Data Sources – Politics of Education Research

Disclaimer: The Politics of Education Association, and the officers thereof offer no endorsement of and assume no liability for the accuracy or availability of any information on external databases and websites listed here

Thomas Project, Library of Congress
A comprehensive on-line source of bills introduced in the House and/or Senate beginning with the 101st Congress. The site also allows visitors to search the Congressional Record, the official account of all floor proceedings and debates of the U.S. Congress; reports from Senate, House and Joint/Conference Committees since the 104th Congress; and the United States Code. (http://thomas.loc.gov/)

Government Printing Office
Visitors can view dockets of cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, read the oral arguments, and locate judicial opinions; read State of the Union addresses; and search proposed, pending, and final regulations and executive orders since 1994 in the Federal Register. (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html)

The Policy Agendas Project
A publicly-available archive housed at the University of Washington. Provides archived historical data on the U.S. budget, House, Senate and joint-committee hearings of the U.S. Congress, Executive Orders, Gallup Poll information, State of the Union addresses, Supreme Court cases, and data on public laws passed between 1948-1998.  (http://www.policyagendas.org/)

The ProQuest Historical Newspapers™ digital archive
Offers full-text and full-image articles in the nation’s leading newspapers dating back to the 18th Century.  The archive includes the complete collection of The New York Times, beginning with its first issue in 1851. New additions to the archive include the Black Newspapers Collection, providing access to the New York Amsterdam News, Pittsburgh Courier, Los Angeles Sentinel and Atlanta Daily World.  (Available through your university’s library.)

Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982
The Retrospective indexes articles from over 375 leading magazines, many dating back to their inaugural issues.  (Available through many university libraries; Search the Retrospective using WilsonWeb.)

United States Department of Education: Speeches and Press Releases
Visitors can search official DOE press releases and speeches given by the Secretary of Education and other key DOE officials since 2001. There is also a link to an archive of speeches from previous administrations back through 1994. (http://www.ed.gov/news/landing.jhtml)

The Advocacy and Public Policymaking Project
A data source compiled by Frank Baumgartner and others at Pennsylvania State University. Contains case summaries and political resources across multiple domains, including education.  The case summaries provide overviews that include background information, key proponents/opponents, arguments used, lobbying activities, venues of government decision making, among other information. For each case, the site also includes links to advocacy group statements, bills introduced in Congress, transcripts of House and Senate committee hearings, statements and press releases by members of Congress, and media coverage (print and television). (http://lobby.la.psu.edu)

The Lexis-Nexis Congressional Universe
Comprehensive collection of historic and current congressional information that provides access to full text congressional publications and public laws. It includes, for example, selected transcripts and full-text statements from Congressional hearings since 1988, Committee reports since 1990, GAO reports since 2004, public law texts, U.S. Code, Code of Federal Regulations, campaign finance data, member profiles, and political news from The Hill and Roll Call.  (Available through your university’s library.)

The American Presidency Project
Searchable online resource housing state of the union addresses, proclamations, press conferences, inaugural addresses, radio addresses, addresses to Congress, fireside chats (FDR), veto messages, executive orders, addresses to foreign legislatures, party conventions, and college commencements, the messages and papers of the Presidents from Washington - Taft (1789-1913), the Public Papers of the Presidents from Hoover to Bush (1929-1993), and the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents from Clinton - G.W. Bush (1993-2008). (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/)

Presidential Libraries
Everyday, presidential libraries are making their massive collections available to researchers on-line. The Nixon Library, for example, has nearly 50 million pages of documents, over 300,000 photographs, thousands of motion pictures and videos, and the Nixon White House Tapes, many of which have now been made available via the Internet.
(http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/index.php)

Government Documents Roundtable, Frequently used Sites
A clearinghouse of on-line resources indexed by branches and levels of government and policy domains (e.g., education, healthcare). The U.S. legislative index, for example, includes all things Congressional, from a Congressional directories to advocate organizations’ ratings of Congressional performance to searchable collections of bills and GAO reports, to name a few. (http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/romans/fdtf)