Complacency Versus Contestation: Comparing Community Support for Public and Private Strategies in Urban District Reforms

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: The Politics of Neoliberal Educational Policies: Conceptual and Empirical Examinations of Alternative Educational Visions

Abstract

Many urban school districts are defined by their diversity of people and ideas, as well as struggles to confront race and class inequality with shrinking state and federal funds for public services. Since the 1980s, districts have adopted market-based strategies centered on curricular, instructional, and financial reforms in response to state and local demands to improve the achievement of low-income students and students of color. Many large districts negotiate the financial and political pressures through a policy approach called the portfolio strategy (Bulkley, Henig, Levin, & Cuban, 2010), which aims to expand school options for students and families, and give schools more autonomy over certain areas, like hiring and curriculum, while the district coordinates enrollment and other shared systems. As district and private sector leaders work to unify charter and traditional public schools under one “umbrella,” this leaves many questions about the shifting power dynamics that reshape democratic engagement – whose voices, needs, and ideas are centered and why market-based reforms, like the portfolio strategy, are advocated as the natural next step, or politically inevitable, for urban districts. Scholars have traced the evolution of traditional district governance to portfolio (Bulkley & Henig, 2015; Marsh, Strunk, & Bush, 2013; Wong, 2011), but less is known about how community members experience governance “reorganization” or “restructuring” in their day-to-day lives. Moreover, previous studies have not considered why some district and community leaders, rather than going the portfolio route, have chosen to maintain their improvement efforts by working within traditional public governance structures. Drawing on urban regime theory (Stone, 1993) and interviews, participant observations, and policy documents, this comparative case study (Yin, 2014) of Oakland’s portfolio model and Berkeley’s public governance model explores the role of urban regimes in carving out networks to build equity-oriented strategies within one school district while a neighboring district has turned to the private sector. Preliminary findings indicate that distinct visions and strategies are reflected in each district’s urban regime, where government and private sector leaders took in different, and sometimes contradictory, approaches to engaging Black, Asian, and Latinx communities in district reorganization. In response to the community backlash against school closures, a ‘portfolio regime’ comprised of district leaders and philanthropically-funded intermediary organizations attempted to involve local stakeholders and community organizations in these decisions; however, the limited community engagement practices were replaced with community informing sessions that felt largely symbolic to many participants. In Berkeley Unified, the absence of education reform advocacy organizations meant education leaders sought change within the district, most notably through a decade-long “collective action” strategy that brings together public institutions to close the achievement gap. However, this traditional district model also fostered some complacency in regards to education reform, where there are less megaphones (and organizational structures) for unhappy families, overwhelmingly Black and Latinx, amidst an espoused social justice discourse. This case of urban governance illuminates the way market strategies like the portfolio strategy go beyond “restructuring” a district’s central office, and instead reorganize the relationship between communities and their schools.

Author

• René Espinoza Kissell, University of Colorado - Boulder