Making the Global City, Making Inequality: The Political Economy and Cultural Politics of Chicago School Policy

Abstract

This article examines current Chicago school reform in the context of economic restructuring, the drive to become a "global city," and the cultural politics of race. The discussion focuses on high stakes testing and accountability policies and on new, special programs and schools. My analysis is based on data from four qualitative case studies of Chicago elementary schools, school system data on the nature and geographic distribution of differentiated programs and schools, and examination of labor force trends and economic development policies. Contrary to the discourse of equity that frames Chicago school reform, I argue that the current policies exacerbate existing race and class inequalities and create new ones. The policies promote unequal educational opportunities and experiences and produce stratified identities with significant implications in Chicago's new, highly stratified work force. As a whole, Chicago's reforms support the inherent inequalities of global city development, gentrification, and the displacement of working-class and low-income communities, especially communities of color. I argue that education policies are part of a cultural politics of race aimed at the control and regulation of African-American and Latino youth and their communities. The paper concludes with proposals toward the democratic reconstruction of urban education policy.

Renaissance 2010: The Reassertion of Ruling-Class Power through Neoliberal Policies in Chicago

“…Based on consistent involvement in these events, Lipman and Haines, and then Lipman, generated field notes and interview notes and collected documents that inform this account. Lipman has also been studying and writing about Chicago school policy for the past eight years (see Lipman & Gutstein, 2001;Lipman, 2002Lipman, , 2003Lipman, , 2004Lipman & Haines, 2007) and the article is informed by that body of work. It also draws on recent policy papers and documents of civic elites and community and labor organizations, media accounts, City of Chicago housing data, and relevant CPS and Illinois School Board of Education quantitative data.…”

The Geographies of Difference: The Production of the East Side,West Side, and Central City School

“…This phenomenon parallels the findings of other studies, even though the spatial dimensions are placed in the background in their work. For example, this can be found to some degree in the context that Valenzuela (1999) studied in documenting the subtractive practices of East End schools in Texas, Lipman's (2002) analysis of policy mandates pertaining to geographically differentiated knowledge in Chicago schools, and Kozol's (1992) multicity study. In all of these examinations, differences in local knowledge translated into real and imagined spaces that, indeed, had distinct pedagogical programs that were real at the level of materiality, yet that were equally the product imaginary (i.e., constructed) social and historical discourses about these spaces and their inhabitants.…”

“…Both discuss the production of city spaces as the convergence of assigned meanings on space as well as the political coordination of material resources. Meanwhile, Orfield (1996) and Lipman (2002), among others (Kozol, 1992), bring these discussions to bear in examining city schools to examine differentiated school spaces. They demonstrate how historical and contemporary patterns of unequal educational access and substandard education go hand-in-hand with citywide racial segregation.…”

“…The ability of educators to use the shorthand, even in ways that might be perceived as genteel, 11 to name racial and social class meanings without ever explicitly saying anything politically charged hid the reproductive dimensions of educational practice related to race and social class. This aspect has a great deal of importance as we bring into play the local and national pattern of resegregated neighborhoods and schools (see Lipman, 2002;Orfield, 1996). While educators' social context retained class-and racedefining practices, particularly in the housing patterns of segregation and the outpouring of federal and state funding targeted at low-income families, their use of these shorthand categories allowed them to believe that they did not differentiate their curriculum based on deficit notions of students' race or class.…”

Books, Banks and Bullets: Controlling Our Minds — The Global Project of Imperialistic and Militaristic Neo-Liberalism and its Effect on Education Policy

“…Nor do I detail here how these policies, including education policies, increase inequalities. This has been widely addressed in respect of schooling (for example, in Gewirtz et al, 1995;Anyon, 1997;Whitty et al, 1999;Lipman, 2000Lipman, , 2002 and in respect of global society (for example, in Monbiot, 2000;Hill & Cole, 2001;Klein, 2001Klein, , 2002Mojab, 2001;Hill et al, 2002;Pilger, 2002;Hill, 2001bHill, , 2003aHill, , 2004Cole, 2005;Giroux, 2005).…”