Mapping College Opportunity: Inequalities and Community Assets in Post-Katrina New Orleans

• In Event: Roundtable Session 66
  In Roundtable Session: Transformational Spaces: Marginalized School Communities’ Projects of Resistance

Abstract

OBJECTIVES/PURPOSE
This paper maps college opportunity in the context of drastic neoliberal school reform in New Orleans. It evaluates post-Katrina education reform by measuring college opportunity as an outcome. It also shows how a local youth-led organization in New Orleans East provides an important space to empower youth, who are challenged with navigating shifting education and college opportunity structures.

PERSPECTIVES/THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
College opportunities, “... are a result of exposure to or accumulation of high or low volumes of social capital or institutional neglect and abuse” (González, Stoner, & Jovel, 2003, p. 166). College access disparities represent significant opportunity gaps in the education system. To counter these gaps, communities can create important spaces for the accumulation of community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) and habitus (Bourdieu, 1990) to strategically increase college opportunity.

METHODOLOGY AND DATA
Two questions guided this study.
• How are post-Katrina school reforms affecting college opportunities students of color in New Orleans?
• How does a youth organization in New Orleans East facilitate college opportunities for students of color?
Using data from the Louisiana Department of Education, Orleans Parish School District, and Recovery School District, a College Opportunity Ratio (COR) and spatial analysis was conducted. COR is an educational equity indicator that measures how well high schools are preparing 9th graders for high school graduation and college matriculation (Oakes, Mendoza, & Silver, 2004). College readiness is determined by the percentage of ninth graders who both graduate high school and have met minimum state 4-year university admissions standards. Using geographic information systems (GIS) analysis, COR by geography, race, family economic status, and school attended are illustrated for New Orleans schools before and after Katrina. To answer the second question, ethnographic data from an ongoing youth participatory action research project, which started in August 2010, will be presented to discuss how a local youth organization bridges college opportunity gaps.

RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS
The findings from the COR and GIS analyses demonstrate that significant college opportunity gaps persist in New Orleans where over 60 percent of students attend charter schools. Within this context, the ethnographic study found that the community-based organization in New Orleans East provided a critical space that served two important functions for local youth. First, it empowered youth with community cultural wealth to navigate the volatile school system, graduate high school, and enter college at a somewhat higher rate than their peers. Second, youth in this space acquired critical literacy, leading them to launch a transformative education equity campaign (Solórzano & Bernal, 2001).

SIGNIFICANCE
This paper evaluates the neoliberal school reform agenda in New Orleans, which national media have proclaimed a “miracle” (Laskow, 2010), through a mixed method examination of college opportunities. This education equity criterion diverges from the testing and accountability regime. Few studies have applied a COR analysis to school systems outside of California; this study highlights the utility of the method. It is important to understand the impacts of school reform policies on this city’s schoolchildren who are overwhelmingly students of color dependent on the public school system.

Author

• OiYan A. Poon, Loyola University Chicago