Bookstore

Within critical discussions of school reform, researchers and activists are often of two camps. Some focus their analyses on neoliberal economic agendas, while others center on racial inequality. These analyses often happen in isolation, continuing to divide those concerned with educational justice into "It's race!" vs. "It's class!" camps. What's Race Got To Do With It? brings together these frameworks to investigate the role that race plays in hallmark policies of neoliberal school reforms such as school closings, high-stakes testing, and charter school proliferation. The group of scholar activist authors in this volume were selected because of their cutting-edge racial economic analysis, understanding of corporate reform, and involvement in grassroots social movements. Each author applies a racial economic framework to inform and complicate our analysis of how market-based reforms collectively increase wealth inequality and maintain White supremacy. In accessible language, contributors trace the historical context of a single reform, examine how that reform maintains and expands racial and economic inequality, and share grassroots stories of resistance to these reforms. By analyzing current reforms through this dual lens, those concerned with social justice are better equipped to struggle against this constellation of reforms in ways that unite rather than divide.

What's Race Got To Do With It?: How Current School Reform Policy Maintains Racial and Economic Inequality

Contents: Wayne Au: High-Stakes Testing: A Tool for White Supremacy for Over 100 Years - David Stovall: Mayoral Control: Reform, Whiteness, and Critical Race Analysis of Neoliberal Educational Policy - Pauline Lipman: School Closings: The Nexus of White Supremacy, State Abandonment, and Accumulation by Dispossession - Brian Jones: Keys to the Schoolhouse: Black Teachers, Privatization, and the Future of Teacher Unions - Ujju Aggarwal: School Choice: The Freedom to Choose, the Right to Exclude - Terrenda White: Charter Schools: Demystifying Whiteness in a Market of "No Excuses" Corporate-Styled Charter Schools - Amy Brown: Philanthrocapitalism: Race, Political Spectacle, and the Marketplace of Beneficence in a New York City School - Barbara Madeloni: edTPA: Doubling Down on Whiteness in Teacher Education.