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This document uses interviews with 18 practitioners as the basis for an examination of the barriers to and promise of strategies intended to build effective, comprehensive, community-based service initiatives for children and families in a deregulated policy environment. Four major barriers are identified: (1) structural/legal barriers, reflected in legal constraints, regulations, and procedural requirements; (2) barriers to collaboration related to staff knowledge and commitment, which may result from a lack of technical expertise or rigid attitudes among administrators and service providers that limit the ability of initiatives to work collaboratively; (3) political support barriers, which relate to challenges of establishing and maintaining external support for an initiative among political and policy officials, key constituency groups, and the general public; (4) management information and evaluation data system barriers, which concern difficulties in constructing cross-agency data networks and outcomes-based assessment systems necessary for effective planning, budgeting, management, and evaluation. Policy directions at the state level holding promise for overcoming these constraints are also delineated: (1) coordinate state agency program strategies and resource allocation policies; (2) move toward an accountability system based on achieving desired results for children and families through reducing procedural regulation of service delivery; (3) invest in cross-agency information infrastructures; (4) encourage more integrated pre-service training experiences for service administrators and front-line providers; (5) provide monetary incentives for collaboration; (6) help ensure multi-year funding for comprehensive initiatives. A description of The Finance Project and a list of resources available from the Project's Working Papers Series conclude the document. Contains 22 references. (KDFB)

This paper documents recent government policy changes and discusses the likelihood of their having significant, long-term impacts on policies to assist the educationally disadvantaged. It begins with an examination of traditional federal and state efforts to equalize educational opportunities through legal access guarantees, targeted categorical assistance programs, school-finance reforms, and the regulation of input and process standards. The paper then discusses why the traditional methods have been increasingly viewed as insufficient responses to securing equal educational opportunities, and examines the new approaches that have, in part, emanated from this dissatisfaction. The final section outlines some of the substantial challenges ahead for successfully implementing the new service strategies. A conclusion is that in response to weaknesses of traditional policy tools, a new set of state and federal policy reforms is beginning to emerge. Key components include more rigorous academic standards and curriculum frameworks; outcomes-driven accountability systems; more decentralized, coordinated, and citizen-responsive service-delivery arrangements; and funding strategies that focus on the assumed quality and adequacy of resource inputs in meeting designated student-achievement levels. These new initiatives differ from previous approaches in at least three ways: (1) their focus on performance outcomes; (2) the placing of policies for special-needs students within the context of improving the overall educational system; and (3) and a decreased reliance on state regulatory instruments. The future external policy environment will see a diminished federal role and tight funding constraints. The devolution of educational governance--in the form of charter schools, school choice, and block grants--may well thrive under these conditions. Information on the Finance Project and available resources is included. (Contains 28 references.) (LMI)