School Choice and the Politics of Advocacy

What is the landscape of the racial politics of public education in the age of Obama? To what factors can we attribute the seeming educational policy consensus between Washington policy makers, state legislators, philanthropies, and policy entrepreneurs in urban school districts? How should we understand opposition to the policy menu? This talk will examine what have become commonsense understandings about the causes and solutions for educational inequality—particularly solutions that embrace market strategies such as school choice. Professor Janelle Scott argues that a primary reason for the popularity of such reforms is an under-examined, elite advocacy coalition that is pushing policy makers to embrace entrepreneurial educational reforms. Scott will explore the structure of this network, arguing that its dominance has precluded an understanding of counter advocacy against school choice and related reforms. She will also describe some examples of past and current movements that challenge commonsense understandings of the efficacy and popularity of market-based reforms. Further examination of these efforts can highlight the concerns, strategies, and solutions to educational inequality being articulated by communities of color and their allies, and can also suggest spaces for more democratic deliberation.

Janelle Scott is an assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley in the Graduate School of Education and African American Studies Department. She earned a Ph.D. in Education Policy from the University of California at Los Angeles Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to earning her doctorate, she taught elementary school in Oakland, California.

Professor Scott's research explores the relationship between education, policy, and equality of opportunity, and centers on three related policy strands: the racial politics of public education, the politics of school choice, marketization, and privatization, and the role of elite and community-based advocacy in shaping public education. Her work has appeared in several edited books and journals, including the Peabody Journal of Education, Educational Policy, American Educational Research Journal, and Harvard Educational Review. She the editor of School Choice and Diversity: What the Evidence Says (2005 Teachers College Press).