Good Schools, Bad Schools: Race, School Quality, and Neoliberal Educational Policy

Abstract

In this introduction, we outline the scholarly context and research questions that motivate this special issue: In what ways do racialized constructions of school quality open up or foreclose educational opportunity? How do understandings of school quality differ across local social, political, and demographic contexts? And lastly, at what points and in what ways is the school choice process itself racialized? We then introduce the five papers in this issue, each of which challenges us to think critically about taken-for-granted notions of school quality by interrogating factors that influence “choice” beyond the usual paradigm of test scores and parental decision-making.