Policy and Change: Getting Beyond Bureaucracy

Abstract

One of the toughest nuts to crack in educational change is policy itself- not this policy or that policy, but the basic ways in which policy is conceived, developed and put into practice. In this chapter, Linda Darling-Hammond outlines a new paradigm for educational policy better suited to the complexities of our times. In place of top-down, linear approaches to educational policy and its implementation, Darling-Hammond argues for a more inclusive approach to policy that combines and integrates bottom-up and top-down approaches in a framework that will be more empowering for all. Darling-Hammond argues for policy processes that create political consensus, ensure equity, develop and enforce standards and build local capacity, school-by-school for people who work in the front lines of our classrooms. Policies she says, should be more concerned with learning than compliance, as much about support as pressures and demands. She closes her chapter with specific instances of where such new paradigm policy processes in education are already beginning to emerge.