Policy Making, Values of

Policies, laws, rules, and regulations are pervasive and ubiquitous in public education. Policies frame responsibilities and rights, articulate procedures and process, and state what is important to be pursued by the organization. They seek to impose certainty and uniformity in the behaviors of the organization's actors, and they allocate scarce resources. They endeavor to solve problems the public needs to have resolved. If a problem arises, a policy is devised to solve it. If educators respond differently to similar situations, a policy is developed to bring consistency into the organization. Policies are enacted to achieve certain desired outcomes.

Policies can have profound influence. For example, school leaders need not look far beyond their desk to find policies that define what shall be taught, how it shall be taught, and who shall teach it. A school's curriculum and instruction are currently shaped by high-stakes accountability policies. The federal government through No Child Left Behind legislation defines alternative placements and practices for students in schools that fail to meet Adequate Yearly Progress goals. Special education, bilingual education, English-only instruction, random drug testing of students, and reduced recess time are all examples of policies that impact the public schools and those charged with their management and leadership. The seeming omnipresence of policies, especially those that are done to schools, underscores the importance of thoroughly understanding the policy process.

A policy is a set of values issued with authority and expressed in written form or words. It is authoritative when there is sufficient power to induce a shift in behavior toward achieving specified values. In short, policy is the embodiment of a particular value that government deems is in the best interest of the public.

But what values are pursued through the political process of policy making and by whom? Various issue partisans who gather around a particular problem or preferred solution alternative, knowledge brokers with their retinue of researchers, constituencies, and the media all exert pressure on public officials to identify specific problems and propose possible solutions. Likewise, the same groups will react against proposed problems and solutions that run counter to their cherished values. These groups bring their favored values and definitions of those values to the political process, where they often collide or resonate with one another and with the values of the public officials.

For policymakers, the constant dilemma is how to choose among the competing values to ascertain which will be pursued in any given policy. One must ask, What values are fundamental to the policymaking process, or in this case, the educational policymaking process? In 1986, James Guthrie and Rodney Reed identified three deeply held values that are inextricably linked to educational policy—equality, efficiency, and liberty. Other scholars posit four dominant values in education—equity, efficiency, choice, and quality. Still others have identified five values that have been historically prominent in policy making in general and in education specifically—liberty, equality, efficiency, fraternity, and economic growth.

A comparison of these three value sets shows an overlap of values. Choice is just another name for liberty. Equity and equality are similar. Efficiency is the same in both sets. The major differences are quality, fraternity, and economic growth.

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