The research conducted on the Citizen Committee for Children (CCC), New York, and the Bush Administration's No Child Left behind Act have helped form my understanding of policy actors, their role, and their capacity to influence policy development and implementation. Deeper insights were gleaned from my recognition that think tanks like the CCC are private organizations, but that they maintain a strong influence over public policy-makers. Policy actors from the CCC routinely lobby legislators and engage in other forms of policy advocacy that has a strong influence over the development and implementation of policy.
The policies arising from No Child Left Behind clearly shows how different actors and their roles integrate in the formation of policy and its implementation. Clearly key policy actors in the development of these policies included legislators and President Bush, but it also involved the leaders of school districts, national education and teaching groups, and even parents. One insight generated from this research was the way that many policy actors are able to shape and implement policy by connecting it to public funding. This is particularly true with policies that develop related to education, like Title IX of the 1972 Educational Amendments that prohibits discrimination at schools that receive federal or state funding. Where No Child Left Behind is related, States receiving funds under NCLB must allow students who attend "persistently dangerous" schools "to transfer to a safe public elementary or secondary school, including a public charter school, in the same district" (NCLB, 2008, p. 2). This kind of linkage is significant because it helps define policy actors. For example, policy actors who advocate charter schools over public schools have helped develop NCLB policy and its implementation.
The research into the CCC think tank and NCLB policy also reveals the significant degree of p...