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作者

Elizabeth A. Gilblom;Hilla Sang;Jonathan E. Messemer;Anne Galletta;Rene Molenaur

来源

JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS,Vol.42,Issue4,P.634-662

语言

英文

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作者单位

North Dakota State University

摘要

We explore longitudinally the spatial dimensions of race and income isolation shaped by a period of accelerated school choice options within and beyond the urban context of a school portfolio system. Three entangled strands within national policy directives offer a conceptual frame for understanding how educational policy is often argued as responsive to equity concerns and is other times embedded in the language of deregulation and efficiency. The focus of the study is the racial and socioeconomic isolation within charter and district schools in Cleveland neighborhoods as well as that of surrounding Cuyahoga County suburbs in Ohio. We consider the implications of this landscape for exacerbating an already problematic context of racial and economic segregation in the state. Drawing on multiple data sources, including historical sources, census tract demographics from the U.S. Census Bureau, Common Core of Data (CCD) available from the National Center of Educational Statistics (NCES), and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), we analyze history, demographic trends, and school facility locations to map the changing urban landscape at a local level at four intervals between 1999 and 2015. The research points to evidence of a movement of bodies and facilities while sustaining race and class stratification. Introduction In this article, we explore longitudinally the spatial dimensions of race and income isolation shaped by a period of accelerated school choice options within and beyond the urban context of a school portfolio system. Three entangled strands within national policy directives offer a conceptual frame for understanding how educational policy is often argued as responsive to equity concerns and is other times embedded in the language of deregulation and efficiency. The focus of the study is the racial and socioeconomic isolation within charter and district schools in Cleveland neighborhoods as well as that of surrounding Cuyahoga County suburbs in Ohio. We consider the implications of this landscape for exacerbating an already problematic context of racial and economic segregation in the state. To understand what this landscape looks like at a more localized level, we look at school choice arrangements within Cleveland as actualized through a portfolio school system. Our purpose is to determine whether the topography of schooling in Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) and Cuyahoga County reflects race and class stratification of educational opportunity through new forms of containment. Because the state has a long history of justifying its charter friendly legislation as forms of intervention for school districts ranked as low performing on state measures, it serves as an appropriate focus of study. Drawing on multiple data sources, including historical sources, census tract demographics from the U.S. Census Bureau, Common Core of Data (CCD) available from the National Center of Educational Statistics (NCES), and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), we analyze history, demographic trends, and school facility locations to map the changing urban landscape at a local level in CMSD at four intervals between 1999 and 2015. We conceptualize landscape as representing geographic, social, and material relations and processes. Recognizing the impulse of race and class privilege at work within the capitalist ontology of prevailing school reform policy, we look for the material proximity of exclusion. We note historical conditions as playing a role in a terrain that changes greatly even as it remains structurally invariant in its failure to thwart the social reproduction of inequity. In this study, we use the term traditional public schools (TPS) to refer to a public school district with a board of education that is legally mandated to serve the academic needs of children within certain geographic boundaries. In Ohio, this includes city school districts, exempted village school districts, and local school districts. Although Ohio Revised Code currently uses the term community school to describe independently established, but publicly funded schools that operate through a contract, traditional charter school (TCS) is used to describe the schools in this article and differentiate them from other forms of contract schools. The study does not address online charter schools. The research questions that guide this study are: How have federal legislation and state policy altered the landscape of an Ohio urban school district and its surrounding county? What localized geographic, social, and material relations characterize the topography of educational opportunity in this district? Theoretical framework We theorize the legal and policy context of school choice as forces of circulation and circumscription of educational opportunity by social class, race, and geography. These contrasting forces shape the experience of students whose families are well served in the educational system of school choice and the experience of those whose educational opportunities are circumscribed, constricting educational opportunity. As such, they exist in tension. To understand the nature of the tension, we examine history and structural conditions within the Cleveland district, its surrounding suburbs, and the state of Ohio. Capturing the social and material processes of the circulation of opportunity and its conscription, we include the photograph in Figure 1. The empty space is foregrounded, and houses line the background. Vacated space is a common sight across the city, suggesting some meaningful structure is absent—houses in default or disrepair may have been bulldozed; a school may have been closed and demolished. The