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High Pressure Reform: Examining Urban Schools’ Response to Multiple School Choice Policies

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Abstract

Over the past several decades, policymakers have sought to address the problem of school failure by exposing traditional public schools to competitive market forces. In this analysis, we examine how two traditional public schools in a “high pressure/high choice” urban school cluster in Texas responded to a number of overlapping choice policies that have caused them to lose significant numbers of students. We explore how these two traditional public schools made sense of, and formulated a response to, their multiple “competitors,” how they balanced market pressures and the other external (accountability) pressures that they faced. In this analysis, we illustrate how competition does not always lead to significant or productive change in low performing schools.

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Notes

  1. The interview with the superintendent was conducted via email.

  2. All names of schools and districts are pseudonyms.

  3. 5-A is the designation by the University Interscholastic League for the state’s largest enrollment high schools. See http://www.uiltexas.org/about.

  4. Competitive tension is defined by Chen et al. (2007) as the “aggregate threats and pressures (both objective and perceived) that a firm experiences” (p. 103).

  5. When the results came out over the summer of 2011, we learned that the school did in fact make AYP that year after an appeal to the state.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Educational Policy and Planning Program, Department of Educational Administration, The College of Education, The University of Texas at Austin, 1912 Speedway D5400, Austin, TX, 78712-1604, USA

    Jennifer Jellison Holme & Rian Carkhum

  2. Rice University, Center for Digital Learning and Scholarship, 6100 Main Street, MS 112, Houston, TX, 77005, USA

    Virginia Snodgrass Rangel

Authors
  1. Jennifer Jellison Holme
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  2. Rian Carkhum
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  3. Virginia Snodgrass Rangel
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Correspondence to Jennifer Jellison Holme.

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Holme, J.J., Carkhum, R. & Rangel, V.S. High Pressure Reform: Examining Urban Schools’ Response to Multiple School Choice Policies. Urban Rev 45, 167–196 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-012-0216-3

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