Poor Choices: The Sociopolitical Context of “Grand Theft Education”

Abstract

In recent years, districts have paid special attention to the common practice of “district hopping,” families bending geographic school assignment rules by sending a child to a school in a district where the child does not formally reside—usually to a district that is more desirable because of higher performing schools or greater educational resources. In several high-profile cases, mothers who engaged in district hopping were charged with “grand theft” of educational services. By situating these cases in the broader context of market-based reforms, we refocus attention on the responses of districts rather than the actions of parents. We argue that increased privatization of education and growing dominance of a “private-goods” model of schooling create the conditions necessary for framing these actions as “theft.”