Election Series | Power to the People? Populism and the Politics of School Choice by Jeremy Singer

This is the fourth contribution in the AJE Forum Election Issues series. Together, these pieces will introduce and analyze relevant issues in education policy and politics that will shape the 2020 Presidential election including the politics of school choice, Black Lives Matter and social justice, reopening schools during a pandemic, prioritizing funding for students with disabilities, early childhood education policies, and student loans for higher education.

Populist sentiments on the rise in the United States and globally (Lewis et al., 2019), and the politics of school choice are shifting as new fault lines between supporters of school choice on the left and right emerge and stronger opposition to school choice in the Democratic party takes hold (Goldstein & Ember, 2019; Henig, 2020; Hess, 2020; Valant, 2019). A tempting question becomes: “Is school choice populist?” (Shakeel & Maranto, 2020). One could argue over whether school choice does or does not give power to the people; and, in fact, researchers and policymakers have theoretically, ideologically, and empirically argued over precisely that for multiple decades.

Whether school choice is or is not populist, however, is not the right question. Policies are not inherently populist or elitist. Rather, populism is reflected in the political rhetoric used to forge political coalitions and advocate for different laws and policies, whatever those laws and policies are (Aslanidis, 2016; Laclau, 2005). Any policy or law can be constructed as elitist or populist, depending on the kind of discourse that political actors use. Simply, populism is “an anti-elite discourse in the name of the sovereign People” (Aslanidis, 2016, p. 96), and it can be deployed by politicians to frame a number of different political issues.

Therefore, the right question about politics and school choice is not whether the policies are populist, but whether the politics surrounding school choice policies are populist. This is a question that can be answered historically—to what extent have the politics of school choice been populist?—and it can be asked about the present moment to consider whether and how political actors might seize upon populist rhetoric forge new political coalitions.

In this piece, I review the history of school choice politics from the perspective of populism and highlight how more populist discourse was sidelined in favor of a more elitist or technocratic approach to school choice that facilitated broad-based coalitional support. I also argue that while populist sentiments are rising, the existing geographic and demographic divisions within the political parties will make it hard for political leaders to pivot to a more populist rhetoric around school choice.

The Dominant (Elitist) Politics of School Choice

School choice policies—such as charter schools, vouchers, magnet schools, and inter-district open enrollment—have proliferated over the past several decades. Throughout the country, the expansion of these policies has been supported by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats (Ravitch, 2017). The politics surrounding school choice in this bipartisan reform era have been largely elitist or weakly populist.

Many advocates of school choice have argued for using market competition as a way to improve school quality—“a tool of public policy” that can correct for “government failure” in the provision of educational services (Hannaway & Woodroffe, 2003, pp. 3-4). This perspective has been especially prominent in urban districts that have adopted portfolio management models (Bulkley et al., 2010), where “managers of choice” have pursued school choice reforms as part of an elite policy agenda (Scott, 2008). This framing of school choice—as a way to harness markets for school improvement—reflects an elitist and technocratic logic, rather than a populist one.

Others have argued that school choice empowers disadvantaged families as “consumers” and gives them access to better educational options. This argument, while less elitist and technocratic, are still weakly populist. In this case, school choice is seen as a solution for a failing ‘system’ rather than as a demand in opposition to elites. In addition, the family empowerment argument emphasizes individual choice and freedom in a marketplace and the expansion of individual opportunities, rather than meeting the demands of “the people” through political channels (Ellison & Aloe, 2019; Pedroni, 2006; Scott, 2013; Scott & Holme, 2016).

Populist Politics of School Choice  

The weak populism or elitism of the dominant political rhetoric can be seen clearly when contrasted to more populist arguments for school choice from select interest groups. A strong example of this is when White Southern segregationists turned to school vouchers and “segregation academies” to avoid desegregation policies (Ford et al., 2017; Gooden et al., 2016; O’Brien, 1997). Segregationists constructed the right to racially segregated schools as a shared interest of “the people” (White Southerners) in opposition to civil rights organizations and national policymakers who imposed desegregation on them (Chappell, 1998).

Another example comes from the ongoing efforts of the Christian Right to secure “religious freedom” in education through school choice. Their intensely populist politics have framed the interests of a moral Christian “people” against “alien” and “elite” forces who impose non-Christian values and practices through schools and other social institutions. This view has carried over to school choice: they have framed themselves as a people “victimized by current laws and by the educational system…[whose] cultural identity can only be maintained through the use of public money to establish and expand the rights of parents to school their children in any manner they see fit” (Apple, 2001, p. 161).

Finally, some factions of Black activists and community leaders have embraced a more populist tone than the family “empowerment” argument. It is commonplace to find school choice supporters arguing that school choice is a civil rights issue (Scott, 2012). Less common, but still present, is a more antagonistic framing of school choice that blames elites for the racialized forms of political, economic, and spatial inequality that Black families face in urban schools and communities. This Black populist argument frames support for school choice in opposition to White families who have hoarded educational opportunities and White policymakers who have failed to provide quality schools to Black families, especially in high-poverty urban districts (Pedroni, 2007).

