Arizona’s Mature Education Market: How School and Community Stakeholders Make Meaning of School Choice Policies
abstract: School choice reforms such as charter schools, vouchers, open enrollment, and private and public school tax credit donation programs have expanded throughout the United States over the past twenty years. Arizona’s long-standing public school choice system enrolls a higher percentage of pu...
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ndltd-asu.edu-item-440802018-06-22T03:08:19Z Arizona’s Mature Education Market: How School and Community Stakeholders Make Meaning of School Choice Policies abstract: School choice reforms such as charter schools, vouchers, open enrollment, and private and public school tax credit donation programs have expanded throughout the United States over the past twenty years. Arizona’s long-standing public school choice system enrolls a higher percentage of public school students in charter schools than any state besides Washington D.C. A growing number of Arizona’s charter schools are managed by for-profit and nonprofit Education Management Organizations (EMOs). Advocates of school choice argue that free-market education approaches will make public schools competitive and nimble as parents’ choices place pressures on schools to improve or close. This, then, improves all schools: public, private, and charter. Critics are concerned that education markets produce segregation along racial and social class lines and inequalities in educational opportunities, because competition favors advantaged parents and children who can access resources. Private and for-profit schools may see it in their interest to exclude students who require more support. School choice programs, then, may further marginalize students who live in poverty, who receive special education services, and English language learners. We do not fully understand how Arizona’s mature school choice system affects parents and other stakeholders in communities “on the ground.” That is, how are school policies understood and acted out? I used ethnographic methods to document and analyze the social, cultural, and political contexts and perspectives of stakeholders at one district public school and in its surrounding community, including its charter schools. I examined: (a) how stakeholders perceived and engaged with schools; (b) how stakeholders understood school policies, including school choice policies; and (c) what influenced families’ choices. Findings highlight how most stakeholders supported district public schools. At the same time, some “walked the line” between choices that were good for their individual families and those they believed were good for public schools and society. Stakeholders imagined “community” and “accountability” in a range of ways, and they did not all have equal access to policy knowledge. Pressures related to parental accountability in the education market were apparent as stakeholders struggled to make, and sometimes revisit, their choices, creating a tenuous schooling environment for their families. Dissertation/Thesis Potterton, Amanda U. (Author) Powers, Jeanne M. (Advisor) Berliner, David C. (Committee member) Fischman, Gustavo E. (Committee member) Glass, Gene V (Committee member) Arizona State University (Publisher) Education policy Education Sociology charter schools communities competition education policy parental choice school choice eng 226 pages Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2017 Doctoral Dissertation http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.44080 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ All Rights Reserved 2017 |
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Education policy Education Sociology charter schools communities competition education policy parental choice school choice |
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Education policy Education Sociology charter schools communities competition education policy parental choice school choice Arizona’s Mature Education Market: How School and Community Stakeholders Make Meaning of School Choice Policies |
description |
abstract: School choice reforms such as charter schools, vouchers, open enrollment, and private and public school tax credit donation programs have expanded throughout the United States over the past twenty years. Arizona’s long-standing public school choice system enrolls a higher percentage of public school students in charter schools than any state besides Washington D.C. A growing number of Arizona’s charter schools are managed by for-profit and nonprofit Education Management Organizations (EMOs). Advocates of school choice argue that free-market education approaches will make public schools competitive and nimble as parents’ choices place pressures on schools to improve or close. This, then, improves all schools: public, private, and charter. Critics are concerned that education markets produce segregation along racial and social class lines and inequalities in educational opportunities, because competition favors advantaged parents and children who can access resources. Private and for-profit schools may see it in their interest to exclude students who require more support. School choice programs, then, may further marginalize students who live in poverty, who receive special education services, and English language learners.
We do not fully understand how Arizona’s mature school choice system affects parents and other stakeholders in communities “on the ground.” That is, how are school policies understood and acted out? I used ethnographic methods to document and analyze the social, cultural, and political contexts and perspectives of stakeholders at one district public school and in its surrounding community, including its charter schools. I examined: (a) how stakeholders perceived and engaged with schools; (b) how stakeholders understood school policies, including school choice policies; and (c) what influenced families’ choices.
Findings highlight how most stakeholders supported district public schools. At the same time, some “walked the line” between choices that were good for their individual families and those they believed were good for public schools and society. Stakeholders imagined “community” and “accountability” in a range of ways, and they did not all have equal access to policy knowledge. Pressures related to parental accountability in the education market were apparent as stakeholders struggled to make, and sometimes revisit, their choices, creating a tenuous schooling environment for their families. === Dissertation/Thesis === Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2017 |
author2 |
Potterton, Amanda U. (Author) |
author_facet |
Potterton, Amanda U. (Author) |
title |
Arizona’s Mature Education Market: How School and Community Stakeholders Make Meaning of School Choice Policies |
title_short |
Arizona’s Mature Education Market: How School and Community Stakeholders Make Meaning of School Choice Policies |
title_full |
Arizona’s Mature Education Market: How School and Community Stakeholders Make Meaning of School Choice Policies |
title_fullStr |
Arizona’s Mature Education Market: How School and Community Stakeholders Make Meaning of School Choice Policies |
title_full_unstemmed |
Arizona’s Mature Education Market: How School and Community Stakeholders Make Meaning of School Choice Policies |
title_sort |
arizona’s mature education market: how school and community stakeholders make meaning of school choice policies |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.44080 |
_version_ |
1718701424450207744 |