Interest Convergence as Contingent: The Promise and Limits of Using Controlled Choice to Desegregate Schools

• In Event: (Re)Producing or Disrupting Inequality: Exploring the Utility of Opportunity Hoarding in Educational Research

Abstract

This paper examines advantaged parents’ support for a controlled choice (Kahlenberg, 2016) admissions policy intended to interrupt educational “opportunity hoarding” (Diamond & Lewis, 2022; Sattin-Bajaj & Roda, 2018) in a racially, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse school district in Brooklyn, New York. The product of a year-long, community-based planning process preceded by many years of local advocacy and media attention, the district’s controlled choice policy ended its long-standing competitive admissions process for middle schools, which had allowed schools to “screen” students based on an assortment of criteria, such as grades, test scores, auditions, and attendance records, and had served to concentrate most of its White students into a small number of middle schools (Veiga, 2016). In contrast, while the district’s new controlled choice model still required parents to rank their preferred schools, the reform replaced all screening mechanisms with lottery-based admissions, and gave extra weight to the preferences of students from low-income families, as well as those identified as English Language Learners and/or living in temporary housing. Although this new admissions system reduced advantaged families’ ability to “hoard” educational opportunities at the middle school level and was intended to desegregate the district’s middle schools, opposition to the reform – commonly called the “Diversity Plan” – was limited (Markowicz, 2018; NYC Office of the Mayor, 2018; Shapiro, 2019; Veiga & Zimmer, 2019; Welch, 2019).

In this study we use interest convergence theory (Bell, 1980) to account for White and other socioeconomically-advantaged families’ support for controlled choice in this Brooklyn district. Drawing on longitudinal, qualitative interviews conducted with 16 middle and upper-class parents of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds who articulated support for the initiative as they applied for middle schools for their own children, we examine how these families viewed the new admissions policy and how they enacted those views through the choices they made for their children’s schooling.

Our analysis reveals that advantaged parents who supported the reform believed it benefited both their own children and children with fewer advantages, and that the admissions model aligned with their values in that it advanced the broader goals of educational equity, school desegregation and social justice. Still, much of these parents’ support for the controlled choice policy was contingent on the results of the admissions lottery for their individual children. While most parents reported considering a wider set of school options than they would have with competitive admissions, most also identified a small subset of schools they viewed as unacceptable for their children – characterizations usually rooted in racialized and class-based perceptions of school quality. Thus, ultimately our study suggests that the individualistic appeal of even a controlled choice system may undermine its equity goals in the long-run unless matched with other efforts to dismantle deeply-ingrained notions about the relationship between race, class and school quality. Our findings have implications for policymakers, district leaders, researchers and activists interested in using controlled choice to promote school desegregation and reduce White and other advantaged families’ ability to hoard educational opportunities.

Authors

• Judith R. Kafka, Baruch College - CUNY
  Presenting Author

• Adam Wilson, Graduate Center - CUNY
  Presenting Author