Below is one of the papers I wrote back in my college days. I’m posting it because I’m planning to elaborate on this topic more but focus in on Denver. The following is quite dry as academia tends to be, but I enjoyed writing this. If you like reading about education, discrimination, and politics then maybe you’ll find something interesting in this.
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On Monday, February 27th, 2017 Betsy DeVos, the new Secretary of Education met with Historically Black College and University (HBCU) leaders in Washington D.C. After that meeting, DeVos released a statement praising the leaders and role of HBCUs in the nation. In this statement, she wrote, “[t]hey saw the system that wasn’t working, that there was an absence of opportunity, so they took it upon themselves to provide the solution.”[1] She continued with “HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice. They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality.”[2] Kristen Clarke, the president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law responded that DeVos was “ignorant of racial segregation in the US” and that HBCUs were a “byproduct of racism during Jim Crow era.”[3] DeVos’ statement provoked criticism on the accuracy of her words and the context in which she placed HBCUs. She stated that HBCUs were created to provide “more options” when in fact the creation of the HBCUs was due to a lack of options. DeVos also praised HBCUs in the context of school choice, however, HBCUs were a response to racial segregation, which current day school choice policies are increasing.
DeVos’ statement is one that represents how the school choice rhetoric is utilized to appear as a solution for historically marginalized populations. A report from The Civil Rights Project at UCLA focused on charter schools as an element of school choice stating that:
…charter schools held an early promise of becoming more integrated than regular public schools because they were not constrained by racially isolating school district boundary lines. This report shows instead that charter schools make up a separate, segregated sector of our already deeply stratified public school system.[4]
DeVos’ statement contradicts the reality that contemporary school choice programs actually further segregate students. This is significant because, while the promoted rhetoric is that school choice provides more opportunities for marginalized populations, the actual case is the opposite. With the Trump administration determined to move forward with their political and educational agenda, it is crucial to examine the impacts and deeper intentions of implementing school choice programs.
This paper intends to highlight how the school choice rhetoric promoted by Secretary DeVos is used as a tool to segregate populations of people. This act of segregating and establishing groups is intended to maintain social castes. To examine the creations of these castes, this paper will look at segregation methods such as the disadvantaging of marginalized populations by controlling resources, as well as, the white privilege and superiority that exists within the idea of choice. Finally, this paper will examine the enrollment practices charters use to segregate and characterize students. To do so, I will draw upon the theory of stratification framed by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Charles W. Mills’ concept of the Racial Contract with an emphasis on white privilege, as well as Mills’ concept of the norming of space.
Background
History of School Segregation
In 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education ruling declared that laws segregating black and white children in schools were unconstitutional.[5] With the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Congress “prohibited segregated lunch counters, buses, and parks and allowed the Department of Justice for the first time to sue school districts to force integration. It also gave the government the power to withhold federal funds if the districts did not comply.”[6] Consequently, by 1973, 91% of black children in the former Confederate states and bordering states were attending schools with white children.[7]
While those decisions were instrumental in desegregating schools, segregation again rose due to government legislation and housing segregation. This began with Richard Nixon appointing four conservative judges to the Supreme Court who ruled on several court cases that restricted the legal reach of the Brown v. Board decision.[8] Ronald Reagan reintroduced the notion of “separate but equal” by encouraging the nation to improve segregated schools rather than work to integrate schools.[9] Additionally, George W. Bush released school districts of their court orders on federal desegregation, which meant they could carry on with their practices as long as they claimed they did not do it with discriminatory intentions.[10]
Housing segregation and discrimination also had significant implications in school segregation. Nikole Hannah-Jones in The New York Times wrote specifically about New York City and stated, “segregation in housing often resulted from legal and open discrimination that was encouraged and condoned by the state, and at times required by the federal government.”[11] She continued by stating that these restrictions of property to black home seekers meant black families were renting, while white families were buying homes and building wealth. This led to the current day statistic where a “typical white person has 13 times the wealth of a typical black person.”[12] Segregating communities of low-wealth interrelates to student performance because “concentrating disadvantaged students in racially and economically homogeneous schools depresses” student performance more so than if they weren’t in a segregated community.[13] Thus, both the history of housing and school segregation point to a larger systemic disadvantaging along with a record of political efforts to maintain segregated education.
