Antidote or antagonist? The role of Education Reform Advocacy Organizations in educational policymaking

ABSTRACT

In recent years, a new breed of political organizations has had remarkable influence in American educational policymaking. Proponents of neoliberal reform, these groups have been labeled as Education Reform Advocacy Organizations, or ERAOs. I situate these organizations within the larger network of Intermediary Organizations (IOs). To understand the ways that ERAOs influence the policymaking process, I explore the role of Stand for Children, a national ERAO, in helping to pass neoliberal reform of teacher job security in Massachusetts. Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), I explore common frames evident in debate about the organization’s role in the state, and I rely on data from key stakeholder interviews, observations and policy artifacts to characterize competing arguments about the organization’s political motives. I pay particularly close attention to how the organization’s political identity shaped, and was shaped by, its attempts to build an advocacy coalition in the state. Throughout the case, I investigate how competing identities bumped up against each other in ways that would have a major impact on the policymaking process, and I use my analysis to generate questions about what it means for ERAOs to sustain their success over time.

KEYWORDS:

• Democratic engagement
• frame analysis
• neoliberalism
• policy analysis
• politics
• qualitative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 I introduce key informants as their responses become relevant to the overarching themes of the case. According to the informed consent agreement for this research, the names of all interview participants have been replaced with pseudonyms. I sought permission from each interview participant regarding identification of their title and of the name of the organization that they work for or represent. In cases where I did not receive explicit permission to identify organizational names or titles, I use generic labels that indicate the participant’s location in the policy subsystem.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peter Piazza

Peter Piazza completed his Ph. D. in Curriculum and Instruction at the Boston College Lynch School of Education. His research focuses on understanding changes to the political environment for educational policymaking with a particular focus on democratic engagement in public school policy. His exploration of nonprofit organizations in state policymaking is drawn from his unpublished dissertation, ‘Neo-democracy in educational policymaking: Teachers’ unions, Education Reform Advocacy Organizations and threats to public engagement in the new policy arena’, which explores the political dynamics surrounding recent changes to public K-12 tenure policy in Massachusetts.