TY - JOUR
T1 - Intermediary Organizations in Charter School Policy Coalitions
T2 - Evidence From New Orleans
AU - DeBray, Elizabeth
AU - Scott, Janelle
AU - Lubienski, Christopher
AU - Jabbar, Huriya
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: We thank the W. T. Grant Foundation for its generous support of this research through an award between 2011 and 2014 through its initiative on The Use of Research Evidence in Policymaking.
PY - 2014/3
Y1 - 2014/3
N2 - This article develops a framework for investigating research use, using an "advocacy coalition framework" and the concepts of a "supply side" (mainly organizations) and "demand side" (policymakers). Drawing on interview data and documents from New Orleans about the charter school reforms that have developed there since 2005, the authors examine (a) the role of intermediaries in producing information and research syntheses for local, state, and/or federal policymakers; (b) the extent of policymakers' demand for such research and information; and (c) the extent to which local and national coalitions of organizations appear to be influential in research use. The article concludes that there are two coalitions in New Orleans that differ in their interpretations of charter school performance, equity, and access; that there is overall very low research capacity within the intermediary sector; and that there is little evidence of demand from state policymakers for research findings. There was agreement across both coalitions that there is a lack of a credible and non-partisan research group studying the reforms, that is, one that produces data analyses that are not merely descriptive. The authors map preliminary findings about how intermediary organizations are connected to national groups, as well as how research is shared within coalitions.
AB - This article develops a framework for investigating research use, using an "advocacy coalition framework" and the concepts of a "supply side" (mainly organizations) and "demand side" (policymakers). Drawing on interview data and documents from New Orleans about the charter school reforms that have developed there since 2005, the authors examine (a) the role of intermediaries in producing information and research syntheses for local, state, and/or federal policymakers; (b) the extent of policymakers' demand for such research and information; and (c) the extent to which local and national coalitions of organizations appear to be influential in research use. The article concludes that there are two coalitions in New Orleans that differ in their interpretations of charter school performance, equity, and access; that there is overall very low research capacity within the intermediary sector; and that there is little evidence of demand from state policymakers for research findings. There was agreement across both coalitions that there is a lack of a credible and non-partisan research group studying the reforms, that is, one that produces data analyses that are not merely descriptive. The authors map preliminary findings about how intermediary organizations are connected to national groups, as well as how research is shared within coalitions.
KW - charter schools
KW - organizational networks
KW - policy coalitions
KW - research utilization
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U2 - 10.1177/0895904813514132
DO - 10.1177/0895904813514132
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84898880952
SN - 0895-9048
VL - 28
SP - 175
EP - 206
JO - Educational Policy
JF - Educational Policy
IS - 2
ER -