The Transformative Capacity of Baltimore’s Community Schools: Limits and Possibilities in a Spatially Unjust Urban Context for Black Communities

Abstract

Community schools are schools which recognize that children are apart of communities, and therefore, attempt to directly address the outside of school factors that impact student learning by offering services to students, their families, and the broader community through a variety of partnerships with governmental and community-based organizations. Based on empirical research, this paper argues that while the community schools provide a much-needed approach to educating students beyond their academic needs, the schools work within deeply-rooted racist systems and structures. Seen through the lens of racial capitalism, in particular, the work of community schools may be quite limited in what they can accomplish. Using census data from the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance (BNIA) combined with GIS mapping, this paper investigated the racially segregated contexts in which community schools operated in Baltimore. In so doing, the paper argues that the potential of community schools is circumscribed by the spatial injustice that the neighborhoods experience.