Race and Discipline in "No Excuses" Charter Schools: Cultural Dimensions of Inequality in Market-Driven Contexts

• In Event: The "No Excuses" Model of Urban School Reform: Wrenching Truths, Critical Perspectives, and Dissent

Abstract

In this paper, Terrenda White critically examines the practices of "No Excuses" (NE) corporate-styled charter schools in New York City, including the cultural dimensions of whiteness and racism. Based on a two-year qualitative research study of school leaders and teachers in a NE charter school, including interviews and observations, she reveals how white, middle-class norms shaped school climate and constructed Black students as deficient, resulting in a hyper-focus on students' individual choices, behaviors, and academic outcomes. Despite the expressed objectives of teachers to improve academic quality, senior managers whose ideas about schooling were predicated on White middle-class norms of speech, language, dress and behavior rigidly scripted classroom practices. Myopic attention to test score production and organizational expansion on the part of management worked to exacerbate racialized cultural differences between largely Black and Latino/a students and predominantly White teachers and leaders. Moreover, the school’s overreliance on less experienced teachers with weak ties to the local community, and lack of autonomy for teachers interested in sociocultural approaches to teaching, were part and parcel of poor working conditions that shaped chronically high teacher turnover. The presenter considers the implications of school practices, working conditions, and teacher-student relationships for student discipline, including suspension and expulsion. Indeed, suspension rates of the NE charter school were five times higher than comparable district schools and non-NE charter schools.

Thus, using a critical race theory lens, White explains how a culture of whiteness contributes to problematic patterns of high student suspension and attrition—an organizational and institutionalized form of racialized marginalization. The implications of the study for broader policy initiatives are also discussed, such as the push to “scale up” charter schools, including NE charter schools in communities of color, by a powerful bloc of largely White venture philanthropists and private foundation leaders. Ultimately, the paper’s findings illuminate two interrelated dimensions of inequity that market reforms have produced: a limited diversity of choices (due to the replication of charter schools driven by White entrepreneurial elites) and limited choices for diversity (due to assimilationist NE practices that limit diverse forms of teaching and learning inside schools).

Author

• Terrenda Corisa White, University of Colorado - Boulder