Justifying Inequality: School Resegregation and the Cultural Political Economy of Parent Fund-Raising

• In Event: 72.027 - Piketty's Relevance for the Study of Education: Reflections on the Political Economy of Education

Abstract

In Capital in the 21st Century, Thomas Piketty (2014) poses the question, “Do educational institutions foster social mobility?” His answer, generally speaking, is no. This is particularly true in the United States, because stark income inequality and decreasing funding of education guarantee that those who already possess economic capital have greater access to superior educational opportunities. In Seattle, as in cities across the nation, the retreat from desegregation has created a school district that is even more segregated by class and race. Schools in the predominantly White north end serve families with a higher amount of capital than is available to families in the more diverse, and less well-off south end. One of the differences between these schools is the ability of wealthy parents to raise supplemental monies. While parent organizations in many affluent schools are able to draw on personal resources and professional connections to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, parents in poorer schools often struggle to collect hundred of dollars. This disparity in parent fundraising capacity results in vast inequities in educational opportunities for children in the city, as wealthier schools are able to hire additional teachers to reduce class size or expand offerings in arts and social sciences, purchase supplies, and even fund renovations.

In some other cities, parent organizations which raise thousands in donations must contribute a percentage to an “equity fund,” which facilitates sharing of resources with poorer schools. In Seattle, however, wealthy parents have resisted calls to implement similar policies, and have argued that they should not be “taxed” for their efforts to support (their) community schools. Of course, what amounts here to a defense of economic inequality ignores the history of racial discrimination in housing, employment and education that structured and then reproduced communities and “community schools” that are so materially unequal.

In this paper, the author offers a cultural political economy of parent fundraising in Seattle, foregrounding the opposition of wealthy parents to policies that advance sharing of resources. Cultural political economy brings together the structural and the semiotic, to elucidate how discourse reflects and reifies certain logics about economics, capital and the (re)distribution of wealth. Drawing from school district and parent organization documents, media accounts, and interviews with stakeholders, the author aims to capture the semiotics of justifying inequality, and explains how these discursive formations then inform politics and policy related to fundraising. If, as Thomas Piketty (2014) maintains, “those who have a lot of [money] never fail to defend their interests” (p. 577), a cultural political economy of parent fundraising promises to unpack how they are successful at doing so, in the face of blatant economic inequality. Key to the analysis offered here is the cultural politics of race, generally speaking, and more particularly, in the history of school desegregation and resegregation in Seattle. The confluence of this cultural politics of race and the desire of affluent parents to maintain wealth and advantage interferes with efforts to implement policies that disrupt the reproduction of educational inequality.

Author

• Michael J. Dumas, University of California - Berkeley