Innovation and Isomorphism in Public Education Policy during California’s Era of Local Control

• In Event: 50604 - Rethinking Educational Reform Across Contexts

Abstract

We combine emerging computational text analysis approaches with traditional methods of quantitative social science data analysis to describe patterns of education policy development and diffusion over a nine-year period among a sample of 870 California school districts. In particular, we focus on school districts’ policies for using special allocations of state funding to increase equitable outcomes among low-income, English-learner, and foster youth students. Using topic modeling and text network mapping, we trace the emergence and over-time evolution of policy communities: clusters of school districts that articulate similar policy approaches to increasing educational equity. We describe the axes of topical similarity that define these policy communities as well as the district-level predictors of policy community co-membership, describing the policy landscape’s shifting contours and the contextual and organizational correlates of mimetic isomorphism among public school districts.

Authors

• Jacob Hibel, University of California-Davis

• Angelita Repetto, University of California-Davis

• Jee Young Bhan, University of California-Davis

• Lindsay Jenkinson Maurer, University of Washington

• Lucas Caelan Fowler, UC Davis