Citizen evaluation of school districts: performance, budgeting and partisanship

Purpose The purpose of this research is to examine how partisanship shapes views on the performance of core functions of K-12 school districts. Design/methodology/approach We use a survey experiment with 2,400 US respondents to see how partisanship shapes public evaluations of a K-12 school district on overall performance and financial management performance based on student standardized test achievement, deficit blame attribution and cutback management strategies. Findings Regression results show that overall performance is influenced by partisanship for deficit blame attribution; however, there is common agreement on the effects of student achievement and cutback strategies. Partisanship identifications lead to more varied results on evaluations of financial management. Originality/value The study bridges literature on citizen evaluation of government, cutback management and partisan motivated reasoning to highlight how partisanship shapes perceptions of core functions of public K-12 education.