Law Commons^™

Law And Policy Entrepreneurs: Empirical Evidence On The Expansion Of School Choice Policy, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This study leverages event history analysis to help explain the expansion of public charter school legislation between 1991–2006. This study expands previous work in two important ways. First, while critical distinctions separate public charter school and school voucher programs, both fall comfortably within the broader rubric of “school choice.” As such, it is difficult to understand the development of state legislation for one school choice variant independent of the other. Thus, this analysis includes the presence of publicly- or privately-funded voucher programs in a state as a possible factor influencing the adoption of charter school legislation in a state. Second, …

The Political Economy Of School Choice, Michael Heise, James E. Ryan

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This paper examines the political economy of school choice and focuses in particular on the role of suburbanites. This group, which we contend is the most important and powerful stakeholder in choice debates, has yet to receive much attention in the commentary. It turns out that suburbanites, by and large, are not wild about school choice, either public or private. Suburbanites are largely satisfied with the schools in their neighborhoods and want to protect the physical and financial independence of those schools (as well as their property values, which are tied to the perceived quality of local schools). School choice …

Equal Educational Opportunity And Constitutional Theory: Preliminary Thoughts On The Role Of School Choice And The Autonomy Principle, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Inadequate schools impede America's long-standing quest for greater equal educational opportunity. The equal educational opportunity doctrine, traditionally moored in terms of race, has expanded to include notions of educational adequacy. Educational adequacy is frequently construed in terms of educational spending and framed in terms largely incident to constitutional litigation.

This paper explores the potential intersections of the school choice and school finance movements, particularly as they relate to litigation and policy. The paper argues that school choice policies constitute a viable remedy for successful school finance litigation and form a remedy that simultaneously advances individual autonomy, one critical constitutional principle.