This article investigates educational preferences in the bilingual education system that reinforce the salience of both socio-economic and socio-cultural issues. We ask, first, how many distinct groups of educational preferences exist and whether these differ by ethnic nationality. Second, we investigate the extent to which economic self-interest…

These are the results of the 16th annual "Education Next" survey, conducted in May 2022 with a nationally representative sample of 1,784 American adults. While last year's survey revealed sharp changes in support for a variety of education reforms (EJ1348128), public opinion on most issues has since rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.…

In the first half of 2021, 33 states considered new private school choice legislation. Despite this legislative interest, public opinion on private school choice remains varied. In this paper, we examine voter support for private school choice in Missouri, a politically conservative state that lacked a private school choice program until 2021. We…

Abstract America's traditional public schools are facing challenges that may ultimately lead to their extinction. From their beginnings, some criticized them for being secular schools when much of the country was religious and wary of government. Today, the Internet has amplified conservative voices, swaying public opinion against government-run…

In a context that privileges neighborhood zoning and school choice over within-district busing, we examine urban residents' perceptions of the benefits of racial diversity. We analyze public opinion trends by race and residents' experience as a student in a district under court-ordered desegregation--Nashville, TN. We find racial differences…

Conventional wisdom suggests that evangelical Christians, often among the most vocal advocates of school choice efforts in the U.S., are promoting choice out of a sense of frustration with public schools and perceived bias against religion. Research by Marilyn Anderson Rhames, however, suggests that evangelicals are no more concerned about…

For 14 years, the "Education Next" annual survey has tracked American opinion on education policy. This year's survey, administered in May 2020, provides an early look at how the experiences of the past few months as the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools nationwide may shape Americans' views on education policy going forward. The survey's…

The role of political factors, specifically of public opinion, in the relatively low penetration of charter schools into rural America remains unclear. We use 8 years of national survey data to demonstrate that rural residents express less support for charter schools than residents of other locales do. We attribute this gap to differences in…

The definition of public education is changing rapidly and radically in our current political landscape. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the debate over publicly funded school voucher systems, which direct taxpayer funds to parents to offset the cost of tuition at the private schools of their choice. Tina Cheuk and Rand Quinn address how…

Education's political landscape has shifted dramatically over the past year. To the consternation of most school-district officials, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos used the bully pulpit to promote charter schools, vouchers, and tax credits for private-school scholarships. To the distress of teachers unions, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down…

With the 2020 presidential election campaign now underway, education-policy proposals previously at the edge of the political debate are entering the mainstream. Support for increasing teacher pay is higher now than at any point since 2008, and a majority of the public favors more federal funding for local schools. Free college commands the…

Since the 1970s business groups have staged the control of education, first in the form of partnerships with schools and universities to support science, math, and technology, and more recently in the form of venture philanthropy. This article examines how these business groups, including the "billionaire boys club" and their mega…

This paper aims to extend existing theorisations around the notion of public narratives by analysing their regulatory effects under intensified market conditions. My analysis suggests that public narratives constitute a liminal space, one that it is not exclusively real or imaginary, factual or normative, but that simultaneously affects and is…

In 2013, the Boston Public Schools (BPS) adopted the Home-Based Student Assignment Policy (HBSAP), which replaced elementary and middle-school choice within three large geographic zones with an algorithm that generates a choice basket of schools for each address based on proximity to the student's home and a guarantee that all baskets will include…

Background/Context: School choice reforms could strengthen parents' influence on school behaviors, since schools must appeal to parents in order to operate. If parents' desires for schools differ from the broader public's desires for schools, then schools might pursue different goals and activities in systems emphasizing school choice. One popular…