School Choice Policy And Political Culture

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I examine the concept of school choice policy and how political culture affects its creation. It has been widely researched and concluded by many scholars that school choice policy and implementation segregates school districts. However, a relatively untouched component of this issue has looked at the affect political culture and other factors have on the creation of school choice policy and type of school choice policy that is introduced. In this research I am going to look at how political culture and what other factors may affect the amount of school choice policy and the type of school. In order to understand this research it is important to give background to the current school choice position. Currently, 43 out of the 50 states have …show more content…
First off, it appears that the success of a school based on standardized tests plays a role in voter turnout for new school choice policy. “weak student performance on state tests is a consistent and modestly strong predictor of voter support for charter schools across school districts” (Corcoran and Stoddard). In addition to this idea, it has been concluded that the quality of public schools within a state plays a role in whether school choice policy is passed and implemented into a state. The lower the quality of public schools will increase support of school choice policy, while higher quality of public schools will decrease support of school choice policy. Next, the composition of race within the state and school district appear to play a role in whether school choice policy is introduced and passed. Brunner, Imazeki, and Ross discover that white families are more likely to support school voucher systems when their children are attending schools with higher non-white students and when there are large portions of students who English is not their first language. This research explains that the minority population within a state and specifically a school district matters for whether school choice policy will be implemented in a state. Third, teacher unions play a significant role in education reform including school choice policy. Hartney and Flavin conclude through their research that teacher unions are actually influential enough in campaigns and policies that they are able to fend off policy that they oppose. This study confirms my hypothesis that teacher unions play a role within school choice policy. Fourth, there has been quite a bit of research done on this idea of political culture in addition to other elements including interest

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