A Narrative Policy Framework Analysis of Charter School Editorials in Local Media

Policy debates about charter schools are often dominated by polarizing emotional narratives. However scholarly attention on narratives in education policy, and especially narratives about charter schools in local contexts, has been limited. The recently developed Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) approach offers guidelines to systematically study the narrative elements and strategies that policy actors use to influence policy debates. Relying on NPF, we conducted a content analysis of editorials and op-eds on charter schools from three local newspapers published in the 10 year period before the adoption of the legislation to answer the following questions: How did the editorials and op-eds in local newspapers cover charter schools prior to adoption of the legislation? Specifically, is it possible to identify core structural elements e.g. setting, characters, plot, and morals of policy stories in these narratives? Do these elements differ by endorsed policy solution? Narrative elements in the form of policy solutions, story types, causal mechanisms, and characters were identifiable, and their use differed by the endorsed policy solution. The concluding section discusses the role of local policy stories in public policy making, and proposes directions for future research.