Complicating Desegregation: Black and Latino Family Stories of Choice After School Closure

• In Event: The Complexity of School Choice for Historically Marginalized Families

Abstract

School choice in urban school districts has been a prominent policy reform for the last quarter century. Depending on the state and district, expanded school choice options included charter, magnet, and other types of schools and programs. However, the expansion of these programs also coincided with various forms of school closure, as well as related reforms such as turnarounds, transformation, and restarts (Trujillo & Reneé, 2015). Thus, many education researchers across the country note this connection of school choice with various forms of closure (Lipman, 2014; de la Torre, et al., 2015). In sum, school choice and closures are intertwined policies.

Across the United States and the globe, there are many studies of how families respond to school closures. For many scholars, school closures displace and dispossess families, students, educators, and communities (Aggarwal et al., 2012; Royal & Cothorne, 2021). Thus, school choice can be interpreted as a phase of permanent school closures even after resistance to displacement (Witten et. al, 2003). Families in this process are “forced to choose” new schools when they close permanently for a variety of reasons (Cowhy et al., 2023). In the process of these closures, scholars have identified the reasons that families select alternate schools that range from safety, proximity to residence, and a variety of other factors (Ong & De Witte 2014). Despite choices offered to families, these school closures can have a mixed impact on a variety of areas related to children’s academic progress to community well-being (Kirshner et al., 2010; Lipman, 2014; de la Torre, et al., 2015). Involuntary school choice connected to various forms of closure (i.e., permanent, restart) may deepen educational inequality.

This exploratory study examines the experiences of ten families facing a school choice after various forms of school closure. In particular, this study draws on the use of public oral history interviews to understand how families chose new schools, how it connected to their lives, and the forms of school closure they faced (Trujillo et al., 2014). Importantly, these experiences happened in a context of school desegregation: Hartford, Connecticut. In this city, school choice and closures are intertwined policies to achieve a court settlement for reduced racial isolation of Black and Latino children. After school closures, these Hartford families faced different choices in terms of types of school, selection policies, as well as state and district practices in the same city under the same state court ruling. These experiences complicate the understanding of voluntary school choice towards desegregation in education (Cobb et al., 2011; Orfield & Ee, 2015). These findings that resemble past efforts call for reexamination of the complexity of school choice and closure as primary desegregation remedies to meet Black and Latino student and family needs in this and other contexts.

Author

• Robert Cotto, Trinity College