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Politics, Markets, and Pandemics: Public Education’s Response to COVID-19

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 June 2021

Michael T. Hartney Open the ORCID record for Michael T. Hartney [Opens in a new window]  and
Leslie K. Finger Open the ORCID record for Leslie K. Finger [Opens in a new window]
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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to examine how local governments respond to a public health crisis amid high levels of partisan polarization. As an arena that has historically been relatively insulated from national partisan cleavages, public schools provide a useful window into understanding the growing nationalization of local politics. Leveraging the fact that all school districts had to adopt a reopening plan in fall 2020, we assess the factors that influenced school district reopening decisions. We find that mass partisanship and vested interests best explain the degree to which schools reopened. Republican (Democratic) districts were far more (less) likely to reopen in person, while districts with stronger unions relied more on remote learning. Notably, we find little connection between reopening decisions and indicators measuring the severity of the virus. Finally, public schools were sensitive to the threat of student exit. Districts located in counties with more Catholic schools were somewhat more likely to reopen in person. We assess the implications of these findings for U.S. education policy and the study of local government more generally.

Type
Special Issue Articles: Pandemic Politics
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 20 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Pandemic Politics , June 2022 , pp. 457 - 473
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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Footnotes

A list of permanent links to Supplemental Materials provided by the authors precedes the References section.

Data replication sets are available in Harvard Dataverse at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/TTBTHP

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