A new paper in the Journal of School Choice finds that the ed reform movement is a political monoculture. Philanthropic grantees and education researchers, it can now be revealed, are “overwhelmingly align[ed] with Democratic Party and progressive political positions.”Author Ian Kingsbury, who wrote it while at the Institute for Education Policy at Johns Hopkins, has verified empirically what everyone knew all along: Education reform movement is dominated by folks who lean not just to the left, but dizzyingly so. This political homogeneity, he concludes, “might be fertile terrain for groupthink to flourish.”
That might be an understatement, but it could actually be a net positive. It is clarifying. Ed reform’s political monoculture threatens the bipartisan case for school choice, but there’s good evidence that suggests choice does not need a coalition of support to flourish. In politics, it is helpful to know who your friends and allies are and whose support is merely contingent. And now we know.
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