Implementing state standards for science education: What district policy makers make of the hoopla

Premised on the assumption that school districts play an important role in the implementation of state and federal policy, this article explores the d istricts' response to state science standards. Adopting a cognitive perspec tive on the implementation process, the authors examine the ideas about sci ence education that district policy makers construct from science standards . Our analysis illuminates how the ideas about reforming science education that district policy makers come to understand from new science standards c ontribute to these standards being adapted at the district level in ways th at miss or misrepresent their core intent. The article identifies prominent patterns in district policy makers' understandings of the science reforms. Based on this analysis, the authors argue that a cause of implementation f ailure, rarely examined in the literature, concerns the ways in which local implementers miss or misconstrue the intent of policy proposals. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.