Policy Networks and Education Reform: The National Shift From Zero Tolerance to "Supportive School Discipline"

• In Event: Roundtable Session 21
  In Roundtable Session: The Politics of Federal Initiatives and Policies

Abstract

In 2011, the Obama Administration launched the “Supportive School Discipline Initiative” to address the over and racially disproportionate use of suspensions. While some applaud the Initiative as a model of successful bottom-up education reform, others tout it as a success story of philanthropic involvement in educational policymaking. The author uses policy network analysis to examine the shifts in the organizational network over time and the changes in the dominant policy frames that shape the Initiative. This study contributes to our understanding of the increasingly networked nature of the education policy environment and explores the ways in which networks can be features of a healthy democracy as well as a smokescreen that obscures the political realities of the policymaking process.

Author

• Danfeng Soto-Vigil Koon, University of San Francisco