Negotiated Rule Making... rhetoric or reality?

A few months ago members from 18 different groups met with the US Department of Education to think through how the Department of Education should go about evaluating the effectiveness of teacher education.  Today a group of education deans, all members of the group CADREI (Council of Academic Deans of Research Educaiton Institutions) are discussing the results (or lack there of of this rule making body).

Through three rounds of work, a vareity of ideas were suggested but consensus was never reached.  According to most participants the process was dissatisfying.  Perspectives concerning what counted as quality differed significantly between representatives of public and private preparation institutions with long track records of excellence in education and those representing the "reform group," which consisted primarily of recently developed alternative preparation institutions and think groups.   More troubling to some members of the rule making committee however was the feeling that the department had a framework in mind from the very beginning and was less interested in learning what members of the committee had to contribute and more interesed in having their framework adopted. 

Throughout the process and in the end, concensus was illusive. This was, according to participants, not for lack of effort; rather, efforts to thinking deeply about the issur or to extend the department's thinking and framework were apparently stonewalled.  

For more information on the process and results of this effort, there are a variety of online resources, but you may have difficulty finding them.  A search of negotiated rulemaking will bring up at least a full page of URLs that take you to the USDOEs website.  You may be better off speaking with someone who was part of the rule making body, such as Ron Mark (U. Arizona) or Michael Morehead (New Mexico State U.).