Good Schools, Bad Schools: Race, School Quality, and Neoliberal Educational Policy

Abstract

In this introduction, we outline the scholarly context and research questions that motivate this special issue: In what ways do racialized constructions of school quality open up or foreclose educational opportunity? How do understandings of school quality differ across local social, political, and demographic contexts? And lastly, at what points and in what ways is the school choice process itself racialized? We then introduce the five papers in this issue, each of which challenges us to think critically about taken-for-granted notions of school quality by interrogating factors that influence “choice” beyond the usual paradigm of test scores and parental decision-making.

Constructing an Educational “Quality” Crisis: (E)quality Politics and Racialization Beyond Target Beneficiaries

“…In a 1967 report, psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner cited “the serious inadequacies experienced in school by disadvantaged children, especially Negro boys,” and warned of the negative spillover effects that their introduction would pose to their “White companion” via “the contagion of disorganized and antisocial behavior” (p. 916). These types of manifestations of anti-Blackness fueled policy conversations that shifted discourse and policy solutions from a focus on the structural (e.g., desegregation efforts aimed at equalizing resource distribution) to the cultural aspects (e.g., locating educational problems in the qualities of students themselves) (Freidus, 2022; Freidus & Ewing, 2022). This remained even though, critically, empirical studies have repeatedly demonstrated that concerns about racial integration eroding educational quality (and implicit concerns about harm to White students) are unfounded (see, e.g., Jackson, 2009; Jencks & Brown, 1975; Reber, 2010; Tuttle, 2019; Weinberg, 1975).…”

“…P olicies aimed at advancing equal educational opportunity in the United States are often met by resistance and sustained backlash (Seamster & Henricks, 2015; Weaver, 2007). This resistance can take many forms, but one common mode includes the articulation of claims that equalizing access to educational spaces will diminish their quality (e.g., Freidus & Ewing, 2022; McCambly & Mulroy, 2022). Examples of this pattern include claims that the excellence of White-serving 1 universities or schools will decline as a result of increased enrollments by minoritized or low-income students or that the incorporation of critical or ethnic-studies curricula will lower educational standards.…”

“…But while education research has made important strides to identify and name the ways in which equity and quality goals are placed in tension with one another in policies like these (see e.g., Freidus, 2022; Freidus & Ewing, 2022), what receives less attention is how these quality-based arguments can come to form the backbone of a sustained backlash to equity goals and, in particular, become institutionalized into race-evasive policy and politics. And moreover, how these institutionalized meanings shape the routine delivery of racialized policy benefits and burdens over time (Gándara et al, 2023; Ray et al, 2023).…”

Contested Justice: Rethinking Educational Equity Through New York City’s COVID-19 School Reopening Debates

“…When they have done so, they have tended to focus on how to best achieve educational equity within existing systems rather than conceptualizations of justice, or “the transformation of the conditions of oppression” ( Abu El-Haj, 2006 , p. 20) in public education and in society. Here, we build on a more recent body of work by critical scholars that examine the contested framing of what is just, fair, or right in educational policy (e.g., Bertrand et al, 2015 ; Dumas, 2009 ; Freidus & Ewing, 2022 ; Horsford, 2016 ; Lewis-Durham, 2020 ; Nygreen, 2016 ; Turner, 2015 ). Drawing on frameworks from Fraser (1997 , 2000 , 2005 ) and Abu El-Haj (2006) , we examine stakeholders’ justice claims, the “frameworks within which ideas about equity are organized in everyday discourse and practice” ( Abu El-Haj, 2006 , p. 5).…”

“…Here, we build on a more recent body of work by critical scholars that examine the contested framing of what is just, fair, or right in educational policy (e.g. Bertrand, Perez & Rogers, 2015;Dumas, 2009;Freidus & Ewing, 2022;Horsford, 2016;Turner, 2015;Lewis-Durham, 2020;Nygreen, 2016). Drawing on frameworks from Fraser (1997Fraser ( , 2000Fraser ( , 2005 and Abu El-Haj (2006), we examine stakeholders' justice claims, the "frameworks within which ideas about equity are organized in everyday discourse and practice" (Abu El-Haj, 2006 p. 5).…”