Free Market School Choice
Free market is an economic term that values promoting competition by the privatization of transactions and removing government control.[14] When applied to school choice, this is implemented by a variety of different programs aimed to privatize education. This includes the expansion of voucher programs and increasing the charter school sector. Advocates of charter schools promote that quality of education would improve because competition for enrollment of students would ensue between charters and traditional public schools.[15] This is significant because free market education is one of the primary descriptors that proponents use to promote school choice programs.
Charter Schools
Ted Kolderie, a journalist who helped create the United States’ first charter law and assists states in creating their own, defines charter as “the decision by states to turn public education into a two-sector system.” [16] In this system, public schools are owned by a central school board and charter schools are not. Charters differ from traditional public schools as the purpose of their creation was to implement innovative learning techniques and have more freedom to hire teachers outside of a union contract.[17]
Charter schools are typically funded publicly, meaning they pull their funds from the local, state, and federal funding pot that traditional public schools also use.[18] On a lesser scale, they can also accept funding from private donors.[19] Only one in six charters in the U.S. are for-profit but this is dependent on the location. For instance, in Michigan, 80% of the charters are for-profit whereas, in New York, for-profit charters are prohibited.[20] Proponents of charter schools state that they can provide resources and specialized education for disadvantaged kids that may not be accepted in a public-school system.[21]
Current rhetoric
Leo R. Chavez in The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation defines discourse as the “formation or cluster of ideas, images, and practices that construct knowledge of, ways of talking about, and forms of conduct associated with a particular topic, social activity, or institutional site in society.”[22] In other words, discourse is the narrative that is constructed to influence the perception and discussion about a topic. Secretary DeVos formed the discourse around school choice to appear as an idealistic free market education system. She constructed this school choice discourse by stating that her “orientation is around parents and children. When parents choose charter schools, they are doing so because they think it’s a great choice for their children.”[23] Accompanying this, she believes “the education dollars [should] follow each child, instead of forcing the child to follow the dollars… And it’s how you go from a closed system to an open system that encourages innovation. People deserve choices and options.”[24]
While the rhetoric of “school choice” primarily seems like a move towards a free market education and a method of giving more choice to parents and students, it is a form of furthering the societal divide between dominant groups and marginalized groups by manipulating the education system. For this reason, this paper will analyze the ways in which this divide is created through segregative school choice programs and practices.
Analysis
Stratification
The first concept I will explore is stratification which articulates the distribution of resources. Michael Omi and Howard Winant, in Racial Formation in the United States of America, define stratification as, “…the social distribution of resources chiefly, though not exclusively, economic ones.”[25] In other words, Omi and Winant examine the stratification theory within a class framework so that the classification of individuals determines who within the social hierarchy receives resources, specifically economic resources. Omi and Winant delve further into the development of class through the stratification model with the theory that “[i]ndividuals receiving roughly equal incomes, or partaking of equal quantities of wealth, are deemed to have similar ‘life chances’ and assigned to groups in a ‘status order’ or ranked hierarchy of ‘classes’.”[26] This specification means the distribution of those economic resources defines categories of people based on their wealth. By determining which categories people fall into, it assigns those peoples’ notions of power, ability, and worth of life. Therefore, stratification is not simply a neutral means of distribution but a means to create and reinforce social structures. This is significant because it allows a model with which to examine class formations through both economic distributions and systems of domination.
Omi and Winant write that authority systems of domination are central in the stratification theory since they exist as influencing extra-economic factors. They specify the connection between the authority systems and stratification by explaining that:
…the relationships of elites and masses, the dynamics of authority systems and forms of domination, and the overall shape of sociopolitical conflict are central preoccupations. In most respects these extra-economic factors reinforce the distribution dynamic.[27]
These authority systems of domination exist as privileged institutions who have substantial power within the overall social, economic, and political structure. Omi and Winant write that the stratification theory is not solely dependent on economic factors, but that these systems of hierarchy affect the process of distribution. These authority systems show that their patterns of rule “are frequently ‘traced back’ to the distribution of economic resources.”[28] This means that systems of oppression obtain their power through stratification distribution and that they rely on it to exist. This has importance because it emphasizes systems of authority that rely on this theory of distribution to create class structures, specifically class structures that determine social opportunity and power. Moreover, their dependence on the stratification theory is directly linked to the benefits they receive and retain through this distribution model.
