2015 Urban Affairs Association Conference

This panel proposal is intended as part of the Activism Track. National education change in the U.S. has marginalized community and educator voices through increasing dependence on standardized metrics, market logics, philanthropic funding, and governance with limited democratic accountability. Significant resistance has developed on a variety of issues, including: school closures, barriers to teacher diversity, standardized testing, state take-overs, teachers unions, and agendas that prioritize private interests. In the first paper, Barbara Ferman describes the corporate reform agenda, resistance to it, and the challenges facing organizers of these opposition movements. Kimberly Mayfield Lynch discusses teacher diversity as an issue that has educational, community building, and economic significance and provides the details of a successful teacher diversity program won by community initiative. In the third paper, Ryan M. Good tells the stories of community responses in three Philadelphia neighborhoods after their local public schools were threatened with closure. William F. Ellis details the racially inequitable U.S. policies that prevent urban schools from creating a diverse and effective teaching force. He contextualizes these policies within a critical race theory framework, and then defines the steps needed by academics and activists to break down the barriers. In the final paper, Kitty Kelly Epstein uses insights from critical economics and critical race theory to explain why policies that have not “worked” are still being pursued. She looks at the impact of permanent racism and the lack of interest convergence on national and local movements for egalitarian change and concludes with a prediction.


David & Goliath: Challenges, Policy Windows, and Slingshots in the Corporate Reform Landscape
Barbara Ferman, Temple University; Nicholas Palazzolo, Temple University

Achieving Teacher Diversity: Teach Tomorrow in Oakland
Kimberly Mayfield-Lynch, Holy Names University; Rachelle Rogers-Ard, Teach Tomorrow in Oakland

Invoking landscapes of inequality: Race, class, and place in Philadelphia’s school closure debate
Ryan Good, Rutgers University

Breaking the Barriers to a Diverse Teaching Force
William (Fred) Ellis, Holy Names University

Commodified, Racially Inequitable Education Policy Examined through the Insights of Critical Race Theory and Critical Economic Theory
Kitty Kelly Epstein, Education Today/HNU/Fielding