Shinneka

Shinneka

Shinneka Baker
Wk4 A4 Final Project-Political Influences
March 14, 2010

Agency politics is where a group of people within an organization come together and make collective decisions. It is behavior within the government also politics has been observed in other group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. It consists of "social relations involving authority or power" and refers to the regulation of a political unit, and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.
One political influence within an agency is local education and one political influence outside an agency is The Walton’s Family (Wal-Mart).
Today, education is the most important function of state and local governments. The importance of public education becomes a subject to continual political scrutiny. The local school system is an organization with a political culture that can be characterized as a competitive environment in which various groups from both within and without are competing for power and limited resources. Local school systems are entrusted with both children and tax dollars. Due to limited resources funding for local schools becomes competive, funding priorities become the object of political debate at the local, state and national levels. According to Brademas (1987), a democratic society must have an informed citizenry. Educated citizens rule themselves through elected officials. The proficiency of a democratic society’s citizen impacts the society’s effectiveness in a global market. There is a federal interest in education because of the link to both national security and global competitiveness. Back in 2001, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was renewed and renamed No Child Left Behind Act (2001). The No Child Left Behind Act (2001) was critical of public education and the main point of the law was to increase accountability by identifying schools that were in need of improvement. The No Child Left Behind Act...