Competitive Federalism and Race to the Top Application Decisions in the American States

Autor/inn/en	Nicholson-Crotty, Sean; Staley, Tucker
Titel	Competitive Federalism and Race to the Top Application Decisions in the American States
Quelle	In: Educational Policy, 26 (2012) 1, S.160-184 (25 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0895-9048
DOI	10.1177/0895904811428974
Schlagwörter	Educational Change; Educational Finance; Competition; Incentive Grants; Performance Factors; Financial Aid Applicants; Expectation; Educational Policy; Politics of Education; Decision Making; Financial Needs; Federal Programs; Program Descriptions; Federal Aid; Federal Regulation; Predictor Variables; State Action; Measurement Techniques; Attribution Theory; Political Influences; United States + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Bildungsreform; Bildungsfonds; Wettkampf; Finanzieller Anreiz; Leistungsindikator; Antragsteller; Expectancy; Erwartung; Politics of education; Bildungspolitik; Educational policy; Decision-making; Entscheidungsfindung; Bundeskompetenz; Prädiktor; Staatliche Intervention; Messtechnik; Political influence; Politischer Einfluss; USA
Abstract	The Race to the Top (RTTT) program, announced by the Obama Administration in 2009, represented the largest competitive grant in the history of U.S. education. Despite the amount of money available and the dire condition of most state budgets in that year, however, some states chose not to apply for funding and the remainder submitted applications of widely divergent character. We argue in this article that the frequency and competitiveness of applications offer insight into the factors that conditioned commitment to the administration's reform agenda within each state. We use competitive federalism theory to develop expectations about the influence of those factors and test those expectations with a variety of analytic techniques. The results suggest that application decisions within the states were influenced by the level of electoral credit that politicians expected to receive from education policy generally and the amount they could receive by adhering to the specific tenets of the administration's reform agenda. These factors affected state-level decision making to a much greater degree than the actual need for federal funding. (Contains 9 notes and 4 tables.) (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10