What Is Your Role as a Policy Analyst?

This essay examines the discourse on Palestine/Israel in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, charting the impact of the Palestine rights movement on the domestic U.S. policy debate. Policy analyst, author, and long-time activist Phyllis Bennis notes the sea change within the Democratic Party evident in the unprecedented debate on the issue outside traditionally liberal Zionist boundaries. The final Democratic platform was as pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian as any in history, but the process of getting there was revolutionary in no small part, Bennis argues, due to the grassroots campaign of veteran U.S. senator Bernie Sanders. Bennis also discusses the Republican platform on Israel/Palestine, outlining the positions of the final three Republican contenders. Although she is clear about the current weakness of the broad antiwar movement in the United States, Bennis celebrates its Palestinian rights component and its focus on education and BDS to challenge the general public's “ignorance” on Israel/Palestine.

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Virginia Woolf as Policy Analyst

Virginia Woolf’s Bloomsbury, Volume 2 ◽

10.1057/9780230282957_5 ◽

2010 ◽

pp. 66-87

Author(s):

Craufurd D. Goodwin

Keyword(s):

Virginia Woolf ◽

Policy Analyst

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Thinking Like a Policy Analyst

Thinking Like a Policy Analyst ◽

10.1057/9781403980939_2 ◽

2005 ◽

pp. 15-50

Author(s):

Iris Geva-May

Keyword(s):

Policy Analyst

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The Music Educator as a Policy Analyst

Policy as Practice ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190227029.003.0006 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 127-150

Author(s):

Patrick Schmidt

Keyword(s):

Music Educators ◽

Entry Point ◽

Policy Analyst ◽

Music Educator ◽

Policy Language ◽

Policy Engagement

This chapter is the most practical and instructive of the book’s chapters. It aims to delineate very concrete ways of looking at accepted tools, spaces, and practices in policy. The chapter presents music educators with an entry point to this policy vocabulary. The chapter admonishes the reader that these are only tools, however, and as such their yield is dependent on our capacity to discern, contextualize, and frame. While the chapter describes policy language, instruments, and tools, it avoids the misperception that technical acuity is a necessary first step, one that allows one to enter the realm of policy. Such a view inevitably delays policy participation and discourages policy thinking. Knowing the context is the only prerequisite for policy engagement.

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Merit Pay for Teachers: A Poor Prescription for Reform

Harvard Educational Review ◽

10.17763/haer.54.2.36264448513xp4t5 ◽

1984 ◽

Vol 54 (2) ◽

pp. 175-186 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

Susan Moore Johnson

Keyword(s):

Effective Teachers ◽

School Leaders ◽

Merit Pay ◽

Policy Analyst ◽

Business World ◽

Corporate World ◽

Reform School ◽

Group Goals ◽

Motivational Needs

Many educators as well as business and governmental leaders argue that the improvement of schools depends primarily upon improving the performance of teachers. Merit pay, a solution drawn from the business world, promises to reward effective teachers and encourage them to work harder. From her perspective as both historian and policy analyst, Susan Moore Johnson explains that merit pay is neither a new nor an untested remedy. The speeches and programs of educational reformers of the 1920s and 1950s echo the current hopes for and arguments against merit pay. An analysis of the reasons for the failure of past merit pay plans suggests that present proposals would face similar technical, organizational, and financial obstacles. Asserting that merit pay takes into account neither the motivational needs of teachers nor the interdependent nature of schools, Johnson concludes that when looking to the corporate world for models of reform, school leaders should consider the practices of highly successful corporations which emphasize group goals over individual incentives.

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