Disability
The availability of resources for students with disabilities is an area where the stratification theory demonstrates dominant powers determining social opportunity. The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) reports that charters:
…continue to enroll between 0% and 7% students with disabilities, and these are largely children with mild disabilities, while the districts are still responsible for children with moderate and severe disabilities. The national average for district schools was 13% in 2011.[29]
This population is lesser served partially due to lack of services provided. Kevin G. Welner, from NEPC, states that “a charter school may not have the resources necessary to meet the special needs of a child with so-called low-incidence disabilities. But even reading specialists, for instance, may be unavailable.”[30]
This lack of services is not due to lack of funding though, since “[c]harter schools can receive a lot more public resources if they wish. Yet, they can only receive additional (categorical) funding if‒for example‒they serve more children with moderate or severe disabilities…”[31] This means that not providing the appropriate resources is not due to the charter’s lack of resources but an intention not to serve those populations. To discourage student with disabilities from applying, charter schools mention their lack of services to deter those students from their school.[32] This is a way to lessen enrollment of those students without rejecting them since they cannot legally reject these students under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).[33] By limiting resources at their school, this form of stratification restricts the options that are available to students with disabilities. This is significant because it creates a legal method of discrimination that controls their educational opportunities, reducing the “freedom” they have to choose.
English Language Learners
The statistics for representation of English Language Learner (ELL) students in charters are also less than public schools with links to lack of services. For ELL students, the NEPC stated that “[t]hese students were also generally under-enrolled; DLLs [Dual Language Learners] represented 11% of public school students while EMO-operated charter schools only enrolled 4.4%.”[34] EMO-operated refers to “charters operated by charter corporations.”[35] The Civil Rights Project confirms under-enrollment stating that “[f]ederal data on charter schools in California, arguably the country’s most significant gateway for immigrants, describe just seven ELL students attending its state charter programs.”[36] A pattern emerges as ELL services are also lacking resources at charters. Welner states that some charters may not have teachers with Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) training.[37] As with the lack of services for students with disabilities, lack of services for ELL learners significantly reduces the ability for those students to attend those schools.
Lower-Income
Private schools and charter schools also lack resources that lower-income students need like meal programs and busing services. These can restrict their “school choice”. The Civil Rights Project uses reports of a free and reduced lunch program (FRL) to determine student poverty. With free and reduced lunch programs, there’s an overlap between the presence of a lunch program and racial segregation. For example, “[i]n seven states, at least one thousand students in each state attend charter schools of intense white segregation and with no evidence of reduced or free lunch being offered.”[38] This means that the charters that are heavily white may not be offering an FRL program and therefore not enrolling poor students. The report states that:
…the provision of transportation and subsidized lunches is likely essential to the process of attracting low-income and minority students… [and] low-income… students may not have access to some charter schools to the same extent as white and middle-class children do.[39]
In other words, charters without transportation and FRL programs create differential access to their schools, decreasing marginalized students’ opportunities. The provision of these resources is manipulated by the schools to declare who is meant to enroll, creating segregated schools of class, race, ability, and language. This is significant because, by limiting opportunities, this dictates the power and class standing marginalized students have access to.
White Privilege
Whereas stratification articulates the distribution of resources, the Racial Contract provides a foundation of racial hierarchies with an emphasis on white privilege. Mills defines the Racial Contract as, “a political, moral, and epistemological” set of informal and formal agreements between members of those deemed white and those deemed as “’nonwhite’ who are of a different and inferior moral status.”[40] In other words, the Racial Contract is an underlying system of society that defines a hierarchical status for racial groups with white groups as superior. These set of agreements exist within not just areas of law, but within interpersonal norms of interaction, knowledge, and a racial polity.
