How charter schools have taken hold in three cities--and why parents,
teachers, and community members are fighting back
Charter schools once promised a path towards educational equity, but as
the authors of this powerful volume show, market-driven education
reforms have instead boldly reestablished a tiered public school system
that segregates students by race and class. Examining the rise of
charters in New Orleans, Chicago, and New York, authors Raynard Sanders,
David Stovall, and Terrenda White show how charters--private
institutions, usually set in poor or working-class African American and
Latinx communities--promote competition instead of collaboration and are
driven chiefly by financial interests. Sanders, Stovall, and White also
reveal how corporate charters position themselves as "public" to secure
tax money but exploit their private status to hide data about enrollment
and salaries, using misleading information to promote false narratives
of student success.
In addition to showing how charter school expansion can deprive students
of a quality education, the authors document several other lasting
consequences of charter school expansion:
- the displacement of experienced African American teachers
- the rise of a rigid, militarized pedagogy such as SLANT
- the purposeful starvation of district schools
- and the loss of community control and oversight
A revealing and illuminating look at one of the greatest threats to
public education, Twenty-First-Century Jim Crow Schools explores how
charter schools have shaped the educational landscape and why parents,
teachers, and community members are fighting back.
