Educational Policy 2015, Vol. 29(1) 3–17 © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0895904815568936 epx.sagepub.com Editorial Educational Policy Implementation Revisited Tamara Young 1 and Wayne D. Lewis 2 Abstract This article outlines the rationale for this special issue on educational policy implementation and provides an overview of the articles in this issue. In addition to summarizing each article, we point out how the findings from the different contributions complement, challenge, and complicate not only the findings and conclusions from other works in this issue, but also insights articulated by Honig (2006) and Odden (1991). We conclude with a discussion of the implications from these articles for educational policy implementation research. Keywords educational policy, implementation, educational reforms We begin this special issue by outlining what we attempted to set out to do when we initiated this project. The second section describes each of the manuscripts that comprise this special issue. Each article is written to stand alone in the dis- cussion on education policy implementation. We recognize that they are a small sample of implementation studies in education. However, taken as a whole, these contributions will provide broader insight into the complexities of implementa- tion and implementation research. We intentionally included studies of different policies, reforms that were initiated and funded by at different levels of 1 North Carolina State University, AL, USA 2 University of Kentucky, AL, USA Corresponding Author: Tamara Young, North Carolina State University, AL, USA. Email: tvyoung@ncsu.edu 568936EPX XX X 10.1177/0895904815568936Educational PolicyYoung and Lewis research-article 2015 by guest on November 20, 2016 epx.sagepub.com Downloaded from