"Natural Enemies" or Intentional Allies? Teachers' & Parents' Perspectives on Middle School Boys of Color

This study examined the perspectives and “shared knowledge” of parents and teachers of boys of color. The following overarching research question guided this study: “What do parents and teachers want each other to know about their middle school son or student of color regarding academics, engagement, and behavior?” Additionally, it explored the challenges and opportunities for shared knowledge and understanding of their (respective) son’s’ or students’ academics and engagement. The methodology was qualitative in nature and the intent in conducting this case study was to describe, interpret, and explain the “shared knowledge” between these stakeholders at a predominantly minority middle school. A sample of seven parents and seven teachers from one school in a mid-Atlantic state participated in interviews and focus groups. Results indicated that parents and teachers of boys of color viewed each other as “intentional allies.” Results further showed that parents and teachers were aware of the challenges faced by boys of color in and out of school. That awareness was reflected in strategies that both groups employed to support, prepare, and protect their son/students. Lastly, the study found that teachers received no formal training in building parent-teacher partnerships, but gathered experimental knowledge on how to build those relationships. These findings have implications for teacher education programs, schools, parents, and teachers.

The Influence of HOPE VI Public Housing on Public Schools

In the United States, public school enrollment is typically organized by neighborhood boundaries. This dissertation examines whether the federally funded HOPE VI program influenced performance in neighborhood public schools. In effect since 1992, HOPE VI has sought to revitalize distressed public housing using the New Urbanism model of mixed income communities. There are 165 such HOPE VI projects nationwide. Despite nearly two decades of the program’s implementation, the literature on its connection to public school performance is thin. My dissertation aims to narrow this research gap. There are three principal research questions: (1) Following HOPE VI, was there a change in socioeconomic status (SES) in the neighborhood public school? The hypothesis is that low SES (measured as the proportion of students qualifying for the Free and Reduced Lunch Program) would reduce. (2) Following HOPE VI, did the performance of neighborhood public schools change? The hypothesis is that the school performance, measured by the proportion of 5th grade students proficient in state wide math and reading tests, would increase. (3) What factors relate to the performance of public schools in HOPE VI communities? The focus is on non-school, neighborhood factors that influence the public school performance. For answering the first two questions, I used t-tests and regression models to test the hypotheses. The analysis shows that there is no statistically significant change in SES following HOPE VI. However, there are statistically significant increases in performance for reading and math proficiency. The results are interesting in indicating that HOPE VI neighborhood improvement may have some relationship with improving school performance. To answer the third question, I conducted a case study analysis of two HOPE VI neighborhood public schools, one which improved significantly (in Philadelphia) and one which declined the most (in Washington DC). The analysis revealed three insights into neighborhood factors for improved school performance: (i) a strong local community organization; (ii) local community’s commitment (including the middle income families) to send children to the public school; and (iii) ties between housing and education officials to implement the federal housing program. In essence, the study reveals how housing policy is de facto education policy.

Politics, religion and morals: the symbolism of public schooling for the urban middle-class identity

Research points to sections of the middle-class repopulating the ‘ordinary’ urban public school and whilst there are key differences in how they are navigating public school choices, from ‘seeking a critical mass’ (Posey-Maddox, Kimelberg, and Cucchiara 2014) to resisting traditional methods of choice and going ‘against-the-grain’ (Reay, Crozier, and James 2013), or collectively campaigning for a brand new public school, the urban middle-class are developing contemporary methods to challenge the existing ways of thinking about middle-class choice. Drawing on this literature, this paper explores the symbolism of public schooling for relatively affluent choosers in the city of Melbourne, Australia. The positioning of public schooling as essentially secular and liberal indicates how the public school is valorised within the contemporary market place. Within a market that tends to under-sell the public school, the perceived lack of organized religion and progressivism may be the unique selling point for the cosmopolitan, globalized consumer.

Middle-class school choice in urban spaces: the economics of public schooling and globalized education reform

Middle-class School Choice in Urban Spaces examines government-funded public schools from a range of perspectives and scholarship in order to examine the historical, political and economic conditions of public schooling within a globalized, post-welfare context. In this book, Rowe argues that post-welfare policy conditions are detrimental to government-funded public schools, as they engender consistent pressure in rearticulating the public school in alignment with the market, produce tensions in serving the more historical conceptualizations of public schooling, and are preoccupied by contemporary profit-driven concerns.Chapters focus on public schooling from different global perspectives, with examples from Chile and the US, to examine how various social movements encapsulate ideologies around public schooling. Rowe also draws upon a rich, five-year ethnographic study of campaigns lobbying the Victorian State Government in Australia for a brand-new, local-specific public school. Critical attention is paid to the public school as a means to achieve empowerment and overcome discrimination, and both a local and global lens are used to identify how parents choose the public school, the values they attach to it, and the strategies they use to obtain it. Also considered, however, are how quality gaps, distances and differences between public schools threaten to undermine the democracy of education as a means for individuals to be socially mobile and escape poverty.This book makes an important contribution to our understanding of global social movements and activism around public education. As such, it will be of key interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the field of education, specifically those working on school choice, class and identity, as well as educational geography.

Shopping for schools or shopping for peers : public schools and catchment area segregation

Market theory positions the consumer as a rational choice actor, making informed schooling choices on the basis of ‘hard’ evidence of relative school effectiveness. Yet there are concerns that parents simply choose schools based on socio-demographic characteristics, thus leading to greater social segregation and undercutting the potential of choice to drive quality improvements. In this paper we explore segregation by examining catchment areas for a range of public high schools in a specific middle-class urban area. We focus on socio-demographic characteristics, including levels of income, country of birth and religion affiliation, in order to explore residential segregation according to public high school catchment areas. Our data suggests distinct residential segregation between catchment areas for each public school within our dataset, particularly for the schools deemed to be popular and rejected, that may pose risks for broader equity concerns. We argue that, in contrast to market theory, even more affluent and active choosers are not equipped with information on the programmatic quality of their different school options, but instead may be relying on socio-demographic characteristics of schools—through surrogate information about the urban spaces that the schools occupy—in order to choose peer groups, if not programs, for their children.