State Level Political Coalition Building Across Divides: Lessons from Pennsylvania’s Fair Funding for Equitable Education Coalitions
Date
2015
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Producer
Director
Performer
Choreographer
Costume Designer
Music
Videographer
Lighting Designer
Set Designer
Crew Member
Funder
Rehearsal Director
Concert Coordinator
Advisor
Moderator
Panelist
Alternative Title
Department
Haverford College. Department of Political Science
Type
Thesis
Original Format
Running Time
File Format
Place of Publication
Date Span
Copyright Date
Award
Language
eng
Note
Table of Contents
Terms of Use
Rights Holder
Access Restrictions
Tri-College users only
Terms of Use
Tripod URL
Identifier
Abstract
My research question was: How can political coalitions be built across urban and rural divides in order to create equitable education policy at the state level? How can political coalitions be built across ethnic and racial lines in order to create equitable education policy at the state level? In many school districts resources are highly dependent on a child’s zip code. This is due to most school funding coming from local property taxes which result in greater per-pupil expenditures compared to poorer districts which often happen to include more nonwhite students. From here, my tentative answer how political coalitions are built across urban and rural divides as well as racial and ethnic divides is that they are created by leaders who capitalize on a unifying ideology that stems from common interest. My rationale for this answer comes from observing that coalitions are not created by chance; instead leaders forge them and larger coalitions involve different leaders bringing together their groups to create a larger movement. Thus my hypothesis is that interracial and urban-rural coalitions occur when common interests and common experience lead to a common ideology, which a leader can use to create an effective interracial and statewide coalition to try to pass equitable education policy at the state level. This means that leaders who draw upon a common ideology, which stems from common experience and common interests, make coalitions. I tested my hypothesis by analyzing how coalitions were made in 2007 and 2014 in Pennsylvania's Fair Funding for Equitable Education campaigns. My results were that not many of the same organizers were around for the 2007 coalition and I was unable to gather much evidence around this. It seems that the 2014 campaign is much broader and includes more groups than before but they are still not thinking about issues of race and geography, or even the power of a grassroots movement to help unite their coalition and help them convince the state Legislature. Unless the campaign wants to compromise their ideals by working with business again, they are going to need more people power as those are the only two things legislatures care about.