Research on Curriculum and Instruction Implementation

No matter what sort of bill you have, everything depends upon the men, who, so to speak, are inside of it, and who are to make it work. In the hands of the right men, any bill would produce the desired results.... Or so Charles Francis Adams, Jr., director of the Union Pacific Railway, reasoned in a letter dated 1 March 1884, counseling a member of the United States House of Representatives Committee on Commerce against opposing some pending regulatory railroad legislation (quoted in Kolko, 1965, p. 37). That is, Adams argued, how social policy is actually used in practice depends upon the daily activities of those organizational members in charge of applying or implementing it. If they respond to influences other than the intentions of the law's advocates, then even the most carefully worded and strongly supported legislation is unlikely to be implemented as planned.