Beyond the failing school: Race, space, and opportunity in Chicago public schools

The responsibility of public education is rarely attached to public officials, urban planners, or the business community. Instead much of the research today looks to parents, school administrators, or students in an attempt to understand the problems of America’s public schools. The objective of this project is to explore the use of public schools in the re-creation of spaces of marginalization and isolation, by city officials and business leaders in their path toward ensuring that the city of Chicago becomes a global city. This project represents a counter narrative to the dominant stories on black communities and public schools that preach the cultural deficiency of disinterested students, uninvolved parents and community members, and inefficient teachers. Instead, by focusing on Renaissance 2010, the Chicago model of mayoral control and privatization for the nation, this project presents community voice(s) to offer an alternate story of disinvestment in Chicago’s children of color. This mixed methods project uses both quantitative and qualitative data to discuss the geography of opportunity for students of color in the Chicago public school system. Using critical race theory, this project seeks to analyze the effect of the creation of spaces of whiteness, and the commodification of schools in the city of Chicago. With a focus on the Richard M. Daley administration, from 1995 to 2010, this study details how his involvement in the city’s public schools, as well as the involvement of the city’s business community, has increased over time, finally culminating in the Renaissance 2010 initiative. This project uses geographic information systems (GIS) software to produce images that spatially depict Renaissance 2010 school placements and public school closures, each resulting in the displacement of students of color around the city for the purpose of schooling. The contribution of this study is the visual depiction of a very standardized practice of disinvestment.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Policy Studies

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2010

Author dc:creator

• Johnson, Jasmine

Contributors dc:contributor

• Parker, Laurence J.
• Anderson, James D.
• Span, Christopher M.
• McLafferty, Sara L.

• Education Policy
• Critical Race Theory
• Chicago Public Schools

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2010 Jasmine Johnson

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/17016

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/17016