The politics of the national assessment of chapter 1

This article describes the events associated with the National Assessment of Chapter 1, a study mandated by Congress in December 1983 in anticipation of its 1987 reauthorization of Chapter 1. The assessment occurred at the time the Reagan Administration was seriously challenging many of Congress's favorite educational programs, including Chapter 1. Despite their serious differences in views about Chapter 1, both Congress and the administration expected the assessment to serve their own needs and each group was worried that the other would have undue influence on the assessment. The article illustrates the politics associated with evaluation by describing the activities of the assessment, the responses of each of these two audiences, and the efforts of each side to control the assessment's agenda. It raises questions about whether an evaluation can really serve multiple audiences.     

On assessing the mood of the public toward the police: Some conceptual issues

The use of attitudinal surveys has become a widely accepted method for the incorporation of public opinion in public policy decisions. Because of the assumption that the interpretation of such surveys is straightforward and clear, little critical attention has been devoted to the methodological and theoretical problems encountered when translating these findings into public policy. A case in point involves the proliferation of surveys aimed at assessing the mood of the public toward the police. A review of the literature reveals that the research findings about the public mood are contradictory and thus lack convergent validity. The findings of this study indicate that this lack of convergent validity in the images of the public toward the police can be explained on both methodological and theoretical grounds. More specifically, the findings indicate that the mood of the public is very different depending on the level of specificity of the items used to tap that mood. Items eliciting evaluations of a general nature show the public as supportive of the police, while items of a specific nature show much less public support. This apparent paradox is explained through the use of a theoretical framework developed by Easton (1965), which emphasizes diffuse and specific support as external influences on institutions.     

CENTRAL CO-ORDINATION OF COMMONWEALTH POLICY-MAKING: ROLES AND DILEMMAS OF THE PRIME MINISTER'S DEPARTMENT

The Cabinet, in a word, is a board of control chosen by the legislature, out of persons whom it trusts and knows, to rule. the nation…A Cabinet is a combining committee—a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the State to the. executwe part of the State. In its origin it belongs to the one, in its funcuons it belongs to the other…The real power is not in the sovereign, it is in the Prune Minister and in the Cabinet—that is, in the hands of a committee appointed by Parliament, and of the chairman of that committee. Walter Bagehot: The English Constitution, 1867.