3
and the ability of interest groups and narrow party constituencies to block public demands for
policy reform. To understand how No Child Left Behind and the expanded federal role in
education came to pass—and to understand the political dynamics that continue to shape
federal education policy—this paper places the evolution of the federal role in schools within
the context of broader institutional, ideational, and political changes in American politics
between 1965 and 2002. Only by understanding the unique dynamics of federal education
politics will reformers be able to craft a more effective national role in school reform.
1
Like earlier issues such as poverty, the environment, deregulation, and immigration,
education emerged in the 1980s and 1990s from relative obscurity in national politics to
assume a prominent place on the federal policymaking agenda. The emergence of each of
these issues was due to the development of new policy images that fundamentally altered
public and elite perceptions of the nature of the policy problem and the appropriate
government response and in so doing changed their political and policymaking dynamics.
Unlike these other issues, however, education was viewed by voters as one of the top issues in
the country by the middle of the 1990s and it came to play a central role in wider debates
about promoting opportunity and economic development. While issue evolution in the areas
of poverty, the environment, regulation, and immigration resulted in some important changes
in policy, the issue evolution in education reverberated throughout the political system and
became one of the central questions of contemporary American electoral politics.
1 As Wirt and Kirst noted in their recent survey of the literature in this area, “The [current] gaps in education
politics research will hinder our ability to devise policy solutions to many urgent education problems.”
Frederick Wirt and Michael Kirst. The Political Dynamics of American Education (Berkeley: McCutchan
Publishing, 1997) 342.
Convention