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Mandatory education systems form a central pillar of modern social policy sectors. For two of the countries in North America, the expansion of mass public schooling followed similar trajectories. Despite surface-level similarities, there are important differences in the two countries that require explanation. Without national intervention, the Canadian provinces have instituted similar policies fashioning a de facto national education policy framework. State and local education policy, however, demonstrates major variations that Washington has been unable to smooth out. These outcomes confound conventional institutional or societal approaches. This article calls first for a synthesis of macro-level institutional and societal factors. To unravel the sector-specific attributes, the interactive effects of meso-level policy choices must be assessed. By dividing a sector into its individual dimensions, these effects can be appreciated and coupled with the institutional and societal forces outlined above to account for the distinctive features of Canadian and American mandatory education. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

Mandatory education systems form a central pillar of modern social policy sectors. For two of the countries in North America, the expansion of mass public schooling followed similar trajectories. Despite surface-level similarities, there are important differences in the two countries that require explanation. Without national intervention, the Canadian provinces have instituted similar policies fashioning a de facto national education policy framework. State and local education policy, however, demonstrates major variations that Washington has been unable to smooth out. These outcomes confound conventional institutional or societal approaches. This article calls first for a synthesis of macro-level institutional and societal factors. To unravel the sector-specific attributes, the interactive effects of meso-level policy choices must be assessed. By dividing a sector into its individual dimensions, these effects can be appreciated and coupled with the institutional and societal forces outlined above to account for the distinctive features of Canadian and American mandatory education.

There is a tension between federalism and the welfare state. A keystone of federalism is preserving diversity by allowing populations to pursue alternative pathways from a national agenda. Under the logic of social citizenship, the welfare state should provide similar access to comparable programs for all citizens. To reconcile this tension, federations are encouraged to adopt national standards. But this begs the question: Are national standards a necessary condition for sub-national policy similarity? I test this by examining the Canadian education sector in a comparative context. My central findings suggest that national standards aren't necessary for the achievement of sub-national policy similarity. In lieu of national involvement, contextual factors help sub-national governments defy the odds and reconcile the tension between federalism and the welfare state. Adapted from the source document.

Studies of failure typically assess public policies through the lenses of effectiveness, efficiency, and performance. Here I wish to propose a further dimension to the evaluation and assessment of policy failure—legitimacy. The substantive elements of public policies and the procedural steps taken by authoritative decision makers during the policy cycle affect the perception of policy legitimacy held by both stakeholders and the public. In substantive terms, policy content should align with the dominant attitudes of the affected policy community and, ideally, the broader public. Procedurally, factors such as policy incubation, the emotive appeals deployed to gain support for an initiative, and the processes of stakeholder engagement shape the legitimacy of public policies and the governments who promote them.This argument is based on a comparison of education reform in two Canadian provinces during the 1990s. Governments in Alberta and Ontario pursued common agendas of education reform, but while Alberta achieved success, the Ontario government experienced a series of setbacks and lost the support of education stakeholders and the public. The root of Ontario's failures lies in the realm of legitimacy. These findings highlight the fact that the strategies used for enacting policy change may fail to bring about the necessary consensus among societal actors to sustain a new policy direction and calls attention to our need to better understand how governments can achieve meaningful public participation while still achieving legislative success in an efficient fashion.