Educational Policy Goes to School

Educational policies explicitly implemented in order to reduce educational gaps and promote access and success for disenfranchised youth can backfire-and often have the unintended result of widening those gaps. In this interdisciplinary collection of case studies, contributors examine cases of policy backfire, when policies don't work, have unintended consequences, and when policies help. Although policy reform is thought of as an effective way to improve schooling structures and to diminish the achievement gap, many such attempts to reform the system do not adequately address the legacy of unequal policies and the historic and pervasive inequalities that persist in schools. Exploring the roots of school inequality and examining often-ignored negative policy outcomes, contributors illuminate the causes and consequences of poor policymaking decisions and demonstrate how policies can backfire, fail, or have unintended success.

Gilberto Q. Conchas is Professor of Educational Policy and Social Context, University of California, Irvine, USA. Michael A. Gottfried is Assistant Professor of Education Policy, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. Briana M. Hinga is Assistant Professor of Clinical Education, University of Southern California, USA. Leticia Oseguera is an Associate Professor of Higher Education at the Pennsylvania State University, USA.

Chapter 1: Introduction: Conceptualizing the Intricacies that are Concomitant in Educational Policy Making that Determine Success, Backfire and Everything in Between Leticia Oseguera, Miguel Abad, Jacob Kirksey, Briana Hinga, Gilberto Conchas, and Michael Gottfried Part 1: Backfire Chapter 2: How Equity and Social Justice Urban Education Choice Campaigns in Detroit are Masquerading Backfire and the Worsening the Status Quo Cassie J. Brownell Chapter 3: When Policies that Impact Students with Significant Disabilities in Michigan Backfire Mark E. Deschaine Chapter 4: When Zero-Tolerance Discipline Policies in the United States Backfire Hugh Potter and Brian Boggs Chapter 5: When Free Schools in England and Charter Schools in the United States Backfire Graham Downes and Catherine A. Simon Part 2: Failure Chapter 6: When High-Stakes Accountability Measures Impact Promising Practices in an Indigenous-serving Charter School V. Anthony-Stevens Chapter 7: How Public-Private Partnerships Contribute to Educational Policy Failure Frank Fernandez, Karla I. Loya, and Leticia Oseguera Chapter 8: The Failure of Accountability in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program Michael R. Ford & William Velez Chapter 9: How Centralized Implementation Policies Failed the Austrian New Middle School Process Corinna Geppert Part 3: Unintended Chapter 10: The Unintended Consequences of School Vouchers: Rise, Rout and Rebirth Aaron Saiger Chapter 11: Challenges and Unintended Consequences of Student Centered Learning Lea Hubbard and Amanda Datnow Chapter 12: School Discipline Policies That Result in Unintended Consequences for Latino Male Students' College Aspirations Adrian H. Huerta, Shannon M. Calderone, and Patricia M. McDonough Chapter 13: When Special Education Policy in Ontario Create Unintended Consequences Lauren Jervis and Sue Winton Part 4: Success Chapter 14: Latina/o Farm-Worker Parent Leadership Retreats as Sites of Agency, Community Cultural Wealth, and Success Pedro E. Nava and Argelia Lara Chapter 15: Bilingual and Biliterate Skills as Cross-Cultural Competence Success Ricardo González-Carriedo and Alexandra Babino Chapter 16: Diversity-Driven Charters and the Construction of Urban School Success Priscilla Wohlstetter, Amy K. Wang, and Matthew M. Gonzales Chapter 17: Reflecting on the Institutional Processes for College Success among Chicanos in the Context of CrisisLouie F. Rodríguez, Eduardo Mosqueda, Pedro E. Nava, & Gilberto Q. Conchas Chapter 18: Reframing the Problematic Achievement Gap Narrative to Structure Educational Success Robert K. Ream, Sarah Ryan, and Tina Yang