License to Teach: Coalition Formation and Policy Learning in North Carolina Teacher Licensure Reform, 2021–2022

• In Event: Philanthropy and Education Reform: New Models and Persisting Challenges

Abstract

Purpose
Studies on policy uptake show philanthropic interests can play an outsized role in shaping education reforms, including teacher quality policy (Reckhow et al., 2021; Reckhow & Tompkins-Stange, 2018). Research on coalition building at the state level also suggests that other key actors, such as grassroots organizations, can resist policies, particularly when coalitions have coalesced around a set of core beliefs (Welsh & Graham, 2021). Accordingly, studies of policymaking must attend to power dynamics amongst competing actors and the role of beliefs in shaping coalition formation. This study examines how beliefs lead to the formation of coalitions and under what conditions certain coalitions have more influence than others in the context of teacher licensure policy development in North Carolina.

Framework
We ground our study in theories of policy learning and Advocacy Coalitions Framework (ACF). Policy learning explains how coalitions and stakeholders shift their beliefs and actions to facilitate policy development, incorporating evidence from a variety of sources (Moyson, 2017). ACF traces how diverse stakeholders navigate conflicting goals, beliefs, and resources to achieve policy outputs and impacts (Bekkers et al., 2017; Sabatier, 1988). Coalitions can both facilitate and impede policy learning. Together, these frameworks are ideal for analyzing emergent coalitions in North Carolina and the ways in which philanthropic actors influence the policy environment.

Data Sources and Methods
Our paper presents a North Carolina case study of teacher licensure reform (Yin, 2009). We observe and transcribe 34 public meetings (72 total hours; March 2021–September 2022) of the Professional Educator Preparation and Standards Commission (PEPSC) and collect artifacts shared within PEPSC. We develop a coding scheme of a priori codes from our theoretical framework and emergent codes from the data; analyze patterns in coded excerpts; and develop meta-matrices to identify coalitions and their associated beliefs, sources of influences, and conditions that support their emergence (Miles et al., 2014).

Findings
Emergent findings suggest three coalitions formed throughout the teacher licensure reform process: (1) stakeholders from K-12, (2) teacher education program deans, and (3) the Department of Public Instruction of North Carolina (DPI). Several individuals emerged as policy brokers seeking to facilitate policy decisions across coalitions. DPI framed themselves as a broker, but held a consistent set of beliefs and interests. We trace the formation of these coalitions to varying beliefs, shifting brokers, and the exogenous shock of external funding from philanthropic actors. Our emergent findings suggest that the coalitions which were able to most closely align themselves with the beliefs of the philanthropic actors had the most power to shape the policy learning process.

Significance
Building on scholarship examining the role of philanthropy in federal teacher evaluation policy (e.g., Reckhow & Tompkins-Stange, 2018), we focus on the newest frontier of the teacher quality agenda—teacher licensure reform—at the state level. We build on the coalitions literature (e.g., Welsh & Graham, 2021) by examining policymaking in a context with both existing coalitions and opportunities for new alliances to form through an intentionally collaborative policymaking process. We also bridge this literature by examining power differentials among competing coalitions.

Authors

• Meghan Comstock, University of Maryland
  Presenting Author

• Abigail Dym, University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author

• Maya Kaul, University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author