ABSTRACT
What is the politics of education and what do we mean when we discuss it? This chapter of the Handbook provides readers with a panoramic overview of research on the politics of education, beginning with exploration into the multiple levels and arenas within which conflict over educational politics takes place. Interestingly, the lay public rarely pays attention to school politics, as evidenced by the very low rates (often as low as 10%) of voter participation in school board and local school bond elections. According to Boyd (1987), “Ignorance about school politics has become almost as American as apple pie” (p. 89), which is ironic given that education is the single largest expenditure of every state government and one of the most extensive and expensive enterprises in which government engages-whether it be the federal, state, county, municipal government, or the local school board. Few people realize the extent or scope of K-12 education in the U.S.A., nor just how many adults earn a livelihood from the system (not just teachers-principals, central office, counselors, secretaries, janitors, bus drivers, and other support staff) as well as all the industries, such as transportation and agriculture, that support it. For example, the New York City public school system employs approximately 79,000 teachers in over 1,400 schools with an annual budget of nearly $17 billion dollars-far larger than most Fortune 500 companies.
