Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space: Where the Market Meets Grassroots Resistance

by Kristen L. Buras

Charter schools have been promoted as an equitable and innovative solution to the problems plaguing urban schools. Advocates claim that charter schools benefit working-class students of color by offering them access to a "portfolio" of school choices. In Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space, Kristen Buras presents a very different account. Her case study of New Orleans―where veteran teachers were fired en masse and the nation's first all-charter school district was developed―shows that such reform is less about the needs of racially oppressed communities and more about the production of an urban space economy in which white entrepreneurs capitalize on black children and neighborhoods.

In this revealing book, Buras draws on critical theories of race, political economy, and space, as well as a decade of research on the ground to expose the criminal dispossession of black teachers and students who have contributed to New Orleans' culture and history. Mapping federal, state, and local policy networks, she shows how the city's landscape has been reshaped by a strategic venture to privatize public education. She likewise chronicles grassroots efforts to defend historic schools and neighborhoods against this assault, revealing a commitment to equity and place and articulating a vision of change that is sure to inspire heated debate among communities nationwide.

Genres: Education

230 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2013

Reviews

[James]

Buras examined the so-called model city of charter school restructuring of public education, New Orleans, which frames the larger history of public education and struggles for racial justice to what happened with privatization of school systems. She notes that New Orleans, from 1950-2000, faced massive white flight and periodic divestment of majority black education by the state, while the conversation was bent on blaming the teachers’ union. Overnight from Hurricane Katrina destroying much of the city, the charter school system took over most of the public schools and ripped up the collective bargaining agreement and locked the public out of proceedings in the name of “school choice”, in which a few got rich at the expense of public input and questionable performance. Chapters 3-4 looks at MLK Elementary school and Frederick Douglas High School in the 9th Ward, where mixed levels of charter schools have led to separating local input and teachers from control. The aftermath of the hurricane thus helped push the disaster-capitalism model, where gentrification of neighborhoods and charterization of schools were tools to remake the city into private (white and wealthy) hands, busting the teachers union and keeping neighbors out.

Key Themes and Concepts
Buras outlined the concepts in the first chapter:
1) Charter schools took over public schools
2) The mostly white CMOs who run charter school companies have utter power over educational funds.
3) In practice, charter schools have selective admission and retention of students, as opposed to open door.
4) Veteran teachers, 3/4ths black, were replaced by mostly transient, inexperienced, white Teach For America members.
5) Entrepreneurs extremely well paid.
6) Charter schools get facility upgrades at public expense.
7) Corruption has no checks or public process.
8) Charter schools are not necessarily driven by performance or evidence.
9) Racial component of black run schools being taken over by white establishment.
10) Charter schools have faced lawsuits and community resistance.
11) Charter schools have support of most politicians, at local, state, and federal level.

[Meghan]

This book discusses an issue that is SO IMPORTANT, but even though I was already somewhat familiar with the charter school movement in New Orleans post-Katrina, I still struggled to get through Buras's dense writing. There is no reason that the writing had to be as dry as it was.

Regardless of the dullness of the reading, it was still hard not to be moved by the horrible unfairness of what happened (and is happening) in New Orleans.