This dissertation examines the American system of public education by focusing on the institution which surrounds its provision. Structural aspects of State Departments of Education (SDEs) receive the major emphasis in an effort to ascertain the relationship between structural organization and the output of public education in the fifty states. Three features of the SDEs' structure--method of selecting its members, hierarchy of divisions within the bureaucracy, and the degree of state centralization of financing--form a classification mechanism which describes the expected degree of power held by the SDE in controlling the provision of public education.

Models portraying local school districts demonstrate the theoretical consequences of various structures of SDEs in affecting the localities' provision of education. Approaching the analysis of SDE structure from a bureaucratic perspective, a motivation on the part of bureaucrats to develop a more powerful agency emerges. The motivation lies in the monopolistic gains accruing to SDE members as a result of their ability to secure bureaucratic goals of expanded budgets and greater prestige.

Four states are examined in order to test the hypothesized relationship between SDE structure and the provision of public education. After the state case studies, implications of the models are tested in a more general, yet more inclusive, manner. The implications tested concern the spending patterns of different structured SDEs, the degree of standardization requirements imposed on the localities of a state, and the effect of SDE structure on consolidation of school districts. In all tests, the conclusions support the central hypothesis of a relationship between the organization of SDEs and the system of public education in a state.