This reference to a racial polity is defined by Mills as political agreements “[establishing a] society and the government, thereby transforming abstract raceless ‘men’ from denizens of the state of nature into social creatures who are politically obligated to a neutral state.”[41] This acts as one of the enforcers of the Contract and works to extend the Racial Contract’s agreements into multiple facets of society. The reason for that, as Mills writes, is for “the differential privileging of the whites as a group with respect to the nonwhites as a group, the exploitation of their bodies, land, and resources, and the denial of equal socioeconomic opportunities to them.”[42] In other words, the purpose of these agreements is to exploit nonwhite groups in order for the superior white group to remain dominant through political, moral, and epistemological aspects of society. This reveals an important foundational system that the concept of white privilege builds upon.
White privilege builds upon the Racial Contract with Mills defining it as opportunities and life chances for white groups that are significantly and objectively better.[43] He further explains white privilege as a “mental phenomena” where:
…whites will in general be unable to understand the world they themselves have made… [and] that white misunderstanding, misrepresentation, evasion, and self-deception on matters related to race are among the most pervasive mental phenomena…[44]
In other words, due to the foundation of exploitation set by the Racial Contract, white groups do not perceive their differential access in society. Therefore, Mills states that, “All whites are beneficiaries of the Contract, though some whites are not signatories to it.”[45] This is significant because of the pervasive privileges white groups have within society, even if they may not have directly enacted those privileges. The privileges that white groups hold contrast with nonwhite groups’ inability to obtain those rights. This is differential access of opportunities, determined by the Racial Contract, is significant because of the mutual relationship between white privilege and the Racial Contract.
White privilege and the Racial Contract are connected because of the Racial Contract’s dependence on maintaining a dominant white society. Mills states that:
…these phenomena are in no way accidental, but prescribed by the terms of the Racial Contract, which requires a certain schedule of structured blindnesses and opacities in order to establish and maintain the white polity.[46]
Mills’ use of “blindnesses” refers to the created privileges within institutions and society that are inherit and unperceived to the white groups. Understanding this, white privilege was created and used as a tool to retain order in society. This kept white groups in power over subordinated nonwhite groups. This relationship between white privilege and the Racial Contract demonstrates the intentional creations of white privilege linked to the intentional creation of a hierarchical exploitative society.
Who Can Choose
White privilege is present in the school choice rhetoric by who has the ability to engage in school choice programs. One of the promoted programs is vouchers. Voucher programs use taxpayer dollars to “[let] parents apply that money to a private or religious school.”[47] While vouchers are described as providing low-income students better education options, “in reality [low-income students] often have no way [to] use them, either because they can’t afford the tuition co-payment or lack the means to travel to a private school.”[48] The promotion of this program is a way to “subsidiz[e] private-school tuition for families who can well afford it.”[49] This is shown in Indiana’s voucher program that began as a program for lower class families but expanded so that “vouchers [were] also going to wealthier families, those earning up to $90,000 for a household of four.”[50] While the rhetoric promotes “freedom,” that “freedom” is only accessible to privileged white wealthy families.
Carefully Curated Integration
Another example of white privilege is the increased ability for higher-income white parents to choose schools with a majority white student body. Hannah-Jones states that one factor of school desirability is “carefully curated integration” or the idea “that [schools] have some students of color, but not too many.”[51] A study by Steven Glazerman and Dallas Dotter of Mathematica Policy Research confirms what Hannah-Jones is stating. In this study, white higher-income parents had the strongest preference out of all the intersections of race and class to have their children remain “in-group,” in other words, in their own racial group.[52] They also preferred their child be in a student body of 60% white students, not too much and not too little.[53] With the ability to choose, parents have the power to select schools that adhere to their racial preferences. In turn, schools have incentive to conform to the desirable racial demographics since “even a handful of middle-class families [make] it less likely that a school [will] be neglected.”[54] Within the school system and particularly a rhetoric of school choice, white parents have the power to not only decide their own child’s education but the students of color who are not chosen based on white higher-income parents’ preferences.
White Flight
With the freedom to choose, white parents display a white privilege, in that their choice contributes to segregative efforts. White flight is defined as “the aversion of white householders to living in racially-integrated settings [which] leads them to vacate neighborhoods occupied by large or growing minority populations…”[55] This movement of white families from areas populated with people of color can be applied to the education system with schools being the setting for these situations.
