The Impact of Government Contracting Out on Spending: The Case of Public Education in New Orleans

Buerger, Christian; Harris, Douglas N.

doi:10.1177/0275074020942257

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…These types of studies have frequently used other methods to measure task complexity. Some estimate separate models for different kinds of goods and services (Amirkhanyan and Lambright 2017; Elkomy, Cookson and Jones 2019; Girth and Lopez 2018; Harris and Brunjes 2021), while others use dichotomous indicators (Brunjes 2020; Buerger and Harris 2021; Harris and Brunjes 2021; Liebman and Mahoney 2017). Though survey methods are the modern standard for assessing task complexity, other approaches are commonly used.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Your Competitive Side Is Calling: An Analysis of Florida Contract Performance

Brunjes

2021

Public Administration Review

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Competition over the allocation of scarce resources motivates many public policy choices, and increasingly influences the management of public organizations. With the rise of the business‐like approach espoused by adherents of “new public management,” competitive mechanisms are increasingly used in the public sector to improve organization and program performance. Despite the wide acceptance of competition as a viable method to improve public management, little large n empirical work has been done to determine whether competition improves performance, especially in the networked, cross‐sectoral setting of modern governance. Analyzing nearly 20,000 Florida contracts over a three‐year period, this research explores whether competitive sourcing procedures lead to improved contractor performance. Results show that competitive sourcing may be associated with higher contract spending and undesirable contract outcomes. Other factors, including experience, existing relationships, and lower transaction costs, are more likely to lead to better performance. Practitioner Points Competition is theorized to drive down costs, encourage innovation, and help hold contractors accountable for their work. Competitively sourced contracts are more likely to experience cost overruns and to terminate early than noncompetitive contracts, suggesting that competition may not always be the best approach. Instead, agency‐contractor relationships and goal alignment are better predictors of good performance.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Your Competitive Side Is Calling: An Analysis of Florida Contract Performance

Brunjes

2021

Public Administration Review

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“…Our findings also point to an equity issue in how transportation availability might affect decision-making at the school level. New Orleans schools are responsible for funding and managing their student transportation processes, which can be financially and logistically burdensome (Buerger & Harris, 2021). However, schools that enroll students who do not require school-provided transportation are spared these burdens.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is no centralized transportation service or designated transportation funding. Buerger and Harris (2021) find that transportation costs are a substantial portion of charter school budgets.…”

Section: Contextmentioning

confidence: 98%

Transportation Inequities and School Choice: How Car, Public Transit, and School Bus Access Affect Families’ Options

Valant

Lincove

2023

Educational Researcher

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This study examines how the student transportation options available to families affect which schools are accessible to them in a choice-based setting. The study has two parts. First, we compare commute times by foot, public transit, school bus, and car. We show that providing school bus service reduces commute times and improves access for families without cars, but access to a car fundamentally shapes families’ options. Second, we explore the relationship between neighborhood-level measures of vehicle access and families’ school requests and placements. Car access is strongly associated with school requests and placements even after accounting for neighborhood characteristics. We consider car access as a pathway by which wealth disparities produce educational disparities in settings that emphasize school choice.

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“…This is why research suggests that to be viable, schools need at least a few hundred students (Andrews et al, 2002; Harris, 2007), which economists call the minimum efficient scale. This may also be why charter schools, which have fewer students than the average school district, have much higher per-pupil spending on administrative costs (Buerger & Harris, 2021).…”

Section: Practical Realities Of the Schooling Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Free Market Logic Fails in Schooling—And What It Means for the Role of Government

Harris

2023

Educational Researcher

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Market-based policies, especially school vouchers, are expanding rapidly and shifting students out of traditional public schools. This article broadens, deepens, and updates prior critiques of the free market logic in five ways. First, although prior articles have pointed to some of the conditions necessary for efficient market functioning, I provide a more comprehensive list. Second, with an up-to-date literature review, I show that all of these conditions fail to hold to an unusual extent in schooling relative to other markets. Third, because of these failures, I argue that the most potent critique of the free market approach to schooling comes from the intellectual home of markets—economics. Fourth, I show that the issues leading to inefficiency are the same ones leading to inequity. Fifth, I argue that the analysis points to specific roles for government that go well beyond those included in new universal school voucher policies but are also narrower than the roles of government encompassed in traditional public education. For these reasons, the current policy direction is off track and apparently inconsistent with the main criteria on which we evaluate education policy and even with the values that voucher advocates profess.

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The Impact of Government Contracting Out on Spending: The Case of Public Education in New Orleans

Cited by 8 publications

References 76 publications

Your Competitive Side Is Calling: An Analysis of Florida Contract Performance

Your Competitive Side Is Calling: An Analysis of Florida Contract Performance

Transportation Inequities and School Choice: How Car, Public Transit, and School Bus Access Affect Families’ Options

How Free Market Logic Fails in Schooling—And What It Means for the Role of Government

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