Twenty-First-Century Jim Crow Schools: The Impact of Charters on Public Education

How charter schools have taken hold in three cities—and why parents, teachers, and community members are fighting back

Charter schools once promised a path towards educational equity, but as the authors of this powerful volume show, market-driven education reforms have instead boldly reestablished a tiered public school system that segregates students by race and class. Examining the rise of charters in New Orleans, Chicago, and New York, authors Raynard Sanders, David Stovall, and Terrenda White show how charters—private institutions, usually set in poor or working-class African American and Latinx communities—promote competition instead of collaboration and are driven chiefly by financial interests. Sanders, Stovall, and White also reveal how corporate charters position themselves as “public” to secure tax money but exploit their private status to hide data about enrollment and salaries, using misleading information to promote false narratives of student success.

In addition to showing how charter school expansion can deprive students of a quality education, the authors document several other lasting consequences of charter school expansion:

   • the displacement of experienced African American teachers
   • the rise of a rigid, militarized pedagogy such as SLANT
   • the purposeful starvation of district schools
   • and the loss of community control and oversight

A revealing and illuminating look at one of the greatest threats to public education, Twenty-First-Century Jim Crow Schools explores how charter schools have shaped the educational landscape and why parents, teachers, and community members are fighting back.

Karen Lewis is president of the Chicago Teachers Union. The only National Board Certified teacher to lead a US labor union, she also serves as executive vice president to the Illinois Federation of Teachers and as vice president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Raynard Sanders has more than forty years of experience in teaching, educational administration and community organizing. A former New Orleans high school principal, he was also the director of the Urban Education Graduate Program at Southern University at New Orleans.

David Stovall is a professor of educational policy studies and African American studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Terrenda White is an assistant professor of sociology and education policy at the University of Colorado Boulder, and is a former elementary school teacher and co-coordinator of the People’s Education Initiative in New York City.