Innovation And Application Of Policy Tools In Educational Reform In New York City

Policy instrument theory as the new theories form and practice direction of thedevelopment of the western governance theory, become a focus of the western publicmanagement and policy science research in the nineties of the20th century, and growinto a new branch of subject or topic area. In short, policy insilriiments is means,mechanism, or the way that the government promote the management and implementpolicy for the realization of specific policy goals, it is a bridge or mediation to linkpolicy goals and results, Under the background of education gradually towards thepublic governance, for the government policy instruments is becoming an importantway that replaces the traditional institutions and plans in providing public educationservice, solving the problem of public education，and improving educationmanagement. Policy instruments have become the secret of management educationabroad, international metropolis New York exemplary in this aspect，during the reignof mayor Michael Rubens Bloomberg and the DOE’s chancellor Joel I. Klein, a seriesof ambitious education reforms were implemented in the city’s public school system,including the restructuring of education organization structure, empowering schoolsand principals, redesigning performance accountability system, a lot of policyinstruments were developed and used during the process of reform.On the basis of combing the domestic and foreign research results, the authorbelieved education policy instruments could be divided into five categories, namelythe authoritative policy instruments, market-oriented policy instruments, socialpolicy instruments, managerial policy instruments and comprehensive innovativepolicy instruments, summarized the connotation, use motivation，expression form，function mechanism advantages and disadvantages of cach type of policy instrument,and analysized selection process of education policy instruments. In the framework ofthe above classification and analysis, the paper analysized the background, processand the main content of the education reform which was carried in New York City atthe bloomberg/klein reign. Study found that New York City’s education reform andpolicy tools using practice contains lots of basic value, such as encouraging school competition, increasing students choose, promoting education fairness, closing thegap in education, improving the quality of education, improving school eiffciency,expanding democratic engagement, pursuit of balance, etc. In addition，through therelevant reform practice in New York City we can get the following enlightenment: toenrich the government’s box of education policy instruments，improve the ability ofgovernment in term of innovatiing and using of education policy instruments,promote the comprehensive application of various education policy instruments andcombine the use of policy instruments and school culture change.