This important book provides African American parents with the knowledge to diversify K–12 school choices beyond traditional neighborhood public schools in order to optimize the educational chances of their own children, and it will help educators and policymakers to close the black-white academic achievement gap throughout America.
Closing the K–12 achievement gap is critical to the future welfare of African American individuals, families, and communities—and to the future of our nation as a whole. The black-white academic achievement gap—the significant statistical difference in academic performance between African American students and their white peers—is the single greatest impediment to achieving racial equality and social justice in America.
Black Educational Choice provides parents, citizens, educators, and policymakers the critical knowledge they need to leverage the national trend toward increasing and diversifying K–12 school choice beyond traditional neighborhood public schools. Parents can use this information to optimize the success of their own African American children, while policymakers and educators can apply these insights to help close the black-white academic achievement gap throughout America.
The book collects the interdisciplinary, multi-racial, and multi-ethnic perspectives of education experts to address the questions of millions of anxious African American families: "Would sending our children to a private school or a charter school significantly better their chances of closing the achievement gap and becoming successful individuals? And if so, what kinds of challenges would they likely experience in these alternative educational settings?"
Table of Contents:
Tables and Figures
Foreword by James A. Banks
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: Towards Black Educational Choice
Diana T. Slaughter-Defoe, Michael J. Myers II, Howard C. Stevenson, Edith G. Arrington, and Deborah J. Johnson
Part I Portraits of Independent Schools and Black Children
1 Negotiating Race and Class in Anderson School: 1983–1994
Diana T. Slaughter-Defoe
2 "It's About Race?…?No, It Isn't!" Negotiating Race and Social Class: Youth Identities at Anderson School in 2005
Enora Brown
3 Whither Go the Status Quo? Independent Education at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century
Savannah Shange and Diana T. Slaughter-Defoe
4 "There Is a Subliminal Attitude": African American Parental Perspectives on Independent Schooling
Howard C. Stevenson and Edith G. Arrington
5 "More Than What We Read in Books": Black Student Perspectives on Independent Schools
Edith G. Arrington and Howard C. Stevenson
6 The Black-White Achievement Gap in Highly Selective Independent High Schools: Towards a Model Explaining Emergent Racial Differences
Peter Kuriloff, Amanda C. Soto, and Rachel Garver
7 The Influence of Private and Public School Contexts on the Development of Children's Racial Coping
Deborah J. Johnson, Diana T. Slaughter-Defoe, and Meeta Banerjee
Part II Understanding Parental Educational Choices for African American Children
8 Commentary: We Can't Wait for "Superman": The Importance of Parental Involvement in Schools
Karen G. Carlson
9 The Power of Positionality in the Educational Marketplace: Lessons from the School Choices of African American Mothers
Camille M. Wilson
10 Parental Choice and Involvement in the Education of Sudanese Unaccompanied Minors
Meenal Rana, Deborah J. Johnson, Laura V. Bates, Desiree B. Qin, and Andrew Saltarelli
Part III The Consequences of Choice: Educational Benefits to Children—To Communities? Special Focus on Charter Schools
11 Do Charter Schools Work for African American Children? Separating the Wheat from the Chaff
Valerie C. Lundy-Wagner and Herbert M. Turner III
12 Charter Schools in New York's Black Communities: Managing Resources in Local Organizational Fields
Luis A. Huerta, Bruce Fuller, Lynette Parker, and Chad d'Entremont
13 When Community Control Meets Privatization: The Search for Empowerment in African American Charter Schools
Janelle T. Scott
14 Closed: Competition, Segregation, and the Black Student Experience in Charter Schools
David R. Garcia and Monica L. Stigler
15 Commentary: "The Teachers' Unions Strike Back?" No Need to Wait for "Superman": Magnet Schools Have Brought Success to Urban Public School Students for Over 30 Years
V.P. Franklin
Part IV Race and the Contemporary Education of African American Children: Theoretical and Policy Issues
16 Enhancing the Schooling Experience of African American Students in Predominantly White Independent Schools: Conceptual and Strategic Considerations to Developing a Critical Third Space
Robert Cooper
17 The Changing Landscape: Enhancing the Public School Option for Black Youth
Lara Perez-Felkner, E.C. Hedberg, and Barbara Schneider
18 Where Should African American Parents Send Their Children to School? Disentangling Schools' Racial Composition from Students' Financial Resources
Jelani Mandara, Inez Moore, Scott Richman, and Fatima Varner
19 Visible Now? Black Educational Choices for the Few, the Desperate, and the Far Between
Howard C. Stevenson, Diana T. Slaughter-Defoe, Edith G. Arrington, and Deborah J. Johnson
About the Editors and Contributors
Index