Links between white flight and charter schools has been suggested by The Civil Rights Project who points to the West and South in the U.S. These are racially diverse regions and in “[t]he West, which has the lowest overall percentage of white regular public school students, [it] has the highest percentage of white charter school students.”[56] This suggests a pattern of white flight in this region from the public school district.[57] Jeff Guo from The Washington Post connects this current white flight to the white parents from the 1960’s moving to evade racial integration orders.[58] White flight along with carefully curated integration exhibits a defiance from white groups to integrate with people of color. This reveals their placement of a lack of worth on people of color. Hannah-Jones writes that integration “is only a sacrifice if you really believe that those kids are less than yours…” which highlights the white privilege that exists with white parents pointedly choosing schools based on racial demographics.[59] By promoting school choice programs, white groups are able to use their privilege to increase their options and perpetuate notions of worth.
Norming of Space
While the Racial Contract defines a hierarchical system, the norming of space theorizes the differential treatment of dominant and subordinated spaces. Mills defines the norming of space as “the depiction of space as dominated by individuals (whether persons or subpersons) of a certain race” and that by spacing it, it is “representing [the space] as imprinted with characteristics of a certain kind of space.”[60] The first part of this definition is the notion that spaces are viewed by other people as mostly inhabited by a certain dominant or subordinate group. The second part of Mills’ definition is that space is ascribed characteristics specific to the group that inhabits that space. This is a concept with two different components, people and space, defined in relation to each other. Furthermore, the norming of space demonstrates a theorization that for subperson groups, “both space and its inhabitants are alien.”[61] This differentiates spaces between inferior subperson groups and superior dominant groups. Mills’ concept of the norming of space is significant because it theorizes the connection and reinforcement of characterized subperson spaces where dominant groups establish that norm per the Racial Contract.
Mills examines how this norm is established by the neutral viewing of dominant space compared to the negative viewing of spaces associated with subperson groups. This means that the norming of space set social agreements that use the dominant group as the norm that subperson groups are defined by. Mills clarifies this norm by the characterization of dominated spaces as:
…presociopolitical (“the state of nature”) and postsociopolitical (the locus of “civil society”). But this characterization does not reflect negatively on the characteristics of the space itself or its denizens… At a certain stage, (white) people seeing the disadvantages of the state of nature voluntarily choose to leave it, thenceforth establishing institutions transforming its character. But there is nothing innate in the space or the persons that connotes intrinsic defect.[62]
In other words, dominant spaces were created as the norm for civil society which was used as a basis to form institutions from that dominant standard. This element of the theory demonstrates that the characterization of subperson spaces is constructed by contrasting it to the dominant spaces. These characterizations are utilized to emphasize the subnormal of subperson spaces and those who inhabit those spaces. This is important because it highlights the societal norms that are used as the basis for negative characterizations of subperson spaces and bodies.
Enrollment Practices
The norming of space exists within the framework of the school choice rhetoric by the characterization of English Language Learners, lower-income students, and students of color. These characterizations consequently deny the ability for these groups to occupy spaces that are not seen as appropriate for them. One method charters use to create these characterized spaces is by enrollment practices that discourage certain students from applying. These methods include lengthy application and “‘sweat equity’ contracts.”[63] Lengthy applications may include essays, mandatory school visits, and admission tests which allow the school to directly deny students who did not complete those portions of the application.[64] Sweat equity contracts state that the parent must commit a certain amount of service to the school.[65] This restricts lower-income families from enrolling as they are “increasingly stretched for time and resources,” both of which are key factors in these enrollment methods.[66] The National Education Policy Center states that these practices make it “…almost impossible to avoid self-selection of students and families who are more engaged and who have more knowledge and skill in navigating school choice systems…”[67] Self-selection is the act of a parent selecting a school based on their ability, knowledge, and resources. By relying on parents to filter which options are feasible for them, this means the school doesn’t have to reject them.
Marketing Practices
Another enrollment method charters use, that specifically focuses on English learners, is marketing practices. The Welner states that “if a school wants to enroll English learners, it will produce and distribute materials in the first language of those families. If it does not, it will produce and distribute materials overwhelmingly in English.”[68] This creates a barrier between the school and potential ELL students by complicating accessibility, as well as implying that those students are unwelcome at their school. This is a subtle move to influence the space that is created in their school surrounding language, therein designating their school as unfit for ELL students. These practices declare who is fit to enroll in their school and grant the school the ability to selectively choose whom they deem appropriate for their school.
