"It's a Different Game on the AstroTurf": Neoliberal Community Organizing for Public Schools

• In Event: Confronting Neoliberal Education: Policy Reform, Institutional Negotiations, and Possibilities for Structural Change

Abstract

Objectives

Neoliberal reform has become the hegemonic framework for serving urban students (Lipman, 2011; DeBray-Pelot and McGuin, 2009). Venture-philanthropic funding plays a key role in this phenomenon (Saltman, 2010; Scott, 2009). This study traces the growth and evolution of a “community-based” organization, funded in large part by venture-philanthropies in order to shape and inform community participation in the local school district. This research examines some of the organization’s programs and campaigns, its model for community participation, its strategies for equity and inclusion, and its responses to critique. The paper focuses on ways in which neoliberal reformers secure consent through processes of articulation (Hall, 1988), in which market-driven agendas are reframed within historically situated discourses of racial justice and political participation.

Background

This study was conducted in a mid-size urban school district that has historically been a hub for progressive and radical politics and community organizing around issues of racial and social justice (Spencer, 2012; Self, 2003); the district has also a been a major target for venture-philanthropic investment and marketized restructuring. These phenomena converged in the creation of organizations such as the Peoples’ Center for Urban Public Schools (PCUPS), founded in 2009 by Teach for America leaders and graduates of the Broad Foundation’s training programs. PCUPS has become a major player in the politics of the district, where it has a significant voice in the framing of issues and the creation and implementation of strategies and campaigns.

Methods and Data Sources

This study utilizes interviews and archival research to understand the impact of PCUPS on education reform in the district, including the ways in which community-based participants navigate, negotiate, and challenge venture-philanthropic discourses and structures. Analytic methods include discursive analysis of the organization’s public convenings, policy campaigns, and communications strategies.

Findings

This study finds that PCUPS has had a significant impact on policy formation, implementation, and discourse. The findings point to the redirection of community activism towards marketized solutions, a disproportionate influence on school board elections, and an important role in school closure and privatization. The organization also played a key role in articulating historical concerns around racial justice (i.e. resource equity, respect for teachers, community control) with the neoliberal goals of its funders. However, despite a concerted effort to recruit people of color and community members, its membership consists primarily of white Teach for America alumni. The organization faces considerable critique from activist teachers, union members, and community leaders, and thus faces a crisis of legitimacy even as it is a major driver of policy.

Significance

This research contributes to an understanding of neoliberal hegemony by tracing cultural processes through which market-driven projects secure power. The findings point to two powerful aspects of neoliberalism: its ability to absorb and reframe challenges to capitalism (Duggan, 2003; Brown, 2005) and its power to articulate across different “subject positions” (Hall, 1988). Understanding these phenomena help us better evaluate the complex ideological agendas and “governmental” implications of organizations that seek to harness and empower marginalized communities (Lubienski et al, 2011; Rose, 1996).

Author

• Nirali Jani