Power, Influence, and Policy in Arizona's Education Market: "We've Got to Out-Charter the Charters"

• In Event: 34.095 - MTCC Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: 34.095-11 - The Politics of Charters, Choice, and Change: Implications for Inequality and Opportunity

Abstract

Arizona’s “Wild West” free-market education approach via school choice policies reflects neoliberal reform expansion, which emphasizes private provision and governance of public services in established markets. Market-based systems can result in decreased democratic school accountability and thinning of collective political actions. We do not fully understand how mature school choice systems are understood and acted out by stakeholders with various levels of power and influence. This study employs ethnographic methods to analyze perceptions and actions of community stakeholders, including administrators, teachers, parents, and institution and community organizers, at one district public school and in its surrounding community, including its charter schools. I examine issues of power since all community actors are not equally able to engage in school choice practices.

Author

• Amanda U. Potterton, University of Kentucky