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How the Engagement of High-Profile Partisan Officials Affects Education Politics, Public Opinion, and Polarization

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  • David M. Houston

    (College of Education and Human Development George Mason University Fairfax, VA 22030)

  • Alyssa Barone

    (College of Education and Human Development George Mason University Fairfax, VA 22030)

Abstract

What happens to public opinion when prominent partisan officials intervene in education policy debates? We analyzed the results of eighteen survey experiments conducted between 2009 and 2021 with nationally representative samples of U.S. adults. In each experiment, some respondents were randomly assigned to receive the current U.S. president's position on a specific education policy before all respondents were asked to indicate their support or opposition to that policy. Our results indicated that the engagement of high-profile partisan officials typically did little to move public opinion in the direction of the cue-giver's preferred policies. Instead, the chief consequence was increased polarization among the public along partisan lines. A key exception applied to endorsements of policies that diverged from the traditional position of the cue-giver's own party, which tended to shift aggregate public opinion modestly in favor of those policies. Such cross-party cues also had nontrivial de-polarizing consequences.

Suggested Citation

  • David M. Houston & Alyssa Barone, 2026. "How the Engagement of High-Profile Partisan Officials Affects Education Politics, Public Opinion, and Polarization," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 21(1), pages 97-120, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:21:y:2026:i:1:p:97-120
    DOI: 10.1162/edfp_a_00449
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