Each of these examples contrasts starkly with the dominant discourses of school choice politics. In each case, there is a clear construction of “the people” and an antagonism towards a defined group of elites that ostensibly hold power over them. These arguments, while present, have taken a backseat to the weakly populist or elitist discursive frames that political actors used to forge bipartisan coalitions and broadly implement school choice policies. As this political coalition becomes unsettled, the question is whether political actors will turn to more populist arguments to establish new coalitions around the issue.

Will School Choice Politics Become More Populist?

With the rise in populist political sentiments in the U.S. and globally (Lewis et al., 2019), we might expect to see more populist arguments for or against school choice. Black and Hispanic families and community leaders who support school choice in urban districts have responded to a growing opposition to choice and charters in the Democratic party by demanding that their right to choose schools be protected (Green, 2020; Green & Shapiro, 2019). At the same time, families, activists, and educators who oppose school choice in these communities are tapping into the very same demands for recognition and self-determination, arguing, for example, against “the illusion of choice” and “billionaire privatizers” (Ferman, 2017; Gross, 2018; Medina & Goldstein, 2019).

This populist discourse has not yet permeated the elite partisan level of school choice politics. For example, even though Betsy DeVos is strongly aligned with the Christian Right (Rizga, 2017), she has relied primarily on ideologically pro-market arguments for choice, both in terms of families’ freedom to choose schools and the power of the market to improve school quality (Strauss, 2017, 2019). Democratically-affiliated supporters of portfolio management models have sought to disarticulate their support for “managed choice” from the more libertarian and market-ideological positions of conservatives (e.g. Booker, 2019; Chait, 2017; Harris, 2016), ultimately doubling down on the elitist technocratic vision of market mechanisms for school improvement. Democratic opponents of choice have criticized for-profit charters, which to some extent fits within a leftist populist antagonism towards corporate interests but also fits within a more traditional Democratic opposition to charter schools (Anzia, 2020; Kirst, 2007). Others have sidestepped the issue of choice, instead focusing on proposals for access to quality early childhood education, increased teacher pay, and increased funding for high-poverty schools (Green & Shapiro, 2019; Harris, 2019).

Existing racial and geographic divisions within political constituencies may make it unlikely that the political efforts in support or opposition to school choice take on a more populist dimension (Chambers, 2020; Ferman, 2020; Henig, 2020). The question becomes: who would “the people” be? As political actors lean into more populist rhetoric and try to construct a “people” in opposition to “the elite,” they face the challenge of finding common ground that joins different group’s demands into a similar antagonism towards elites (Laclau, 2005). In doing so, they risk exacerbating disagreements within their existing constituencies.

On the right, many rural communities have pride in their traditional public schools, and a populist frame that construes rural communities in opposition to urban elites or state lawmakers may work against school choice rather than in support of it (Shakeel & Maranto, 2019). This creates a potential tension with the Christian Right’s ongoing efforts to secure public funds for religious education through school choice policies (Howe, 2020). If rural Republicans remain supportive of their own public schools, even while criticizing the state of the nation’s public schools writ large (Henderson et al., 2020), a populist frame that construes rural communities in opposition to urban elites or state lawmakers may work against school choice rather than in support of it (Shakeel & Maranto, 2019).

On the left, Democratic constituencies are split on school choice along racial lines, with Black and Hispanic Democrats supporting school choice policies in greater numbers and teachers and unions most strongly opposing it (Henderson et al., 2020). A division between teachers and families of color on the issue of choice echoes a historical tension in urban education in particular, wherein the interests of families and teachers have not always aligned (Pedroni, 2006). Whether teachers and families more strongly see their interests as interconnected or in opposition to each other on the issue of choice may depend on how educational policy and politics are situated within the broader political and economic developments in cities, suburbs, and rural communities (Anzia, 2020; Ferman, 2020). More recently, teacher activism has been further invigorated as policymakers and district leaders have demanded that they return to schools in context of the coronavirus pandemic. This resistance to in-person schooling may strain relationships between teachers and the families, especially less advantaged families who are already more likely to have less positive relationships with school staff and who face even greater challenges with childcare and distance learning.

Given these within-party divisions, it remains unclear whether supporters and opponents of school choice will break from the dominant logics of market-based reform and forge more populist arguments that make equivalent the interests and demands of their constituents. It is also unclear how the public health and economic upheaval brought on by the novel coronavirus will affect the momentum of populist politics in education and in general (Mudde, 2020). Still, as the social, political, and economic context for education shifts—especially if the core assumptions undergirding the dominant arguments for school choice today are discredited—the political frames of arguments for and against school choice may shift as well. Moving forward, as populist forms of discourse emerge in school choice politics, we should pay attention to how “the people” are constructed and against whom their interests are framed, to understand exactly how those kinds of arguments are being used to form new political coalitions.

Jeremy Singer is a Ph.D. student in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. His interests include the social and material context of urban education and critical analysis of educational policy, politics, implementation, and research use. He is a research assistant and project coordinator for the Detroit Education Research Partnership. He formerly taught in the Detroit Public Schools.

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