Racial Segregation
The most apparent example of the norming of space is segregation by racial lines. A study by the Civil Rights Project “reveals that charter schools are more racially isolated than traditional public schools in virtually every state and large metropolitan area in the nation.”[69] They detailed the segregation with that fact that “two-fifths of black charter school students attended ‘apartheid’ schools, where 99% of students were from underrepresented minority backgrounds.”[70] This figure is three times as high as a black student in a traditional public school setting.[71] The system does not stop at segregation though, populations of students of color then get imbued with negative characteristics. Amy Stuart Wells, a professor of education at Columbia University’s Teachers College told Hannah-Jones that the combination of the school system and white parents’ choice:
…can concentrate poverty and kids of color and then fail to provide the resources to support and sustain those schools, and then we can see a school full of black kids and then say, ‘Oh look at their test scores.’ It’s all very tidy now, this whole system.[72]
This describes a system that intentionally categorizes students of color to locales, deprives them of the resources needed to succeed, and then places negative characteristics on the school.
When looking at segregation, the impacts of it are essential for understanding how it maintains a societal hierarchy. In a North Carolina-based research project, black students transferred into a racially segregated charter school and found the students “experienced larger negative achievement effects than if they had remained in a traditional public school.”[73] This reveals the adverse results that directly contrast the rhetoric of school choice providing better options for education for marginalized populations. When looking at the impacts of desegregation in the case of black students, Hannah-Jones details the dramatic results stating that:
…it changed the entire trajectory of their lives, that it wasn’t just about how well they scored on a test, that black students who went to integrated schools were less likely to be poor as adults, were more likely to go to college. They lived longer. They were healthier, and they passed this benefit onto their own children. And even within the same family, if one child remained in segregated schools and one child went to integrated schools, the child in the same family who went to integrated schools had these same lifelong effects.[74]
In other words, desegregation has clear impacts on economic, social, and health aspects not just for the individual, but for the next generation. This signifies that desegregating education has the power to raise life opportunities for current and future groups of marginalized people. With education being the foundation for economic and social success, creating school choice programs that are detrimental for students of color is ensuring they will stay below the educated whites in society.
Conclusion
With the current trajectory of the Trump administration’s actions, it is increasingly important to confront the school choice rhetoric’s intention to maintain a social hierarchy. An analysis of the provision of resources through Omi and Winant’s framing demonstrates how resources become a tool to covertly determine and deny enrollment into schools based on qualities in the student. By doing so, they limit educational opportunities to those seen as unfit for their school. Mills provides a framework of white privilege to reveal that white upper-class families are the true individuals with the ability to choose. Through this framework, the white hierarchical notions of worth combined with the privilege to choose increase white majority schools along with programs that increase their opportunities. With the theory of the norming of space, segregation practices become more apparent as schools define who is appropriate to occupy their space, as well as, partaking in the characterization of spaces.
Understanding these concepts makes the school choice rhetoric more transparent, revealing the system it intends to create. The school choice rhetoric, in contrast to what their proponents say, is meant to segregate marginalized students by denying them opportunities or presenting detrimental opportunities. These poor opportunities limit marginalized students’ ability to reach higher life prospects, therefore, they are, continually residing in the subordinated status in society. The dominant populations, particularly white upper-class able-bodied groups, maintain their power in this system, hence profiting off this school choice rhetoric. As a result, the rhetoric DeVos supports is not intended for marginalized populations but for the white upper-class so they retain their dominant position in society.
Rejecting school choice programs that are implemented in the current state, the state that increases segregation, is crucial. Demanding real options for marginalized students is the way to open access for better educational, social, and economic opportunities. These options must not rely on parent’s choice but, instead, rely on federal policy that provides the opportunity to escape racially segregated, poverty concentrated, isolated education spaces. This must consist of policies requiring accountability for charters on the grounds of racial and economic diversity. Movement in this direction will advance marginalized populations’ status in society, disrupting the current hierarchy perpetuated by the school choice system.
