For many years, scholars have acknowledged the central role played by street-level bureaucrats in implementing public policy. Because they meet face-to-face with citizens, they are thought be important symbols of government power. Additionally, street-level bureaucrats are important because they have discretion; by determining how abstract laws and regulations apply to specific people and circumstances, they have considerable power over how policy is actually made.

Though they play a vital role in the policymaking process, as the privatization movement has swept across Europe and North America over the past thirty years, and governments have increasingly used markets, competition, and private organizations to solve public problems, few scholars have investigated the effect on street-level bureaucrats. As a result, we have little understanding about how traditional street-level bureaucrats compare, in motivation, attitudes, and behavior, with “new street-level bureaucrats” – operative employees in non-profit or for-profit organizations that are contracted to provide public services. Without such information, we are unable to examine one of the major pathways by which privatization may change governance.

Although they have received little empirical scrutiny, street-level bureaucrats are central to arguments for privatization: moving policymaking from public to private organizations is expected to free employees from constricting government guidelines and enhance autonomy. As a result, new street-level bureaucrats are expected to experiment, innovate, and create bottom-up solutions to longstanding problems. At the same time, privatization is expected to enhance front line accountability: because new street-level bureaucrats work in organizations that rely on government contracts and performance assessments, they are expected to be more responsive to the public’s needs. In other words, privatization is expected to augment accountability because new street-level bureaucrats will act more like market actors than traditional bureaucrats.

This paper contributes by bringing empirical evidence to bear on these expectations. Specifically, it uses nationally-representative survey data from the United States Department of Education’s 2011-2012 Schools and Staffing Survey, to compare levels of teacher autonomy and accountability in public and charter schools. Public schools are a classic example of a traditional public bureaucracy – they are funded, owned and controlled publicly. Charter schools, in contrast, receive public funding but are owned and operated privately; as a result, the establishment of charter schools has been a major goal of the privatization movement. Echoing generic arguments for privatization, supporters of charter schools argue that charter teachers have more autonomy but are also more accountable than teachers in traditional public schools By scrutinizing these claims empirically, the paper contributes to our understanding of privatization, policymaking, and an important debate about education.