Jonathan E Collins
Biographic Data
| ID | 1038926 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jonathan E Collins |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jonathan E |
| FAMILY NAME | Collins |
| SIGNATURE | COLLINS J E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Brown University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7296-1340 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 83 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 34 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Policy Solutions
Although the long-term future of the social media app TikTok is uncertain, its influence on students is undeniable. Students have used it to form communities and to learn from others who speak to them in ways they can understand. However, not all of what they’ve learned has been beneficial. Jonathan Collins discusses what educators can learn from the popularity of TikTok and considers how its ability to engage students could inspire educators
Administrative Designs and Access to Political Arenas in Public Education
What administrative and political features render spaces of political action publicly accessible? Drawing on Schattschneider's core elements of visibility and scope, we offer a framework to identify administrative features that are crucial to democratic accessibility and apply this framework to American public school board meetings. We analyze online access to school board meeting information through original data retrieved from more than 11,000 …
What Date Works Best for You? Changes in Electorate Demographics and Policy Priorities in Concurrent Elections
Research shows that off-cycle local elections witness much lower turnout than elections held concurrently with state or national elections. However, not all concurrent elections are created equal. Local elections can be held concurrently with presidential general elections, congressional midterms, or state and national primaries. We leverage the passage of a California law that forced cities to change their election calendar to understand the way…
Policy Solutions
Should school board elections be partisan? Jonathan E. Collins writes about the pros and cons of bringing political parties back into school board elections. While partisan elections can bring more voter participation and interest in school governance, they also run the risk of pushing aside real education issues for culture war distractions
Policy Solutions
The current culture wars have been showing up in schools and districts, making local school board races increasingly partisan. The 2024 presidential race is placing even more attention on the partisan divide in local education policies and decisions. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins writes that education advocates can leverage this focus and help put aside partisan politics and meet the post-pandemic challenges students face
Policy Solutions
Civics education should include ways for students to experience civic life and to understand how voting affects their lives. Jonathan E. Collins writes that civics education is currently perceived as a luxury. It is, instead, a societal necessity that will help build and maintain our civic infrastructure
Policy Solutions
Voter turnout for school board elections is historically low, with tiny percentages deciding who governs schools. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins proposes a new federal holiday, School Board Election Day, to increase voter turnout and public involvement and interest in public schools. School board elections would be held on the same day nationally, and voters would be encouraged to visit schools not only to vote but to participate in forums and pro…
Policy Solutions
The 2024 presidential election features a rematch from four years ago: President Biden and former President Trump. While all presidential elections matter, columnist Jonathan E. Collins argues that this election is especially pivotal to K-12 education policy. Collins poses major education policy questions that we should be asking heading into the upcoming election
Policy Solutions
Education technology companies make millions of dollars from their education products and services. Ed tech companies could reinvest in school customers. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins suggests they could do this by incorporating teachers, especially teachers of color and teachers serving vulnerable subgroups of students, into their corporate board apparatus. They should start rotating teachers onto their corporate boards or develop advisory board…
Policy Solutions
Fifty years after the birth of hip-hop, Jonathan E. Collins considers how hip-hop can transform U.S. education. Many schools have barred hip-hop and disciplined students who use it. But these restrictions have been built on flimsy premises that ignore the beauty and complexity of the art form. Embracing and incorporating hip-hop can improve student engagement, particularly among Black students, and help schools forge stronger connections with the…
Policy Solutions
Reflecting on the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education , columnist Jonathan E. Collins remembers a teacher at his middle school who helped integrate his school district as a student. Brown overturned another famous court case, Plessy v. Ferguson , which sanctioned racial separation so long as the conditions of those separated facilities were equal in quality. In the years since the Brown decision, the steady progress of school desegreg…
They only hate the term
How does the public form preferences on racialized policy issues that are both widely discussed and broadly misunderstood? This has been the question centering around the sudden attacks on academic terms like “critical race theory” (CRT). I argue that the politicization of, and opinion polarization around, critical race theory is evidence of what I call policy branding, where political parties or organizations brand an arbitrary concept that has …
