Educating From the Ballot Box: The Use of Education Ballot Initiatives in the United States

• In Event: 29.090 - Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: 29.090-9 - Political Modes of Reconfiguring the School: Voters, Coalitions, and Spies

Abstract

This paper explores the increasingly common use of citizen-initiated ballot initiatives as an education policy-making tool and seeks to describe how ballot initiatives have been used to shape the landscape of education in the United States. Specifically, I explore both the number and substance of education initiatives over time, and consider to what extent the use of education ballot initiatives has evolved, with special attention to civil rights and educational opportunity. Findings suggest that throughout the history of ballot initiatives in the United States, education initiatives have been used 282 times to address a variety of substantive issues, including those related to (a) school funding, (b) governance, (c) higher education, (d) K-12 policy, and (e) civil rights and equal opportunity.

Author

• Amy Nichole Farley, Colorado Education Initiative