(iPoster) The Evolution of Chief State School Officers under Varying Political Contexts

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Candidates and Elections; Education Politics and Policy; & Creating Spaces for Civic Engagement
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Education Politics and Policy

Abstract

Education governance is facing major upheaval with the decimation of the federal Department of Education under Executive Order No. 14242 (2025). The false proposition of returning education policymaking authority to the states obscures the historical and ongoing role of state-level government in education and presents states as unitary actors to direct education policy. However, state education governance involves the governor, chief state school officer (CSSO), state board of education (SBE), legislators, and regional and local education leaders; all of whom possess a range of policy preferences and varying decision-making powers. Further, education governance overall in the United States is multitiered and involves actors across all levels of government.
While education has largely been understood as an issue under local control, changes in intergovernmental relationships and policies over the past 50 years have increased the influence of federal and state actors. Federal education policies such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (RTTT) have necessitated increased state involvement in the administration of federal programs to local education agencies (LEAs) (Manna, 2012; Snyder & Reckhow, 2018). Traditionally, localized education governance has been eroded by growing involvement of city, state, and federal actors; the expansion of school choice policies; and the increasing influence of private philanthropies in shaping education policies (Snyder & Reckhow, 2018). Within state government, state actors have continued to wrestle for power over education. Governors have sought greater control over directing state education policy. By the late 1980s, “education governors” used their political influence to set the agenda around education policy and then moved to gain greater institutionalized control of the education bureaucracy through gubernatorial appointment of the CSSO. Since 1972 to 2016, gubernatorial appointment of the CSSO has increased from 12% to 26% (Dahill-Brown, 2019, p. 157).
While research has largely focused on local education governance and executive control in education, the more insulated state-level offices of CSSO and the SBE remain inadequately examined. Chief state school officers are central figures in state education governance, generally responsible for leading the state education department and overseeing the implementation of education policies and regulations. However, there is limited research on the individuals who hold this office and how that has been shaped by the parallel growth of gubernatorial power and state control in education governance.
In this paper, I present a descriptive, longitudinal study of chief state school officers from 2000-2024. I gather comprehensive data on all chiefs’ demographic characteristics; educational, professional and political backgrounds; and policy preferences. By observing CSSOs from the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era under President George W. Bush through the Biden administration, my study provides a robust timeline to examine the evolution of chiefs under varying intergovernmental relationships and intrastate political, socioeconomic, and educational contexts.
I conduct analyses to describe and summarize the composition of people who have served as a CSSO. I identify associations among CSSO demographics, backgrounds, and preferences as well as between these characteristics and state and federal socioeconomic, political, and policy factors. Finally, I present a typology of CSSOs to explore if selection mechanism is associated with chief type, allowing me to test if changes in selection mechanism are related to changes in the types of individuals who become CSSO. How do elected chiefs differ from those appointed by the governor? Does gubernatorial appointment alter the interests and policies represented and prioritized by a chief? My novel dataset on CSSOs and exploratory, descriptive study help establish an understanding of how state education governance structures and broader sociopolitical contexts influence the types of people who emerge as chiefs with potentially important implications on who is represented in education policymaking and implementation with downstream consequences on student outcomes. This work speaks to stability and representation in state education leadership, professionalization of the office of CSSO, and key policy issues of focus for chiefs over the past two decades.

Author

• Shekinah Lightner, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor