Economic crisis, accountability, and the state’s coercive assault on public education in the USA

Abstract

This article examines education accountability as a mechanism of coercive neoliberal urban governance in the USA. Drawing on Gramscian theory of the 'integral state' as the dialectical synthesis of coercion, consent, and resistance, the author argues that as the crisis gives the state less room to win consent, it intensifies coercion as a strategy of governance. The author discusses three aspects of coercive state responses to the crisis in relation to education: (1) cannibalizing public education as a site of capital accumulation; (2) imposition of state austerity regimes and selective abandonment of education as a mechanism of social reproduction and legitimation in African-American communities that have become zones of disposability; and (3) governance by exclusion of African-American and Latino communities through school closings, state takeovers of elected governance bodies, and disenfranchisement. Systems of accountability are integral to this process as they make schools legible for the market, mark specific schools and school districts as pathological and in need of authoritarian governance, and justify minimalist schools in areas of urban disposability. This paper concludes with the potential of emergent resistance to dominant neoliberal education policy and argues that breaking with the framework of accountability and testing is critical to a counter-hegemonic alternative.

“We felt they took the heart out of the community”: Examining a community-based response to urban school closure

“…Those who espouse such narratives view school closure as a positive mechanism of reform because it removes low-performing schools from the "education market," which according to advocates renders positive academic outcomes for students who have been displaced in subsequent years (Brummet, 2014;Engberg, Gill, Zamarro, & Zimmer, 2012). However, this discourse is often espoused ahistorically and does not account for the ways that structural racism, educational inequity, and policy trends shape the conditions for school closures (Fine, 2012;Lipman, 2011aLipman, , 2013. For example, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) spurred a high-stakes accountability policy context that makes school closure a common consequence to "underachieving" urban schools.…”

“…A body of research documents how racialized neoliberal policies, political forces, the interests of corporate elites, and even failed desegregation policies produce urban school closures (Johnson, 2013;Journey for Justice, 2014;Lipman, 2013;Pedroni, 2011). For instance, Lipman's (2011a) research shows that urban schools are deeply shaped and implicated in global, ideological, racial, economic, and political processes that are restructuring urban cities and school districts (see also Buras, 2013;Lipman, 2002Lipman, , 2011bLipman, , 2013Stovall, 2016). This restructuring creates space for neoliberal and mayoral-control education policies that close urban schools, as well as, turn them over to private and corporate managers, expand charter schools, disband teachers unions, and enforce top-down education reforms (Lipman, 2013).…”

“…For instance, Lipman's (2011a) research shows that urban schools are deeply shaped and implicated in global, ideological, racial, economic, and political processes that are restructuring urban cities and school districts (see also Buras, 2013;Lipman, 2002Lipman, , 2011bLipman, , 2013Stovall, 2016). This restructuring creates space for neoliberal and mayoral-control education policies that close urban schools, as well as, turn them over to private and corporate managers, expand charter schools, disband teachers unions, and enforce top-down education reforms (Lipman, 2013). In turn, these forces also constrain protest against urban school closure and pave the way for the displacement of elected governance bodies (e.g., school boards) and the disenfranchisement of children of color from public education (Johnson, 2013).…”

“…Data show that school closures have two main implications across the intersections of race, class, geography, and academic outcomes (Kirshner, Gaertner, & Pozzoboni, 2010). First, school closures have been viewed as a manifestation of structural racism because they most adversely impact students of color who live in low-income neighborhoods, and have been tied to broader gentrification agendas in fiscally poor African American communities (Fine, 2012;Lipman, 2013;Lipman & Haines, 2007). School closures further complicate urban community conditions as they induce a loss of place and neighborhood disruption for students and local residents (Journey for Justice, 2014).…”

Winners and losers: School closures in post-earthquake Canterbury and the dissolution of community

“…In the United States, for example, closures are often ideologically-based and linked to urban decay. When the city of Chicago undertook a major restructure of its education system, the gaps between urban elites and the poor and dispossessed widened (Lipman, 2011(Lipman, , 2013Lipman & Hursh, 2007;Means, 2008), and the closing of poorperforming schools exacerbated the dislocation of African-American and other marginalised populations.…”