Particularism and Entrepreneurial Governance in United States Education Reform: Policy Continuities and Transformations Across the Obama, Trump, and Biden Administrations

Abstract

Education is among the most localized areas of American governance and, at the same time, one of the most frequent targets of presidential ambition. This article explores how two forces, particularism and policy entrepreneurship, jointly shape federal education reform. Using a qualitative, comparative design, it analyzes federal policy instruments, such as grant conditions, waiver authorities, and regulatory guidance, and the record of state responses to them, interpreted through Kingdon’s multiple-streams framework. Since 2009, federal education policy has shifted from formula-based allocation toward discretionary, competitive, and negotiated processes that concentrate power in the executive branch. At the same time, policy entrepreneurs advanced their ideological commitments through mechanisms that bypass legislative channels where consensus is absent. The comparison traces how the Obama administration consolidated accountability through competitive grants, how the Trump administration turned to deregulation and school choice, and how the Biden administration emphasized equity through partnerships with labor. The comparison suggests that reforms built on executive discretion depend on the coalitions that produce them rather than on statute, which leaves federal education governance in a recurring cycle of reversal. The evidence is strongest for the Obama case, and the smaller number of cases limits how far the findings can be generalized. This article concludes that more durable reform requires a legislative foundation and bipartisan consensus building, and it identifies state level responses to federal pressure as a direction for future research.