The New Education Politics in the United States
During the COVID-19 pandemic, school district politics rose to prominence on the nation's political agenda, as school boards grappled with controversial decisions about reopening schools and implementing mask mandates. A growing number of political scientists are using newly available data and innovative research strategies to examine policy responsiveness, elections, segregation and inequality, state takeovers, interest groups, democratic delibe…
Policy Solutions
The forces against school integration are relentless. Societal and marketplace decisions create segregated schools even in racially integrated areas in the suburbs. Jonathan E. Collins suggests creating a federal designation for public schools called the Black-serving institution (BSI), similar to historically Black colleges and universities. Schools that serve a majority Black student population would receive incentives that would help the schoo…
Policy Solutions
LeBron James’ I Promise School in Akron, Ohio, attracted attention recently for its low test scores for 8th-grade students. Unlike other philanthropic schools. I Promise is neither a private school nor a charter school. Instead, it is part of the Akron Public Schools system and is governed by the school board. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins writes that I Promise is part of the school system and can’t be separated from it. While flawed, school boar…
Policy Solutions
Superintendents increasingly are leaving their positions over pressure and vitriol in their communities over culture war issues, such as critical race theory and supports for LGBTQ+ students. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins performed two studies revealing that when policies on transgender students are framed as protection from violence, more people support those policies, regardless of their political affiliation. These considerations could help di…
Policy Solutions
Former NFL football star Deion Sanders set off controversy when he announced he was leaving his post as head football coach at Mississippi’s Jackson State University, a historically Black college or university (HBCU), to go to University of Colorado. Jonathan E. Collins discusses how the concept of HBCUs could be taken up by public schools that primarily serve Black students. This would be preferable to considering majority Black schools as segre…
Policy Solutions
Book banning and censorship is appearing again in states and school districts. The history of book banning goes back as far as recorded time. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins discusses the U.S. court system’s history support of the First Amendment and against censorship. He outlines the implications of the most recent book banning incidents and the political ideology behind them. He emphasized that we must keep books accessible for our students
Policy Solutions
Research shows that student achievement is higher when the district leadership is stable. Superintendent turnover, especially in urban areas, continues to rise, and many blame education politics for the leadership churn. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins proposes turning the superintendency into an elected position would solve the problem. Elections would give superintendents a guaranteed term of office and they could run as an incumbent on their rec…
Policy Solutions
News about violence and dysfunction at school board meetings may shape the impressions most people have of the public school governing body. While school boards have their flaws, Kappan columnist Jonathan E. Collins argues that they are worth preserving. School boards offer localized decision making and a way for a community to choose their representatives. School board meetings by law are open to the public and allow children under the age of 18…
Policy Solutions
Columnist Jonathan E. Collins interviews his colleague, Professor Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a professor of data science and computer science at Brown University. He is one of the leading experts on the development of guardrails for engaging with automated programs safely. The two discuss how artificial intelligence and ChatGPT could affect education and how school leaders may react to the new tools
Perceived racial efficacy and voter engagement among African Americans
This paper seeks to provide clarity on the link between Black people’s perceptions of racism in American institutions and society and voter engagement. We hypothesize that Black people with high feelings of racial efficacy, or the belief that government and society operate in a racially equitable manner, the more likely they will be to vote. Conversely, Black people with low racial efficacy are discouraged from voting. However, confidence in in-g…
The Politics of Re-Opening Schools
Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the decision to reopen schools for in-person instruction has become a pressing policy issue. This study examines what overall factors drive public support for schools re-opening in person and whether members of the public are willing to comply with school re-opening decisions based on their own preferences and/or the level of government from which the order comes. Through two rounds of national surveys with an embedd…
Policy Solutions
Using narrow test scores as the only means of accountability does not serve students, teachers, or schools. Jonathan E. Collins writes that policy makers and educators should consider accountability as an education system designed to be accountable to the best version of students. This means assessing outcomes that policy makers too easily overlook. It also means allowing teachers more freedom to engage their students in more creative ways
Policy Solutions
