Unpacking "the Public Schools": The Racial State, Test Cheating, and the Perspective of Working-Class Blacks

• In Event: 16.026 - Beyond Public Versus Private: Critical Race and Feminist Perspectives on Public, Private, and Corporate Spaces in Education

Abstract

In 2011, 178 teachers and administrators in the Atlanta school system were identified as having falsified student test scores on Georgia’s 2009 state test (Bowers et al., 2011). Working under the pressures of high-stakes accountability, the predominantly Black educators were accused of sacrificing Atlanta school children, the majority of whom are also Black, for their individual profit and reputation. This case of seeming betrayal provides a unique vantage point from which to examine the intersection of private Black families with the racial education state (ie. the public schools) in a neoliberal era.

This study draws on 31 interviews with students, families and community members in three of the Atlanta neighborhoods most affected by test cheating. In contrast to the critical literature on privatization, which typically proceeds from a class analysis, a critical race approach is my analytical starting point for understanding ‘the public’. I draw on recent work by Spence (2012) and Stern and Hussain (2015) who use Black politics, Black Marxism, and Black Nationalism to extend critiques of privatization in new directions, highlighting the Black middle class’ (or ‘native elites’) role in privatization and historical connections between Black communities and Black educators that blur public and private realms in education.

I argue that individuals, families, and communities make sense of their public schools, and particularly the cheating scandal, based on a history and present of racial domination that functions in both public and private spaces and transgresses an imagined public-private binary. First, Black teachers represented both a site of care for families and youth as well as a mechanism of exploitation through their participation in and profit from high stakes testing. In the broader discourse, Black educators were positioned as pursuing individual gain or, less commonly, as largely blameless scapegoats. Yet, students, families, and community members neither absolved these educators of blame nor wholly renounced them. Second, while cheating devastated families, it was just one of many acts of white supremacy, including city disinvestment and neglectful enforcement of citizen protections, the foreclosure crisis precipitated by real estate speculators and banks, and individuals’ toxic dumping, they faced. In these neighborhoods, public schools and Black educators were some of the few remaining sources of support. Finally, as families move forward from the cheating scandal, they look to a mix of public and private resources. For some this means a reluctant turn towards charter schools and tutoring companies. For others—unable to provide transportation for charter schools or scrape together money for private tutoring and finding little remediation from the school district—there is no other place to turn.

This study contributes to emerging research on the complexity and variation of public and private spaces, especially as related to racism, colonialism, and capital accumulation. It points to the sometimes-distinct interests that Black teachers as public sector workers and poor Black families have in this moment. While acknowledging educational injustice, this study also repositions ‘the public’ as one of multiple sites of exploitation that requires our attention and hard work.

Author

• Erica Owyang Turner, University of Wisconsin - Madison