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Using John Kingdon's (2003) multiple streams approach to agenda setting, I analyze how key actors within the state of Wisconsin understood the need to construct and implement the state's No Social Promotion statutes to improve students' academic performance. Policymakers within the state focused their standards-based reforms on the issue of improving students' academic performance through increasing accountability. In doing so, they did not see these high-stakes policies as a form of punishment for those who fail, but rather, as a tool to focus the education establishment on improving the academic skills and knowledge of all their students. Thus, the retained student is not the primary concern of the policymaker, but rather, the retained student demonstrates the state's system of accountability works. Raising the question as to whether those who support or oppose high-stakes policies such as these should focus their efforts on the agenda setting process rather than analyzing effects of such policies. I contend that while evaluating a policy's effects is important, education stakeholders must pay attention to all three streams of the agenda setting process as they promote particular reforms to improve students' academic performance. (Contains 1 table.)

This article presents a case study of standards-based reform in early childhood education to demonstrate how a particular set of early childhood stakeholders--by laterally incorporating a range of developmental domains within their standards--provided a "rhizoanalytic" response to the Bush administration's call for early learning standards in language, early literacy, and mathematics. By incorporating the work of the National Research Council with Wisconsin's Model Early Learning Standards, the author considers how early childhood stakeholders can construct future political responses that horizontally and vertically align the field of early childhood education. Such a rhizomatic response provides the opportunity to propose politically viable policies that respect the heterogeneity that exists within the field of early childhood education.

Through a multiple perspectives model that incorporates the normative, symbolic, and political perspectives, the author analyzes the emergence of standards-based accountability reform in the state of Wisconsin. His analysis offers insight into the effectiveness of various political actors' attempts to alter the state's education systems. Through this case study, the author contends that these policy makers' attempts to reform Wisconsin's systems of education are kept in check by the principles of cheap and local reform. Thus, to achieve change, these principles of cheap and local reform create a policy environment in which stakeholders must offer a continuous series of reform initiatives in hope that some of their policies might slip through an open policy window. (Contains 3 tables and 28 notes.)

Background/Content: Policy-makers at the federal and state levels have increased their efforts to implement standards-based accountability reform in early childhood education (ECE) to improve the academic readiness of children for elementary school. As these policies have taken on more prominence within ECE reform, national organizations such as the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the National Association of Early Childhood Specialist in State Departments of Education and the National Institute for Early Education Research have produced guidelines and suggestions for formulating standards. Early childhood researchers have investigated and questioned the purpose, goals, and policy process of early learning standards. These works examine a range of issues such as capacity and capital, curriculum and assessment, and readiness and retention. Focus of Study: In this article, I examine how early childhood stakeholders in the state of Wisconsin responded to the current Bush Administration's Good Start, Grow Smart (GSGS) initiative by creating a double-voiced document that answered requirements of the GSGS initiative while at the same time attempting to pique the interest and support of the state's loosely coupled field of ECE to a voluntary set of standards. Examining these stakeholders' response highlights the tensions that exist in attempting to reform ECE and how simple policy solutions such as the GSGS initiative fail to address the complexity that exists within the field of ECE. Research Design: This research project is a qualitative instrumental case study that examines the formulation and implementation of Wisconsin's Model Early Learning Standards. Conclusions: Even though the Early Learning Standards Steering Committee created a double-voiced document that responded to policy-makers' demands for early learning standards while attempting to attract and unite early childhood programs and practitioners around a collective understanding of the goals of ECE, the future of the field is uncertain. The second-class status of ECE in the realm of policy and the investment of capital that is required to alter the field cause one to question whether systemic reform could ever occur in ECE. Nevertheless, policy-makers' demands for improved student performance will not die down simply because states are implementing early learning standards. Thus, the field of ECE is at a critical point within the history of education reform, and stakeholders must continue to promote a vision of ECE that goes beyond simply protecting current practices and demand structural changes that foster the growth and development of all children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Epidemiological studies of pediatric inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are needed to generate etiological hypotheses and inform public policy; yet, rigorous population-based studies of the incidence and natural history of Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) in the United States are limited., Methods: We developed a field-tested prospective system for identifying all new cases of IBD among Wisconsin children over an 8-year period (2000-2007). Subsequently, at the end of the study period, we retrospectively reconfirmed each case and characterized the clinical course of this incident cohort., Results: The annual incidence of IBD among Wisconsin children was 9.5 per 100,000 (6.6 per 100,000 for CD and 2.4 per 100,000 for UC). Approximately 19% of incident cases occurred in the first decade of life. Over the 8-year study period, the incidence of both CD and UC remained relatively stable. Additionally, (1) childhood IBD affected all racial groups equally, (2) over a follow-up of 4 years, 17% of patients with CD and 13% of patients with patients with UC required surgery, and (3) 85% and 40% of children with CD were treated with immunosuppressives and biologics, respectively, compared with 62% and 30% of patients with UC., Conclusions: As in other North American populations, these data confirm a high incidence of pediatric-onset IBD. Importantly, in this Midwestern U.S. population, the incidence of CD and UC seems to be relatively stable over the last decade. The proportions of children requiring surgery and undergoing treatment with immunosuppressive and biological medications underscore the burden of these conditions.

Objective: To define epidemiologic and clinical characteristics of newly diagnosed pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in a large population-based model., Study Design: All pediatric gastroenterologists providing care for Wisconsin children voluntarily identified all new cases of IBD during a 2-year period. Demographic and clinical data were sent to a central registry prospectively for analysis., Results: The incidence of IBD in Wisconsin children was 7.05 per 100,000, whereas the incidence for Crohn's disease was 4.56, more than twice the rate of ulcerative colitis (2.14). An equal IBD incidence occurred among all ethnic groups, and children from sparsely and densely populated counties were equally affected. The majority (89%) of new IBD diagnoses were nonfamilial., Conclusions: This study provides novel, prospective, and comprehensive information on pediatric IBD incidence within the United States. The surprisingly high incidence of pediatric IBD, the predominance of Crohn's disease over ulcerative colitis, the low frequency of patients with a family history, the equal distribution of IBD among all racial and ethnic groups, and the lack of a modulatory effect of urbanization on IBD incidence collectively suggest that the clinical spectrum of IBD is still evolving and point to environmental factors contributing to the pathogenesis.