Resisting the market: A comparative analysis of charter school policy development in the U.S.,2002-2012

Charter school advocates have dramatically altered the institution of public education over the last two decades in the United States. Proponents have garnered wide support for charters by naming problems with existing urban public education, particularly for poor and minority students, and insisting charters are a necessary solution. 42 states and the District of Columbia have adopted charter school laws over the last two decades. Federal policymakers have also promoted charters, as they have been key parts of the defining educational policies of both the Bush (No Child Left Behind, 2002) and Obama (Race to the Top, 2009) administrations. Given the wide-reaching support for charter schools, how can we explain remaining variability in adoption of charter laws across states? Existing theoretical frameworks concentrate on diffusion and the factors that lead states to adopt charters faster, rather than addressing the question of whether states will adopt at all. I build on insights from political and cultural sociology to unearth heretofore unidentified factors and processes that account remaining state-level variability. The three empirical chapters of my dissertation analyze resistance, divergence, and variability in charter adoption across states. I use a variety of textual data sources from three state cases (Washington, Kentucky, Indiana) including over 3,000 newspaper articles, gubernatorial and mayoral speeches, documents and websites of reform groups, education-related court cases, and major state education legislation. Methodologically, I use comparative/historical methods to identify historical-institutional differences across states and trace contrasting discursive patterns in the policy debates about charter and public schools over a decade. My dissertation draws on the concept of discursive institutionalism to contribute to a better understanding of the role of ideas in policy development. Most importantly, I show that culture and institutions have a constitutive influence on policy development. In particular, I adopt an "educational ecosystems" framework in which I identify how the institutional legacies and current developments of school finance, desegregation, district boundaries, and accountability policies combine to shape the discursive resources available to actors in current policy battles over charter schools adoption.