What We Stand to Lose: Carver Senior High School and the Threat of School Closures

• In Event: Losing a Place Called School: Meanings, Consequences, and Trends of School Closures in Historic Communities

Abstract

Presenting two related studies in New Orleans, this paper challenges the “blank-sheet-of-paper” discourse, often used to justify public school closures, which portrays communities of color as places where nothing valuable existed prior to reformers’ arrival. The first study utilizes oral history/archives to chart the culture of the historic all-black Carver Senior High School, revealing a place-based critical race pedagogy contributing to the successful education of students. The second study chronicles Carver’s closure and its replacement by zero-tolerance charter schools by drawing on interviews with students and demonstrates the new-and-improved system is violating students’ educational rights. Providing a comparative perspective on Carver’s past and the city’s current zero-tolerance climate makes clear what we stand to lose in closing historic black schools.

Author

• Kristen L. Buras, Georgia State University