Dismantling Public Schools, Displacing African Americans and Latinos

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Our discussion about chapter three had a tone of enlightenment and deep frustration and took us back to the first day of class where we were challenged to differentiate between politics, policy, and law as it relates to education. I will admit that this question stumped me. Through discussion on that first day we arrived at an explanation that compares the trio to the human psyche. Educational policy is casted as the “ego”, the rational aspects of education. Politics is the more primal and self-driven “id” and, in turn, politics has a direct and strong impact on policy. Law is casted as the idealistic “superego”. In the past, politics balanced interests and the way decisions were made. However, whose interests are being served when schools close down and reopen as charters?
As we read through chapter three we became more familiar with the “id” called politics. The neoliberal agenda pushes to bring education, along with other public sectors, in line with the promotion of self-interest and unrestricted capital accumulation (Lipman, 2011, p. 14). After navigating the chapter, I agree with Lipman (2011) in that dismantling public schools furthers the neoliberal agenda without consideration on the detrimental effects doing so has on the community and students served in that given area.

Setting the Stage
No Child Left Behind’s (2001) ranking schools process laid the groundwork for the national privatization agenda (Lipman, 2011, p. 52). Public schools are being phased-out and charters are springing up, even here in Miami-Dade County. I work at a middle school that is in the final year of being phased-out, next year it will be completely closed. Two years ago, when plans to phase out our school were announced, we were told that the...

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... overwhelmingly evident that dismantling public schools and displacing african american and latino/a communities is detrimental, then why do schools continue to be targeted for closure? School closings and overall privatization of public schools is part of the overall neoliberal policy for urban economic development and the gentrification of low-income communities of color. The city is being restructured for unrestricted capital accumulation while pushing out low-income communities of color. Closing schools is a way to push out the people who live in the community to be gentrified. Numerous closed public schools are refurbished as publicly funded yet privately run and profitable charter schools (Lipman 2011).

Works Cited

Lipman, Pauline. The New Political Economy of Urban Education: Neoliberalism, Race, and the Right to the City. New York: Routledge, 2011. Print.

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