Ideas and the Politics of School Choice Policy: Portfolio Management in Philadelphia

In this article, we examine the role of ideas in the politics of school choice policy. We situate our study within scholarship that understands frames and logics as types of ideas that operate in the foreground and background of policy debates. We focus on portfolio management, a model of reform in which a central office oversees a network of schools functioning under varying forms of governance. Our data are drawn from a case study of political contention over portfolio management reform in Philadelphia. We find that the frames and counterframes deployed by stakeholders are resonant with societal-level logics of community localism, market transaction, and state bureaucratic administration. Much scholarship on education reform efforts focuses on their effectiveness and sustainability; our study addresses sociological processes involved and demonstrates how ideational processes shape political contention in education reform. We challenge the notion that opponents of portfolio reform are merely defenders of the status quo, and demonstrate the ways in which portfolio opponents critique and seek to change existing conditions.