Race, Trust and Public Schooling: Examining the Nature of Urban Black Parent Trust in Public Schools

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

My dissertation project examines the trust that African-American parents place in public schooling at a moment when New York City is attempting to transform its education system through market mechanisms such as school choice and portfolio management and that many historically Black neighborhoods in the city are experiencing gentrification and are becoming Whiter and more middle class. I build on the body of education research examining trust in schools and draw on the sociological and political science research that studies race and trust. First I tease apart how the nature of African-American trust in local public schools might be different from the nature of trust in the institution of public schooling or faith in public education, as Black parents may expect different things from the local school and the school system. Secondly, I explore the development of trust in schooling, by treating trusting as a dynamic process, shaped by past socialization and experiences, combined with current engagement with public schools.

I am particularly interested in understanding the differences in the nature of trust in schooling between “No Excuses” charter school and traditional public school Black parents. I use a multi-modal qualitative design—consisting of longitudinal interviews with Black parents of elementary school aged children and fieldwork in selected schools—a “No Excuses” charter school, a school in a gentrifying neighborhood, and a school that has been a mainstay in a traditionally African-American neighborhood. As I asked parents to recount memorable instances where they felt trust or distrust toward their child’s school or the school system, their accounts have tended to focus around instances that are crucial to the trusting process—such as interactions with teachers around discipline, making sense of test scores and the new Common Core curriculum, considering whether classroom instruction is culturally relevant, communicating with school staff and issues of parent involvement and voice.

For this NAed/Spencer Poster Presentation, I am presenting themes that emerged from parent interviews about the initial process of finding a school for their child and how the parents felt about the school on their child’s first day. The local policy context has encouraged public school choice—both through streamlining the elementary school application process and through encouraging the proliferation of large network “No Excuses” charter schools. It has also increasingly held schools accountable—both through widely publicizing school quality ratings and shuttering schools that fail to meet certain benchmarks. In this context, Black parents experience finding a school as a stressful and difficult process with no guarantees—as schools in their local neighborhood zone tend to have low quality scores; sending their child to a school outside of their community school district is often constrained by the difficulty of arranging transportation; and admittance to oversubscribed charter schools through lotteries is up to chance. Parents tend to feel more comfortable with neighborhood zone school when they can be reassured of its quality through personal social networks—which are disrupted when schools close. Parents rely on reputation when considering No Excuses charter schools—and weigh the tradeoffs between academic rigor and strict discipline policies. On the first day of school, most parents feel nervous—but having a sense of what to expect and caring and competent classroom teachers can put them at ease. Finally, parents—with children in both traditional and charter schools—feel that the school choice process creates greater inequality within their communities.

Author

• Kathryn Hill, Teachers College, Columbia University