The biggest threat to an equitable and prosperous American society is not a particular educational policy, but the gravitational pull of politics, explains Jonathan Collins. Before educational policy can be developed and put into place, the politics that drive education must be acknowledged and addressed. Violence is erupting at school board meetings across the country over mask mandates, book bans, and critical race theory. Meanwhile, as has bee…
Does the Meeting Style Matter? The Effects of Exposure to Participatory and Deliberative School Board Meetings
Would public meetings incite more civic engagement if they were structured in ways that are simply more engaging? I addressed this question by conducting an original survey with an oversample of racial and ethnic minorities and individuals from low-income households. The survey featured a randomized experiment in which each study participant was shown a short clip of an actual school board meeting that was (1) a standard meeting with no public pa…
Urban representation through deliberation
Despite the enormous size of the urban population, political scientists have very little knowledge of the capacity for substantive representation in large cities. This article develops and tests models of urban representation based on the deliberative democracy theoretical framework. Focusing on school districts in Los Angeles County, this article uses a unique survey of school district superintendents from within the largest county in the United…
Fired Up, Ready to Go
Riled up about running for office
After the 2016 presidential election, there has been a wave of increased interest in running for office that has been anecdotally associated with anger and fear about the election outcome. Although there is a growing literature that seeks to understand how emotion matters for political action, particularly as it pertains to voting behavior, we do not know how emotions factor into one’s interest in running for office. In this study, we use data fr…
The Politics of Re-Opening Schools
Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the decision to reopen schools for in-person instruction has become a pressing policy issue. This study examines what overall factors drive public support for schools re-opening in person and whether members of the public are willing to comply with school re-opening decisions based on their own preferences and/or the level of government from which the order comes. Through two rounds of national surveys with an embedd…
Should School Boards Be in Charge? The Effects of Exposure to Participatory and Deliberative School Board Meetings
Should school boards be in charge of schools? School boards serve as sites for local democracy, but their power has been under siege for over half a century. This study provides results from an original survey in order to assess who Americans want in charge of their schools. Given that the strength of school boards is supposed to be their ability to facilitate local democracy, this study also includes a survey experiment in which participants are…
The New Education Politics in the United States
During the COVID-19 pandemic, school district politics rose to prominence on the nation's political agenda, as school boards grappled with controversial decisions about reopening schools and implementing mask mandates. A growing number of political scientists are using newly available data and innovative research strategies to examine policy responsiveness, elections, segregation and inequality, state takeovers, interest groups, democratic delibe…
They only hate the term
How does the public form preferences on racialized policy issues that are both widely discussed and broadly misunderstood? This has been the question centering around the sudden attacks on academic terms like “critical race theory” (CRT). I argue that the politicization of, and opinion polarization around, critical race theory is evidence of what I call policy branding, where political parties or organizations brand an arbitrary concept that has …
What Date Works Best for You? Changes in Electorate Demographics and Policy Priorities in Concurrent Elections
Research shows that off-cycle local elections witness much lower turnout than elections held concurrently with state or national elections. However, not all concurrent elections are created equal. Local elections can be held concurrently with presidential general elections, congressional midterms, or state and national primaries. We leverage the passage of a California law that forced cities to change their election calendar to understand the way…
Perceived racial efficacy and voter engagement among African Americans
This paper seeks to provide clarity on the link between Black people’s perceptions of racism in American institutions and society and voter engagement. We hypothesize that Black people with high feelings of racial efficacy, or the belief that government and society operate in a racially equitable manner, the more likely they will be to vote. Conversely, Black people with low racial efficacy are discouraged from voting. However, confidence in in-g…
Do Teachers Want Democracy? Deliberative Culture and Teachers’ Evaluations of Schools
Teachers have become important actors in national, state, and, especially, local politics. Most research on the political behavior of teachers focuses on their relationship with public-sector unions. While extremely useful, little is known about how teachers form the evaluations of schools and districts that motivate their political behavior. I propose and test a new theory of how teachers form evaluations of school satisfaction that centers on d…
Buying schools with social capital
In this article, the author tests the hypothesis that social capital leads to greater inequality in public school revenue. Research has linked social capital – the manifestation of social networks of trust and shared norms – to efforts that can alleviate inequality. By conducting a comparative analysis of the counties and school districts in California, this article finds competing evidence. Instead, the author finds that local areas with more me…
