School closings and parent engagement.

Abstract

While in the past, parent engagement was relatively neglected by school districts and only slightly attended to by scholars, there is a well-funded and fierce battle for the political voices of parents today, especially in low-income communities. Using observational data from school closing hearings in New York City, I argue, first, that the school-closings process pits parent groups and sectors of the community against one another in their similar quests for good schooling. Second, I discuss contradictory orientations toward parent engagement: one based on free market ideology, and another on principles of democratic participation and engaged citizenry. Finally, I argue that parent engagement is becoming a commodity in the larger battle over the direction of public education.

Rethinking the School Closure Research: School Closure as Spatial Injustice

“…States and districts have pressed local schools to determine the best use of building space in tight urban environments (Deeds & Pattillo, 2015;de la Torre & Gwynne, 2009;Dowdall & Warner, 2013;Finnigan & Lavner, 2012;T. L. Green, 2017;Meiners, 2016;Ozek, Hansen, & Gonzalez, 2012;Sunderman & Payne, 2009;Weber et al, 2018), leading district officials to examine building usage to identify and close underutilized sites (Finnigan & Lavner, 2012;Weber et al, 2018).…”

Collaborative research for justice and multi-issue movement building: Challenging discriminatory policing, school closures, and youth unemployment

“…This article demonstrates the potential of CES to build a knowledge and advocacy base through organized community and youth voices and offers promising new directions for activists and scholars alike to create powerful pushback. In particular, CES can provide a counter-weight to the imposition of public school closures that have displaced massive numbers of low-income black and Latino students despite scant research to support the policy and in the face of widespread opposition (Conner & Cosner, 2015; de la Torre & Gwynne, 2009;Kirshner, Gaertner, & Pozzoboni, 2010;Lipman & Person, 2007;Pappas, 2012Pappas, , 2015Shiller, Jordan, & New Lens, 2015).…”

Community-engaged research through the lens of school closures: Opportunities, challenges, contributions, and lingering questions

“…In 2013, for example, a particularly egregious year for school closings, Chicago closed 49 public schools whose collective student body was 87% black, 11% Latino and 94% low income; Philadelphia closed 23 schools affecting a student body that was 81% black, 11% Latino, and 93% low income; and, New York City closed 22 schools whose student body was 53% black, 41% Latino, and 81% low income (Schott Foundation, 2013). School closure represents a clear case of a policy that has been enacted and widely replicated, with little research evidence attesting to its efficacy and often in opposition to community desires (Conner & Cosner, 2015;de la Torre & Gwynne, 2009;Engberg, Gill, Zamarro, & Zimmer, 2012;Ewing, 2018;Kirshner, Gaertner, & Pozzoboni, 2010;Lipman & Person, 2007;Pappas, 2012Pappas, , 2015Pappas, , 2016Shiller, Jordan, & New Lens, 2015). By contrast, the three cases featured in this article incorporated community and youth voice to create pushback to this policy and to contribute to building a large knowledge and advocacy base.…”