"A Beautiful Struggle": Reimagining Neighborhood Schools in Urban Communities

• In Event: 81.010 - Cross-Cutting Session 4. Beyond the Schoolhouse Door: Expanding the Physical Boundaries of Education

Abstract

As school choice initiatives expand, buoyed by the current administration and the charter school movement, there is an opposing reform chorus supporting neighborhood and community schools. This paper contributes to scholarship on this debate by portraying a local struggle to reimagine a longstanding neighborhood urban school amid an expanding school marketplace. Using an asset-based community development framework, we argue that the local histories of neighborhood schools and their communities are important reform assets insofar as they build a shared understanding of education as a public good and help galvanize collective problem solving. We approach this historical case study as a research-practice partnership aimed at informing a new school design process as well as research on community school development.

Authors

• Karen Hunter Quartz, University of California - Los Angeles

• Rebecca Cooper Geller, University of California - Los Angeles

• Shante Stuart McQueen, University of Pittsburgh