“Of the meaning of progress”: School Choice, Black Educators, and White Epistemological Capture during Crisis

• In Event: Controversial Issues Policies, Power, and Practices: How Educators Navigate Hostile and Divisive Political Climates

Abstract

Objectives
The institution of education has steadily been in a state of reform (Cohen-Vogel, Youngs, & Scott, 2025; Tyack & Cuban, 1995). These reforms have often been articulated by policymakers and educational actors as instruments of progress and innovation, yet they often rearrange and reproduce longstanding racial, sexual, gender, and class-based inequities (Leonardo, 2003; McQuillan, Lebovitz, & Harbin, 2024). Understanding how these trenchant inequities get reinscribed in education policy and reform is critical to their elimination. Falling under the umbrella of school choice, charter schools were positioned as an instrument of progress (Author, 2024). Nearly twenty years ago, the crisis of Hurricane Katrina created the conditions for our nation’s first 100% charter school district. The Trump Administration has called for the growth of school choice initiatives nationally. By looking to post-Katrina New Orleans, one can glean insights regarding the expansion of school choice initiatives and the lived realities of those impacted by such reforms. Although the case of New Orleans may appear to be singular, Hurricane Katrina does not represent a retreat into the past or policy exceptionality, but rather a haunting of and glimpse into the future.
Theoretical Framework
This paper is uniquely positioned at the nexus of varying “controversies,” not only focusing on the contentious nature of school choice policy, but also capturing the experiences of Black educators within charter schools, and the growing polarization fomented during and expanded in the aftermath of the first Trump presidency. This paper draws on conceptual insights from Black studies in education and critical race studies (ross & Givens, 2023; Author, 2023). Critically, the construct of anti-Blackness, the structural dehumanization and oppression of Black people, undergirds the conceptual apparatus of the paper.
Methods
This paper is guided by a critical race case study approach (Harper et al., 2016). Data, which was collected from 2021-2024, explored the racialized labor conditions and pedagogical practices of Black educators in post-Katrina New Orleans charter schools. NVivo qualitative software was used to analyze interview data. Open and axial coding were deployed in data analysis (Polkinghorne, 1995).

Data
This paper draws on semi structured interviews from nearly 60 Black educators. Interviews ranged on average from 60-120 minutes.
Findings
Key findings suggest that Black educators within charter schools have limited curricular and pedagogical autonomy, despite claims of innovation and narratives of progress. These findings index what I frame as white epistemological capture, “a tactic used to foreclose emancipatory thought and solidify violent white ways of knowing and being” (Author, 2023).
Significance
In light of these findings, this paper considers the relationship between school choice/neoliberal reforms and the growing antagonisms against democratic schooling. Implications for theory, research, and practices are offered.

Author

• Kevin Lawrence Henry, University of Wisconsin - Madison