Why is there a growing divide on education policy issues?

When it comes to education policy issues, individuals are switching their positions to align with their party affiliations rather than switching their party affiliations to align with their issue positions—a development known as political sorting.

Historically, while some K-12 education policy issues ignited passionate debate and viewpoints, these usually were not partisan in nature but instead emanated from deeply held personal beliefs on race or religion. Debate over school desegregation, sex education, prayer in school, and the teaching of evolution are examples of such issues.

But, more recently, education policy has become increasingly influenced by partisan politics, with issues such as teachers’ unions, school choice, free community college, teaching about racism, and Covid mask wearing mandates resulting in sharp schisms along party lines between rank-and-file Republicans and Democrats. This has given rise to an environment of increased politicization where many school policy matters that were once addressed at the local level, relatively free of party influence, are now elevated onto the national stage of partisan politics.

The large partisan divide that exists on several highly contentious education policy issues may be due in part to some people becoming more polarized and extreme in their ideologies. However, a recently published working paper authored by faculty in Mason’s Education Policy program within the School of Education suggests that most of the growth in partisanship over education policy can be attributed to political sorting, where people switch their issue positions to align with their party affiliation. This conclusion is supported by an analysis of 16 years of data collected from an annual survey of public attitudes toward education issues conducted by Education Next from 2007 to 2022.

To learn more about the impact of political sorting on education policy, read this article by Mason Assistant Professor David M. Houston. The Education Policy program in Mason’s School of Education offers graduate degree programs focusing on the policies and practices of school practitioners and educational leaders at various levels of government.