“For Our Voices to Be Heard, We Had to Do Something Drastic”: Student Learning Loss and Teacher Attrition in an Urban Charter School

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 12:40 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Perspectives on Market-Based Education (Table 28)

Abstract

This qualitative study documents the counternarratives of three former students and a teacher at an urban charter school discussing the events that led to a student walkout on September 2018. Their counternarratives challenge the dominant narrative that posits charter schools that employ market-based logic as more efficient in serving students of color. Using racial capitalism as a theoretical framework, findings reveal that students went to New Vision Schools hoping to find improved access to higher education and instead experienced racism and learning loss due to a high teacher attrition rate. Implications of the study speak to the importance of student and teacher voices and community in school decisions for schools attempting to address racial and academic disparities.

Author

• Izamar del Rosario Ortiz-González, University of California - Davis