Historicizing Black Educational “Choice”: Toward Black Educational Self-Determination

Abstract

The linking of school choice and charter schools to the legacy of Black alternative education and civil rights initiatives is a central discursive galvanizing and organizing tool for charter proponents, as it aims to provide legitimacy to the charter movement, while simultaneously coopting Black critiques of the institution of education to advance neoliberal restructurings of the state. In this paper, I posit there exists a conceptual and political distinction between school choice and efforts of Black educational self-determination, an approach to challenge white dominance and supremacy. The paper engages in a historical analysis exploring the history of school choice and Black educational self-determination.