'Voodoo Economics': A Study of Competition and Regulation in New Orleans Schools

Huriya Jabbar

Policymakers expect school leaders to respond to market pressures by working to improve the efficiency of their schools and the effectiveness of instruction. The expansion of school choice is therefore a ?tide that lifts all boats.? But this theory of action rests on several important and unexamined assumptions. This study tries to understand how school choice creates school-level actions. It highlights the social and political aspects of competitive markets in education, with attention to how local government interacts with and supports these markets. Using mixed methods, including qualitative interviews, network analysis, and the statistical modeling of network data, I examine how competition influences the strategies and perceptions of school leaders in New Orleans, the school system that most resembles a pure market in the U.S.

About Huriya Jabbar

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