| This research seeks to inform studies of public policy through examination of federal rulemaking under the No Child Left Behind Act from 2002-2009. Notice and comment rulemaking is an understudied and little-known venue for democratic participation. Through this process, external parties have the opportunity to engage with administrators from the United States Department of Education. This runs counter to the prevailing notion of an insulated bureaucracy. The major research questions include: 1) Who submits public comments; and 2) Which parties matter the most? This investigation incorporates three types of data collection as the basis for analysis. The first (and largest project component) concerns the creation of a database containing all comments for 13 rules implementing NCLB. The primary outcome of interest is the extent of change between the draft and final versions of selected rules, given the submitted comments. Analysis of the database incorporates three independent variables: salience, time, and executive review. The second type of data consists of interviews conducted with administrators involved in the rulemaking process. Finally, this includes data from Race to the Top assessment public hearings. Among the findings, the number of comments submitted to the Department of Education did not affect the degree of rule change. Commenters had more success when responding to later NCLB rules than earlier ones. Rules reviewed by OMB had more change and greater comment alignment than those not reviewed by the agency. While over half of all commenting parties were private citizens or research organizations, interest groups and education agency administrators provided the most comments. Actors at the state level contributed the single greatest source of comments. Interest groups, vendors, elected officials, and research organizations had the greatest comment alignment with the Education Department. State and local education agencies actually had negative comment alignment. Participation of a range of parties provides a mechanism for a more inclusive democracy, even when agencies make the final decisions. However, we should be cautious about the degree to which parties may achieve meaningful change in this policy environment. This study furthers our understanding of democratic process, and the challenges of policy implementation under federalism. |