Buying schools with social capital
In this article, the author tests the hypothesis that social capital leads to greater inequality in public school revenue. Research has linked social capital – the manifestation of social networks of trust and shared norms – to efforts that can alleviate inequality. By conducting a comparative analysis of the counties and school districts in California, this article finds competing evidence. Instead, the author finds that local areas with more me…
Urban representation through deliberation
Despite the enormous size of the urban population, political scientists have very little knowledge of the capacity for substantive representation in large cities. This article develops and tests models of urban representation based on the deliberative democracy theoretical framework. Focusing on school districts in Los Angeles County, this article uses a unique survey of school district superintendents from within the largest county in the United…
Riled up about running for office
After the 2016 presidential election, there has been a wave of increased interest in running for office that has been anecdotally associated with anger and fear about the election outcome. Although there is a growing literature that seeks to understand how emotion matters for political action, particularly as it pertains to voting behavior, we do not know how emotions factor into one’s interest in running for office. In this study, we use data fr…
Do Teachers Want Democracy? Deliberative Culture and Teachers’ Evaluations of Schools
Teachers have become important actors in national, state, and, especially, local politics. Most research on the political behavior of teachers focuses on their relationship with public-sector unions. While extremely useful, little is known about how teachers form the evaluations of schools and districts that motivate their political behavior. I propose and test a new theory of how teachers form evaluations of school satisfaction that centers on d…
Fired Up, Ready to Go
Should School Boards Be in Charge? The Effects of Exposure to Participatory and Deliberative School Board Meetings
Should school boards be in charge of schools? School boards serve as sites for local democracy, but their power has been under siege for over half a century. This study provides results from an original survey in order to assess who Americans want in charge of their schools. Given that the strength of school boards is supposed to be their ability to facilitate local democracy, this study also includes a survey experiment in which participants are…
Does the Meeting Style Matter? The Effects of Exposure to Participatory and Deliberative School Board Meetings
Would public meetings incite more civic engagement if they were structured in ways that are simply more engaging? I addressed this question by conducting an original survey with an oversample of racial and ethnic minorities and individuals from low-income households. The survey featured a randomized experiment in which each study participant was shown a short clip of an actual school board meeting that was (1) a standard meeting with no public pa…
Policy Solutions
Using narrow test scores as the only means of accountability does not serve students, teachers, or schools. Jonathan E. Collins writes that policy makers and educators should consider accountability as an education system designed to be accountable to the best version of students. This means assessing outcomes that policy makers too easily overlook. It also means allowing teachers more freedom to engage their students in more creative ways
Policy Solutions
The biggest threat to an equitable and prosperous American society is not a particular educational policy, but the gravitational pull of politics, explains Jonathan Collins. Before educational policy can be developed and put into place, the politics that drive education must be acknowledged and addressed. Violence is erupting at school board meetings across the country over mask mandates, book bans, and critical race theory. Meanwhile, as has bee…
Policy Solutions
The voices of students of color often are left out of discussions of urban school reform conversations when they should be central to reform efforts. Jonathan Collins suggests looking at democratic reform as an avenue to bring those voices forward. Participatory budgeting, for example, introduces students to the idea that they could decide how money is spent at their schools. This allows them to shape their environment and address the problems th…
Policy Solutions
More than half of U.S. schools have no police presence on their campuses. Jonathan E. Collins proposes that all school buildings be free of police. School resource officers (SROs), he writes, do more harm than good. An alternate policy that would remove SROs from schools involves the framework of the community policing model. This model focuses on engaging students in full and deep discussions and problem-solving that reveals what students think …
Policy Solutions
The forces against school integration are relentless. Societal and marketplace decisions create segregated schools even in racially integrated areas in the suburbs. Jonathan E. Collins suggests creating a federal designation for public schools called the Black-serving institution (BSI), similar to historically Black colleges and universities. Schools that serve a majority Black student population would receive incentives that would help the schoo…
Policy Solutions
LeBron James’ I Promise School in Akron, Ohio, attracted attention recently for its low test scores for 8th-grade students. Unlike other philanthropic schools. I Promise is neither a private school nor a charter school. Instead, it is part of the Akron Public Schools system and is governed by the school board. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins writes that I Promise is part of the school system and can’t be separated from it. While flawed, school boar…
