fundamental to policy breakthroughs, proved to be too narrow. It ignored the innovative potential of the commission arena and particularly the leadership arena. Minnesota findings suggest that it is in the latter arena where strategically placed lawmakers can exploit their power resources to exert significant leverage on restructuring legislation for American public schools.

The Changing Politics of State Education Policy Making: A 20-Year Minnesota Perspective:

Twenty existing case studies of state decision making on education issues from 1971 to 1991 are analyzed to portray the changing nature of Minnesota’s education policy system and to consider whether Iannaccone’s oft-used “structural linkage” typology retains explanatory power. Minnesota’s system has become more pluralistic, politicized, and bureaucratized. It is buffeted by state revenue fluctuations and by national—and global—forces. But its reformist tradition continues as does its considerable capacity for policy innovation. Reformulations of the Iannaccone typology find some support in Minnesota data. Other perspectives, however, clearly hold more promise for policy process research in education.

Big Business as a Policy Innovator in State School Reform: A Minnesota Case Study

Case study findings on the 1985 session of the Minnesota Legislature, particularly the “open enrollment” controversy, are used to analyze the Minnesota Business Partnership as a policy innovator in state school reform. This role is examined in relation to three processes: agenda setting, alternative formulation, and authoritative enactment. Pluralist involvement, not elite dominance, characterized Partnership efforts, with its chief impact being on agenda setting by the Governor’s office. Despite impressive power resources, Partnership influence was modest, a result partly of issue, arena, and organizational constraints. More fundamentally, Partnership influence was mediated through elected officials, contested by established subsystem interests, and conditioned by public acceptability. Increasingly, the Partnership has adapted to the demands of incremental politics in seeking policy innovation in Minnesota K-12 education.

State Policy Making and Public School Choice in Minnesota: From Confrontation to Compromise.

School reform in Minnesota has not featured A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) prescriptions, comprehensive legislation, or massive infusions of new money. State policy enactments since 1983 have consisted mostly of improvement initiatives in such areas as educational technology, school effectiveness, early childhood programs, and mastery learning. Much reliance has been placed on demonstration sites and inducements for district cooperation. On balance, the states approach has been modest in scope, homegrown in origin, and local in orientation (Krupey, 1985; Mazzoni & Sullivan, 1986). Incremental reform has not been without its critics in Minnesota.

Mobilizing Constituency Pressure to Influence State Education Policy Making

Minnesota case studies on the issue of tax concessions for private school parents provide the basis for an analysis of the political strategy of constituency mobilization and its policy impact. A generalized model is thenpresented, and it is discussed in relationship to the pluralist bargaining description of state education policy making.

Influentials in State Policymaking for the Public Schools

This paper reports the findings of the Educational Governance Project. A comparative study was conducted of educational policy systems addressing itself to two major issues: (1) a determination of the influential actors in the process through which the states establish public school policy and (2) the factors that account for state-by-state variation in the policymaking influence of a particu lar actor. The Project was directed by Roald F. Campbell and Tim L. Mazzoni, Jr.