Ideas and the Politics of School Choice Policy: Portfolio Management in Philadelphia

• In Event: 2020 Politics of Education Yearbook. School Choice Policy and Politics Around the Globe: Sociological Contributions

Abstract

Purpose
Urban school districts throughout the country have implemented the portfolio management model of governance. Proponents argue that under this model, every school is under pressure to perform, whereas opponents argue that Wall Street metaphors do not work in education, and that portfolio models exacerbate inequality. We examine the role of ideas (frames and logics) in the politics of school choice policy, focusing on portfolio management.

Theoretical Framework
We situate our study within scholarship that understands frames and logics as jointly constituted sets of ideas operating in the foreground and background of policy debates. Frames manifest as regularly debated and discussed theories and concepts articulated and deployed by stakeholders. Institutional logics are less directly engaged—these include salient beliefs, values, assumptions, and rules. Frames are derived from and influenced by logics, and include diagnostic frames and prognostic frames. Our study examines the frames and logics used by advocates and activists in Philadelphia in their negotiation of policy positions.

Methods and Data
Our context is the school closings and debate over portfolio management in Philadelphia between 2012 and 2014. We use an inductive case study approach. Data include a total of 68 interviews spanning three categories of informants: parent, student, and neighborhood advocates; teacher activists and union organizers; and bureaucrats, officials, and funders. Initial data analysis influenced later data collection, and a final round of analytical coding was conducted to confirm the arguments developed in earlier rounds.

Results
The frames and counterframes put forth by stakeholders resonated with broader, societal-level logics of contemporary America: community localism, market transaction, and state bureaucratic administration (Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012). Proponents of portfolio reform framed the district’s problems as the result of a dysfunctional bureaucracy and argued for a dramatic shift away from the status quo in the form of choice and competition. Stakeholders opposed to portfolio management objected to the marketization of the field and advocated for renewed commitment to community influence and public accountability. For proponents of portfolio management, the diagnostic frames were drawn from logics of community localism and state bureaucratic administration; the prognostic frames were drawn from a logic of market transaction. For opponents, the converse is true: the diagnostic counterframes were drawn from a logic of market transaction and the prognostic counterframes were drawn from logics of community localism and state bureaucratic administration.

Significance
Political sociologists have examined the difficult process of community-wide reform in education, including the degree to which community stakeholders are able to come together in service of a mutual agenda (Stone, Henig, Jones, & Pierannunzi, 2001). The article sheds light on processes underlying the negotiation and contestation of these agendas, demonstrating how frames and logics are used by coalitions to win over and mobilize adherents.

Authors

• Rand Quinn, University of Pennsylvania

• Laura Ogburn, University of Pennsylvania