Citations
[1] U.S. Department of Education, “Statement from Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos Following Listening Session with Historically Black College and University Leaders,” press release, February 28, 2017, https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/statement-secretary-education-betsy-devos-following-listening-session-historically-black-college-and-university-leaders.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Kristen Clarke, Twitter post, February 28, 2017, 7:02 a.m., http://twitter.com/KristenClarkeJD.
[4] Erica Frankenberg et al., Choice Without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards, Los Angeles, CA: The Civil Rights Project at UCLA/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA, 2010, accessed February 24, 2017, http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4r07q8kg.
[5] Nikole Hannah-Jones, “Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City,” The New York Times, June 9, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/magazine/choosing-a-school-for-my-daughter-in-a-segregated-city.html.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Richard Rothstein, “Segregated Housing, Segregated Schools,” Education Week, March 26, 2014, http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/26/26rothstein_ep.h33.html.
[14] “free market,” Merriam-Webster, accessed May 2, 2017, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/free%20market.
[15] Devon Skeens, “Charter schools don’t offer a choice, I should know, I taught in two,” Lexington Herald Leader, March 8, 2017, http://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article137146163.html.
[16]Claudio Sanchez, “Just What IS A Charter School, Anyway?” National Public Radio, March 1, 2017, http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/03/01/511446388/just-what-is-a-charter-school-anyway.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Chris Weller, “New education secretary Betsy DeVos champions vouchers and charter schools — here’s what that means,” Business Insider, February 7, 2017, http://www.businessinsider.com/what-are-charter-schools-2017-2.
[22] Leo R. Chavez, The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation, (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2013), 22.
[23] Sarah Carr, “Betsy DeVos’ Big Education Idea Doesn’t Work,” Slate, January 23, 2017, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/schooled/2017/01/betsy_devos_big_education_idea_doesn_t_work.html.
[24] Brittany DeLea, “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on School Choice, Vouchers and Religion,” Fox Business, February 7, 2017, http://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/02/07/education-secretary-betsy-devos-on-school-choice-vouchers-and-religion.html.
[25] Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States (New York: Routledge, 1994), 27.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Gary Miron, William J. Mathis, and Kevin G. Welner, Review of Separating Fact & Fiction, Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center, 2015, accessed April 30, 2017, http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-separating-fact-and-fiction.
[30] Kevin G. Welner, “The Dirty Dozen: How Charter Schools Influence School Enrollment,” Teachers College Record (2013): 4, http://www.tcrecord.org.
[31] Gary Miron, William J. Mathis, and Kevin G. Welner, Review of Separating Fact & Fiction, Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center, 2015, accessed April 30, 2017, http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-separating-fact-and-fiction.
[32] Kevin G. Welner, “The Dirty Dozen: How Charter Schools Influence School Enrollment,” Teachers College Record (2013): 4, http://www.tcrecord.org.
[33] Ibid.
[34] William J. Mathis and Kevin G. Welner, Do Choice Policies Segregate Schools? Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center, 2016, accessed February 24, 2017, http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/publications/Mathis%20RBOPM-3%20Choice%20Segregation.pdf.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Erica Frankenberg et al., Choice Without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards, Los Angeles, CA: The Civil Rights Project at UCLA/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA, 2010, accessed February 24, 2017, http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4r07q8kg.
[37] Kevin G. Welner, “The Dirty Dozen: How Charter Schools Influence School Enrollment,” Teachers College Record (2013): 4, http://www.tcrecord.org.
[38] Erica Frankenberg et al., Choice Without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards, Los Angeles, CA: The Civil Rights Project at UCLA/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA, 2010, accessed February 24, 2017, http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4r07q8kg.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Charles W. Mills, The Racial Contract (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1997), 9; 11.
[41] Ibid., 12.
[42] Ibid., 11.
[43] Ibid., 37.
[44] Ibid., 18-19.
[45] Ibid., 11.
[46] Ibid., 19.
[47] Chris Weller, “New education secretary Betsy DeVos champions vouchers and charter schools- here’s what it means,” Business Insider, February 7, 2017, http://www.businessinsider.com/what-are-charter-schools-2017-2.
[48] Amanda Marcotte, “Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s education chief is living proof white people haven’t gotten over Brown v. Board of Education,” Salon, January 19, 2017, http://www.salon.com/2017/01/19/betsy-devos-donald-trumps-education-chief-is-living-proof-white-people-havent-gotten-over-brown-v-board-of-education/.