Policy Solutions
Superintendents increasingly are leaving their positions over pressure and vitriol in their communities over culture war issues, such as critical race theory and supports for LGBTQ+ students. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins performed two studies revealing that when policies on transgender students are framed as protection from violence, more people support those policies, regardless of their political affiliation. These considerations could help di…
Policy Solutions
Former NFL football star Deion Sanders set off controversy when he announced he was leaving his post as head football coach at Mississippi’s Jackson State University, a historically Black college or university (HBCU), to go to University of Colorado. Jonathan E. Collins discusses how the concept of HBCUs could be taken up by public schools that primarily serve Black students. This would be preferable to considering majority Black schools as segre…
Policy Solutions
Book banning and censorship is appearing again in states and school districts. The history of book banning goes back as far as recorded time. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins discusses the U.S. court system’s history support of the First Amendment and against censorship. He outlines the implications of the most recent book banning incidents and the political ideology behind them. He emphasized that we must keep books accessible for our students
Policy Solutions
Research shows that student achievement is higher when the district leadership is stable. Superintendent turnover, especially in urban areas, continues to rise, and many blame education politics for the leadership churn. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins proposes turning the superintendency into an elected position would solve the problem. Elections would give superintendents a guaranteed term of office and they could run as an incumbent on their rec…
Policy Solutions
News about violence and dysfunction at school board meetings may shape the impressions most people have of the public school governing body. While school boards have their flaws, Kappan columnist Jonathan E. Collins argues that they are worth preserving. School boards offer localized decision making and a way for a community to choose their representatives. School board meetings by law are open to the public and allow children under the age of 18…
Policy Solutions
Columnist Jonathan E. Collins interviews his colleague, Professor Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a professor of data science and computer science at Brown University. He is one of the leading experts on the development of guardrails for engaging with automated programs safely. The two discuss how artificial intelligence and ChatGPT could affect education and how school leaders may react to the new tools
Perceived racial efficacy and voter engagement among African Americans
This paper seeks to provide clarity on the link between Black people’s perceptions of racism in American institutions and society and voter engagement. We hypothesize that Black people with high feelings of racial efficacy, or the belief that government and society operate in a racially equitable manner, the more likely they will be to vote. Conversely, Black people with low racial efficacy are discouraged from voting. However, confidence in in-g…
The Politics of Re-Opening Schools
Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the decision to reopen schools for in-person instruction has become a pressing policy issue. This study examines what overall factors drive public support for schools re-opening in person and whether members of the public are willing to comply with school re-opening decisions based on their own preferences and/or the level of government from which the order comes. Through two rounds of national surveys with an embedd…
Policy Solutions
Should school board elections be partisan? Jonathan E. Collins writes about the pros and cons of bringing political parties back into school board elections. While partisan elections can bring more voter participation and interest in school governance, they also run the risk of pushing aside real education issues for culture war distractions
Policy Solutions
The current culture wars have been showing up in schools and districts, making local school board races increasingly partisan. The 2024 presidential race is placing even more attention on the partisan divide in local education policies and decisions. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins writes that education advocates can leverage this focus and help put aside partisan politics and meet the post-pandemic challenges students face
Policy Solutions
Civics education should include ways for students to experience civic life and to understand how voting affects their lives. Jonathan E. Collins writes that civics education is currently perceived as a luxury. It is, instead, a societal necessity that will help build and maintain our civic infrastructure
Policy Solutions
Voter turnout for school board elections is historically low, with tiny percentages deciding who governs schools. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins proposes a new federal holiday, School Board Election Day, to increase voter turnout and public involvement and interest in public schools. School board elections would be held on the same day nationally, and voters would be encouraged to visit schools not only to vote but to participate in forums and pro…
Political science (33 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Law (22 works) · Psychology (22 works) · Public Administration (21 works) · Politics (19 works) · Public relations (16 works) · Mathematics education (14 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (13 works) · Pedagogy (13 works)