Turnaround, Crisis, and Recovery: Neoliberal Subjectivities and Contracting Processes for District-Charter Turnaround Partnerships in Texas

• In Event: Differing Perspectives on School Improvement

Abstract

This paper draws on the literature of neoliberal crisis and recovery to examine how two large urban public school districts in Texas responded to state policy that compelled them to contract out for turnaround. Employing multimodal discourse analysis, we examine the discourses that officials and community members invoked across phases of the partnership authorization process. We interpret district-charter partnerships as instances of neoliberal recovery, wherein state policy manufactured education system crises to pressure district leaders, teachers, and families to adopt market-based logics of charter operator-led turnaround. Findings have implications for future school leaders implementing, and school communities subjected to, turnaround contracting processes elsewhere, particularly as they affect majority Black and Latine/a/o communities facing historical financial disadvantage.

Authors

• Alejandro Madrigal, University of Texas at Austin

• Daniel Dawer, University of Texas at Austin