Sarah Reckhow

Assistant Professor of Political Science Michigan State University

  • East Lansing MI

Sarah Reckhow is an expert on education policy, urban and state politics, and philanthropy and nonprofits in public policy.

Contact

Michigan State University

View more experts managed by Michigan State University

Biography

Sarah Reckhow is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University. Her research and teaching interests include urban politics, education policy, nonprofits and philanthropy, and racial and ethnic politics. Reckhow’s work on urban schools has focused on policy reforms in New York City, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Detroit. Her award-winning book with Oxford University Press, Follow the Money: How Foundation Dollars Change Public School Politics, examines the role of major foundations, such as the Gates Foundation, in urban school reform. Reckhow was awarded a research grant from the W.T. Grant Foundation (with Megan Tompkins-Stange) to study the use of research evidence in the development of teacher quality policy debates. She has recently published articles in the Journal of Urban Affairs, Policy Studies Journal, and Planning Theory. Reckhow is affiliated with the Global Urban Studies Program and the Education Policy Center at Michigan State. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 2009. Previously, Reckhow taught history and government at Frederick Douglass High School in the Baltimore City Public Schools.

Industry Expertise

Writing and Editing
Education/Learning

Areas of Expertise

Philanthropy
Racial Politics
State Politics
Education Policy
Every Student Suceeds Act
Local Politics
Ethnic Politics

Education

University of California - Berkley

Ph.D.

Political Science

2009

Harvard University

B.A.

Social Studies

2002

News

Rocky Path Ahead as Chicago Transitions to Elected School Board

Education Week  online

2021-07-07

After decades of organizing by parents, activists and unions, Chicago is on the verge of having a fully-elected school board for the first time in its history. However, the Chicago plan has prompted backlash, even from supporters, and disagreement over what's next. There's also more chance that national issues having little to do with school operations will creep into board matters, said Sarah Reckhow, a Michigan State University professor who co-wrote a book about money in board races. She said Chicago can expect heavily contested races with an elected board. She said: “It will create a new competitive realm of electoral politics for the city.”

View More

The rise of Black homeschooling

The New Yorker  online

2021-06-14

The National Parents Union paid for a grant [to fund a homeschooling collective called Engaged Detroit] with money from Vela Education Fund which is backed by the Walton Family Foundation and the Charles Koch Institute. These groups advocate “school choice” — rerouting money and families away from traditional public schools through such means as charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately managed, and vouchers, which allow public-education dollars to be put toward private-school tuition. Sarah Reckhow, an associate professor of political science at Michigan State University told me that the Waltons “have been consistently a key funder of the charter-school movement.” Since 1997, the Walton foundation has spent more than four hundred million dollars to create and expand charter schools nationwide.

View More

Experts expect high voter turnout among MSU students. The question is where they'll vote.

Lansing State Journal  online

2020-10-28

College students are less likely than older generations. Just 46.1% of 18 to 29 year olds voted in 2016, according to U.S. Census data, compared with about 70.9% of voters at least 65 years old and 66.6% of adults between the ages of 45 to 64. But this year, college students around the country are expected to vote in record numbers. “I do expect to see (high student voter turnout),” said Sarah Reckhow, an associate professor of political science at MSU, who said the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement and political turmoil have helped increase enthusiasm among student voters. “Young people were especially engaged. I would connect a number of different dots here that shows this election…the level of interest is extraordinary.”

View More

Show All +

Journal Articles

Financing the education policy discourse: philanthropic funders as entrepreneurs in policy networks

Interest Groups & Advocacy

2018

We examine the spread and influence of ideas supported by philanthropic foundations within the context of a broader policy network. Our case focuses on the development of policy related to teacher quality—a field involving academic research, think tank involvement, and interest group participation. We conduct discourse network analysis of testimony from 175 Congressional hearings from 2003 to 2015 to examine network ties based on shared policy preferences expressed in hearings, which were used to create networks linking policy actors via shared policy preferences.

View more

“Outsiders with Deep Pockets”: The Nationalization of Local School Board Elections

Urban Affairs Review

2016

Recent election cycles have seen growing attention to the role of “outside” money in urban school board elections. Using an original data set of more than 16,000 contributions covering election cycles from 2008 to 2013 in four school districts (Los Angeles, CA; New Orleans, LA; Denver, CO; Bridgeport, CT), we show how large national donors play a significant role. Our study links two dynamic fields that are rarely studied together: (1) the behavior of wealthy donors in a changing national campaign finance system and (2) the evolving politics of urban education. By examining donor networks, we illuminate the mechanisms behind the nationalization of education politics and national donor involvement in local campaigns. We show that shared affiliations through education organizations are significantly associated with school board campaign contributions.

View more

Capacity and Equity: Federal Funding Competition Between and Within Metropolitan Regions

Journal of Urban Affairs

2015

Major federal grant programs in areas such as transportation, neighborhood development, and education increasingly rely on competition to award funds. Yet the capacity to develop a competitive application for funds can vary widely, with some places lacking civic resources that contribute to successful grant applications. Moreover, not all civic actors and priorities have similar levels of involvement in grant seeking; in particular, low‐income communities may be left out of the process. Our research examines how two forms of capacity—civic and equity advocacy—affect the distribution of federal transportation grants between and within metropolitan regions. We use multiple methods of analysis, including comparative case studies of transportation projects in Miami and Orlando, as well as a cross‐sectional quantitative analysis of competitive transportation grants. First, we assess how civic capacity affects whether a region secured federal transportation funding and find that civic capacity is positively associated with receiving competitive transportation grants in both the case studies and quantitative analysis. Second, we examine whether equity advocacy capacity within a region is associated with grant project benefits for low‐income communities. Based on the case studies, we find that equity advocacy capacity may be a key condition in order for grants to benefit low‐income communities, and our exploratory quantitative analysis further supports for this finding. Overall our findings substantiate concerns that competition for federal awards could exacerbate disparities between and within regions.

View more

Show All +