School District Governance and Educational Equity in the Era of School Choice

• In Event: Examining the Politics of Local Governance: A New Wave of Research on School Boards

Abstract

Purpose
In 1994, the Arizona Legislature passed two major school choice policies, allowing for charter schools and open enrollment. While the controversy of charter schools received considerable academic and media attention (Maranto et al., 1999; Santos, 2014), open enrollment has flourished largely unnoticed while driving the majority of movement between schools (Jimerson, 2002; Powers et al 2012). Since school funding is tied to student enrollment, and in a state context of declining birth rates along with racial and economic injustices, districts are compelled to bolster their enrollment numbers by recruiting out-of-district families. Consequently, school districts enroll out-of-district families whose racial and socioeconomic backgrounds are not reflective of their respective neighborhoods (Fong et al., 2010; Powers et al., 2012; Turner, 2017). Yet out-of-district families are ineligible to participate in traditional democratic forms of district governance, including voting for school board and budget overrides. Thus, the long-term consequences of open enrollment create a compelling dilemma in public school governance for both school board members as local community representatives and for open enrollment families who are not members of the local community (Author(s)).

The purpose of this paper is to examine how open enrollment policies shape educational equity as related to school district governance and democratic participation. We explore how district leaders represent out-of-district families and how these families find ways to engage in democratic participation outside the traditional political system to advocate for educational policies/practices that influence educational equity.

Methodology and Framework
Drawing on two theories—democratic theory (e.g., Elstub, 2018; Marsh, 2007) and Critical Race Theory (e.g., Delgado & Stefancic, 2012; Ladson-Billings & Tate IV, 1995)—we employ case study methods to explore a school district in the Phoenix metropolitan area (Stake, 2013; Yin, 2017). We collected and analyzed multiple data sources—interviews with board members, district administrators, and families, along with publicly available archival documents.

Findings
Our preliminary findings suggest that both school district leaders and out-of-district families are becoming increasingly savvy at using choice to navigate Arizona’s educational landscape. School board members use multiple strategies to recruit students residing outside of their district, crafting specialized programs that have attracted more affluent and white families in a bid to compete with high profile charters, and offering convenient bussing to lower SES students. Despite the district’s attention given towards recruiting students, the school board members appear to represent out-of-district families in uneven ways. Some families have adopted democratic participatory strategies to shift district policies/practices; however, the impact of these strategies for minoritized students is mediated by racial and socioeconomic dynamics.

Significance
The significance of this paper is twofold. First, since Arizona was among the first states to introduce open enrollment almost three decades ago, we shed light on the complexities of what has become a nationwide trend of market-based educational policy. Second, we offer both an overall picture of democratic participation within an open enrollment environment and illuminate the equity implications of open enrollment policies. These findings might inform school finance policies, school board structures, and democratic engagement in contexts shaped by choice policies and structural racism.

Authors

• Carrie Sampson, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College Arizona State University

• Melanie Bertrand, The University of Arizona

• David R. Garcia, AZ

• Matthew Hom