Can State Education Agencies Lead Reform? Politics, Administration, and the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993.

This paper analyzes implementation of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 (MERA) as a case study in state-level education reform. MERA increased state funding of local school districts and also greatly enlarged the state government's role in education. The enlarged state role includes producing curriculum frameworks in core subjects, testing students' mastery of the curriculum, and holding schools and districts accountable for student performance. Despite a billion-dollar increase in state education spending, the state education authorities lack adequate capacity to put the ambitious MERA reforms in place. State capacity has been limited, and implementation hindered, by changes in the political context within which reform is taking place. Based on the Massachusetts experience, we should question the assumption of "policy coherence" that underlies standards-based education reform. We should also expect that the implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act will be more complicated than its advocates anticipate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]