Community Decides: Democratic Innovation as Urban School Reform

• In Event: School Politics at the Nexus of Race, Criminal Justice, and Segregation

Abstract

Over the past two decades, school reformers have turned to a range of strategies to improve low-performing minority-serving urban schools. Ironically, very few reforms begin with the voices and concerns of parents and students. Meanwhile, urban districts have been become increasingly less democratic with school boards becoming disempowered. In a moment of democratic backsliding, the Community Decides is field experimental design testing the capacity for urban school improvement through democratic innovation.

Author

• Jonathan Collins, Teachers College, Columbia University