When Middle-Class Parents Choose Urban Schools: Class, Race, & the Challenge of Equity in Public Education

by Linn Posey-Maddox

In recent decades a growing number of middle-class parents have considered sending their children to—and often end up becoming active in—urban public schools. Their presence can bring long-needed material resources to such schools, but, as Linn Posey-Maddox shows in this study, it can also introduce new class and race tensions, and even exacerbate inequalities. Sensitively navigating the pros and cons of middle-class transformation, When Middle-Class Parents Choose Urban Schools asks whether it is possible for our urban public schools to have both financial security and equitable diversity.           Drawing on in-depth research at an urban elementary school, Posey-Maddox examines parents’ efforts to support the school through their outreach, marketing, and volunteerism. She shows that when middle-class parents engage in urban school communities, they can bring a host of positive benefits, including new educational opportunities and greater diversity. But their involvement can also unintentionally marginalize less-affluent parents and diminish low-income students’ access to the improving schools. In response, Posey-Maddox argues that school reform efforts, which usually equate improvement with rising test scores and increased enrollment, need to have more equity-focused policies in place to ensure that low-income families also benefit from—and participate in—school change. 

Genres: Education, Nonfiction, Parenting

218 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once I got past the academic writing (wow, it's been awhile!) I found this a really interesting read. Very relevant to our current school situation and thus excellent food for thought. I especially liked chapter 5 on the "professionalism" of volunteering and what that means for parents that can't or think they can't or just don't want to do that much.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important and perceptive. Very useful to me in illuminating some of my experiences with our school system so far, and articulating some of my concerns about the solutions people propose.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got this book in the most stereotypical way possible—loaned to me by a fellow white liberal mom on the PTA board at our mostly non-white urban elementary school. The research underpinning the book is well-executed—the author spent hundreds of hours at a gentrifying school in the Bay Area—but ultimately I thought her conclusions not very well supported.

She really plays up the extent to which the mostly working-class and Black families that traditionally comprised the majority of the school are alienated by the largely middle-class and White families that increasingly populate the school. Having spent more than my fair share of time with, if you will, cringe White liberals, I have no doubt this was the case…but the actual examples she presents are rather mild. The school she studies changes *rapidly*, such that it honestly feels like a success story that the tension was as mild as it was.

More lacking, though, was her analysis of the bigger-picture situation. Such as…the *real* culprit for gentrification is exclusionary zoning in rich neighborhoods, not the people priced out of those neighborhoods choosing to live in the city rather than in the suburbs. Or grappling with the counterfactual around where middle-class White kids go to school—you don’t have to ascribe savior status to middle-class White kids to recognize that urban schools and the disadvantaged kids they serve are better off with the higher aggregate enrollment that comes with having the White kids rather than pushing them to the suburbs.

One thought-provoking question it raised for me was to what extent the sociology of demographic transition is different in neighborhoods/schools turning from Black to White versus from Hispanic to White. We live (and our kids go to school in) one of the latter, and it does feel different in a way that reminds me of what Jay Caspian Kang wrote about in The Loneliest Americans, that the racial divide in America is less between White and non-White and more so between Black and non-Black.

This is an odd analogy but this book reminded me of The Wire a bit—a super interesting text that paints a nuanced picture of urban challenges…which the author undermines with a facile attribution of the problems to “neoliberalism.” Anyway, an interesting read even though it kinda drove me nuts.

[Hannah Notess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Academic but useful

[Rolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly prescient book, written 6 years ago but describing patterns seen in all major U.S. cities.

This is basically "Nice White Parents," the book.

[idana · Rating 4 out of 5]

very, VERY interesting read. i loved this a lot. so informative, so digestible, so explorative of so many different perspectives. enjoyed thoroughly
85/100