[49] Valerie Strauss, “Three big problems with school ‘choice’ that supporters don’t like to talk about,” The Washington Post, May 3, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/05/03/three-big-problems-with-school-choice-that-supporters-dont-like-to-talk-about/?utm_term=.7103b5810201.
[50] Emma Brown and Mandy McLaren, “How Indiana’s school voucher program soared, and what it says about education in the Trump era,” The Washington Post, December 26, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/how-indianas-school-voucher-program-soared-and-what-it-says-about-education-in-the-trump-era/2016/12/26/13d1d3ec-bc97-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.baa6107e3fce.
[51] Nikole Hannah-Jones, “Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City,” The New York Times, June 9, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/magazine/choosing-a-school-for-my-daughter-in-a-segregated-city.html?_r=0.
[52]Steven Glazerman and Dallas Dotter, Market Signals: Evidence on the Determinants and Consequences of School Choice from a Citywide Lottery, Washington, D.C.: Mathematica Policy Research, 2016, accessed February 24, 2017, https://www.mathematica-mpr.com/our-publications-and-findings/publications/market-signals-evidence-on-the-determinants-and-consequences-of-school-choice-from-a-citywide.
[53] Ibid.
[54] Nikole Hannah-Jones, “Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City,” The New York Times, June 9, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/magazine/choosing-a-school-for-my-daughter-in-a-segregated-city.html?_r=0.
[55] Kyle Crowder and Scott J. South, “Spatial Dynamics of White Flight: The Effects of Local and Extralocal Racial Conditions on Neighborhood Out-Migration,” American Sociological Review 73, no. 5, (2008), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2835167/#.
[56] Erica Frankenberg et al., Choice Without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards, Los Angeles, CA: The Civil Rights Project at UCLA/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA, 2010, accessed February 24, 2017, http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4r07q8kg.
[57] Ibid.
[58] Jeff Guo, “White parents in North Carolina are using charter schools to secede from the education system,” The Washington Post, April 15, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/04/15/white-parents-in-north-carolina-are-using-charter-schools-to-secede-from-the-education-system/?utm_term=.b4d0380f223e.
[59] Terry Gross, How the Systemic Segregation of Schools is Maintained by ‘Individual Choices’, podcast audio, Fresh Air, MP3, accessed March 14, 2017, http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/01/16/509325266/how-the-systemic-segregation-of-schools-is-maintained-by-individual-choices.
[60] Charles W. Mills, The Racial Contract (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1997), 41-42.
[61] Ibid., 42.
[62] Ibid.
[63] Kevin G. Welner, “The Dirty Dozen: How Charter Schools Influence School Enrollment,” Teachers College Record (2013): 3, http://www.tcrecord.org.
[64] Ibid., 2-3.
[65] Ibid.
[66] Sabrina Tavernise, “Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say,” The New York Times, February 9, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/education/education-gap-grows-between-rich-and-poor-studies-show.html.
[67] Gary Miron, William J. Mathis, and Kevin G. Welner, Review of Separating Fact & Fiction, Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center, 2015, accessed April 30, 2017, http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-separating-fact-and-fiction.
[68] Kevin G. Welner, “The Dirty Dozen: How Charter Schools Influence School Enrollment,” Teachers College Record (2013): 3, http://www.tcrecord.org.
[69] Erica Frankenberg et al., Choice Without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards, Los Angeles, CA: The Civil Rights Project at UCLA/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA, 2010, accessed February 24, 2017, http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4r07q8kg.
[70] Ibid.
[71] Ibid.
[72] Nikole Hannah-Jones, “Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City,” The New York Times, June 9, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/magazine/choosing-a-school-for-my-daughter-in-a-segregated-city.html.
[73] Erica Frankenberg et al., Choice Without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards, Los Angeles, CA: The Civil Rights Project at UCLA/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA, 2010, accessed February 24, 2017, http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4r07q8kg.
[74] Terry Gross, How the Systemic Segregation of Schools is Maintained by ‘Individual Choices’, podcast audio, Fresh Air, MP3, accessed March 14, 2017, http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/01/16/509325266/how-the-systemic-segregation-of-schools-is-maintained-by-individual-choices.
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