Reformers or Roadblocks: Educational Interest Groups and State Policy Formation.

Given the overt political nature of this topic, an additional theoretical postulate, the Triadic Theory of Power was also presented as another framework to conceptualize the external and internal forces which shape the formation of contemporary education policy. Predicated upon the scholarship of Nobel laureate James Q. Wilson, Andrew McFarland (1987) a British scholar and political scientist postulated that legislation and policy development emerged from a continuous con ict between divergent forces such as grassroots political activists, appointed cabinet members, elected legislative representatives, and lobbyists employed by special interest groups. The utilization of either of these theoretical assertions would be extremely bene cial in the event of a partisan shift in any given legislative chamber. This literature review provides the documentation that creating legislation re ective of the electorate's values is not an easy process for the nation's cadre of elected o cials. With perseverance, these leaders must attempt to maintain state constitutional duciary obligations, while securing the revenues necessary for implementing partisan proclivities and constituent programs. Within this system of policy development, the in uence of lobbyists representing various special interest groups has created an additional layer of representation in the state capitals. note: This module has been peer-reviewed, accepted, and sanctioned by the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA) as a scholarly contribution to the knowledge base in educational administration. ∗Version 1.2: May 19, 2008 1:33 pm -0500 †http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ http://cnx.org/content/m16123/1.2/ OpenStax-CNX module: m16123 2 The reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 required that Congressional representatives solicit and incorporate public comment from various segments of the education community. Parents, administrators, researchers, teachers, and students across the political spectrum pro ered their opinions and recommended modi cations to this landmark piece of education policy. Given that the federal government now has an expansive role in determining the long-term viability of the nation's schools it would appear there is marginal exibility a orded to state governors and legislators to exert their constitutional responsibilities granted under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This has not always been the case; up until the rati cation of NCLB, state governments were given an enormous amount of latitude to craft their own K-12 education policy. As part of this process, lobbyists from various educational interest groups tenaciously have attempted to persuade state lawmakers to advance and codify their speci c policy agendas. Therefore, in order for scholars to understand the in uence and leadership exerted by interest groups within state legislatures, it is necessary to examine the research regarding this topic that has been published in various books, journals, and dissertations. It also behooves scholars with a keen interest in the formulation of public policy to analyze pertinent primary sources. The goal of this literature review is to critique objectively the literature from purposely chosen publications, which focus on the philosophy of representation, interest group theory and practice, and state education policy formation. To delineate the ndings of credible scholars who have concentrated on interest groups' in uences upon public policy formulation, this critique is comprised of three di erent sections. Each of the components is designed speci cally to build upon the ndings of the preceding segment. The rst section is primarily historical and focuses on the philosophical ideas postulated by John Locke, including his concepts regarding an elected legislature. Building on this rst section, the second portion examines critically the research regarding the theoretical concepts of interest groups and lobbyists. The third portion of the literature review is devoted speci cally to the rise and in uence of educational interest groups within various state legislatures. The following three research methods were used to obtain the literature samples: traditional library inquiries, electronic database retrievals, and archival investigations. With the exception of the philosophical foundation section, key words such as lobbying, lobby strategy, interest groups, and education were used as the subject identi ers in the Journal Storage (JSTOR) and Dissertations Abstracts International (DAI) databases. The terms Madison, faction, and Federalist were used as the research parameters in order to obtain the literature for the chapter's section establishing a historical foundation for interest group involvement within the policy process. 1 Historical Foundation and Madison's Admonition in The Federalist, Number