Grabbing the Brass Ring

Abstract

This article examines the shift in the locus of decision-making authority across more than 25 years of policy efforts to improve teaching effectiveness. Previously the province of local government, states assumed the lion’s share of authority for teaching policy during the 1980s and 1990s. As states and the federal government rose to education policy dominance, powerful extragovernmental actors—the business community in the 1980s and 1990s, philanthropic foundations in the last decade—captured much of the policy conversation and put their respective stamps on the teacher policy agenda. Their influence has rivaled, arguably at times eclipsed, that of elected government officials. This article explores this still-evolving phenomenon. We find that the current federal government-foundation nexus seems to be strengthening. Although it is too soon to tell whether this relationship is permanent or ephemeral, it is clear that its impact on state and local teaching policy is already significant.