Competing Public Values Amidst Fiscal Crisis: The Case of State Takeover System in Michigan

The article analyzes contested reasoning and public values conflict in the state takeover of municipalities via emergency managers (EM) to address fiscal crisis. We investigate the following questions: (1) which public values are associated with the EM intervention strategies?; (2) is there a competition among those values? A content analysis of nearly 500 official documents in four Michigan municipalities reveals that EM interventions reflect a strive for fiscal accountability and legality at the expense of democratic values. This study contributes to the growing body of research on public values, and it advances our understanding of decision-making processes under stress.

Federalism, Race, and the Politics of Turnaround: U.S. Public Opinion on Improving Low-Performing Schools and Districts

Public support for school improvement policies can increase the success and durability of those reforms. However, little is known about public views on turnaround. We capitalize on a nationally representative 2017 survey ( N = 4,214) to uncover opinions regarding which level of government should lead on turnaround and state takeover of troubled districts. We find controversy surrounding state intervention into low-performing schools is not driven by a generalized allegiance to local control over education. We observe high levels of support for state-level leadership in identifying and fixing failing schools, and even for state takeover of struggling districts. Instead, opposition appears to arise from the loss of local political and economic power, often experienced by majority-Black communities, that typically accompanies state takeover.

Rhetoric, Reality, and Politics: The Neoliberal Cul-de-Sac in Education

In Barbara Ferman’s collection, The Fight for America’s Schools, grassroots resistance to neoliberal education reform holds the spotlight. Her geographic lens is the Pennsylvania/New Jersey region. In this article, the geographic focus shifts to Memphis, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C. Experiences in these two cities show how the neoliberal agenda is protected in the face of disappointing results. The Memphis case centers on a state takeover driven by a market ideology. Its experience underscores that reducing local representation to an inconsequential advisory role also diminishes what education policy leaders believe they need to consider. D.C. offers a more complex narrative, one haunted by the corrupted metrics of Campbell’s Law. In both cities, the neoliberal toolbox proved unable to deliver in practice what the drawing board had promised.

Incentivizing improvement or imposition? An examination of the response to gubernatorial school takeover and statewide turnaround districts

Although state-run school districts and gubernatorial school takeover have become popular turnaround strategies among some states, little is known about how district and school leaders perceive and respond to these changes in educational governance. Using Georgia as a case study, this paper employs sensemaking and exit, voice, and loyalty as frameworks to examine how district and school leaders interpret and respond to the threat of state takeover. Similar to prior studies, results indicate that urban schools and districts largely populated by low-income students and students of color are most likely to be affected by state takeover. Several themes emerge from district and school leaders’ interpretation of state takeover policy, including: (a) principals and teachers are to blame, (b) too many changes, too little time to reflect, (c) lack of trust between school districts and the state, and (d) market-based reforms and the illusion of choice. Although a non-trivial number of teachers and principals have expressed their intent to leave for charter schools or leave the teaching profession in response to the threat of state takeover, voice was the more common response, particularly among teachers in takeover-eligible schools who were more experienced and had students performing well on state tests. There are also noteworthy differences in the response of district and school leaders based on the eligibility for state takeover.

Recovery, Achievement, and Opportunity: A Comparative Analysis of State Takeover Districts in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Georgia

Although state-run turnaround districts have grown in prominence as a school improvement strategy with significant equity implications for urban education, little is known about the similarities and differences across states. This article provides a comparative analysis of state-run takeover districts in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Georgia. Although there are several similarities such as the centrality of test-based accountability and charter schools as an intervention strategy, no two state takeover districts are the same. The effectiveness of state takeovers is mixed and complicated by equity concerns as well as uncertainty about which aspect of state takeovers may be driving school improvement.

A View from Two Cities

The chapter provides an in-depth examination of state takeovers of the Newark, New Jersey, and Central Falls, Rhode Island, school districts. It begins with an examination of the first five years following the takeover of the Newark schools (1995–2000) from the perspective of the city’s black community and finds that the state takeover of the local schools had a devastating political and economic effect on the city’s black community. Then the chapter focuses on a case study of Central Falls, Rhode Island. Despite representing a significant portion of the city’s population, the Latino community did not have any representation on the school board, on the city council, or in the mayor’s office at the time of the takeover in 1991. The chapter argues that the state takeover of the Central Falls schools helped pave a path to Latino political empowerment in Central Falls.