processes contributing to the disappearance of these spaces of meaning have often occurred through structural conditions reflecting unequal relations of power accorded to race and social class, such as unethical mortgage lending practices or inequitable school funding. These conditions offer evidence of what critical geographer David Harvey (2004) refers to as accumulation by dispossession. In this case, the circulation of opportunity for one is tied to the conscription of opportunity for another. These are not independent phenomena.A tightly wound braid: Forces of opportunity and exclusion within an era of school choice legislationAll authorsElizabeth A. Gilblom, Hilla Sang, Jonathan E. Messemer, Anne Galletta & Rene Molenaurhttps://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2019.1629818Published online:17 September 2019 Figure 1. Site of Cleveland’s former John W. Raper Elementary School, built in 1962 as part of the district’s accelerated school construction program, closed in 2010 as part of the Cleveland Transformation Plan. Display full size Figure 1. Site of Cleveland’s former John W. Raper Elementary School, built in 1962 as part of the district’s accelerated school construction program, closed in 2010 as part of the Cleveland Transformation Plan. The missing structure in Figure 1 is John W. Raper Elementary School, built in 1962 during the peak of overcrowding in Cleveland’s predominantly Black schools. Raper was built as part of the district’s accelerated school construction program, viewed by Black community leaders and White allies as preserving segregation because the newly constructed schools were located within very racially isolated neighborhoods. Although its construction was initially opposed by the Black community, Raper over the years served many families as a neighborhood school in the district, occupying 1601 East 85th Street in Cleveland’s historic Hough neighborhood, home to a site of significant racial unrest in 1966 due to accumulating racial discrimination in employment, housing, policing, and education. In the 2009–2010 school year, the school housed 356 students. Figure 2 provides enrollment data for the school over 10 years. In the district’s effort at reform as outlined in the Cleveland Transformation Plan, John W. Raper was closed in June of 2010. Its closure was necessitated by the district’s effort to “right size” itself—to address under-enrollment in district schools, a budget deficit, and low performance on state measures of school effectiveness. Raper was one of 23 schools closed between 2010 and 2011, nearly all on the east side of Cleveland, which is predominantly African American and includes many high-poverty neighborhoods. There was considerable outcry about the closures among parents and students. Several years later, the John W. Raper School was demolished (Bond Accountability Commission 2, Inc., 2015, p. 5).A tightly wound braid: Forces of opportunity and exclusion within an era of school choice legislationAll authorsElizabeth A. Gilblom, Hilla Sang, Jonathan E. Messemer, Anne Galletta & Rene Molenaurhttps://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2019.1629818Published online:17 September 2019 Figure 2. Student enrollment for John W. Raper Elementary School between school years 1999 and 2010. Display full size Figure 2. Student enrollment for John W. Raper Elementary School between school years 1999 and 2010. The erasure of Raper from the landscape, documented in Figure 1, reflects an absence of a structure itself representing a history of contestation. The photograph reveals the material processes through which a public institution, carrying a history of racial inequities and the potential for reconfiguring human relations, is removed. While its construction provoked resistance from the Black community, the school’s closure also generated critique. We theorize this school’s disappearance as reflecting what scholar of Haitian history Michel-Rolph Trouillot (1995) argues is the power and production of history through silencing the past. Drawing on critical social theory, we rely on archival data to reinsert history and to employ Raper’s symbolic and material absence as a way of visualizing forms of race and class containment within school choice. Mapping the braid Our research considers the ways in which the forces of opportunity and exclusion form a tightly wound braid that relies on tensions between racially diverse schools that serve students from middle income families and schools that serve students from low-income families and enroll predominantly students of color. The three strands through which forces of opportunity and exclusion operate are as follows: (1) an ideological coupling of policies of colorblindness and accountability as racial categories are both erased and re-inserted; (2) the legal and policy mechanisms in the district portfolio system that facilitate permeability between public and private sectors; and (3) the targeting of specific neighborhoods by race and social class through free market strategies. These three strands are evident in the history of the national policy directives and in the state of Ohio and its local school policies. The strands reflect entangled forces shaping the experience of students whose families are well served in the portfolio system of school choice and the experience of those whose educational opportunities are circumscribed by the portfolio system, constricting educational opportunity. Our conceptualization of this structural braiding is inspired by the late Linda Powell Pruitt, an educator, psychotherapist, and organizational consultant. Powell Pruitt theorized Whiteness and its role in Black underachievement through the metaphor of a many-stranded knot of differentially weighted rope: “The white strands are woven into the black in a convoluted way that can passively prevent the knot from loosening. Thinking of the entire knot as a whole … can begin to identify a dynamic relationship between whiteness and the phenomenon that is then labeled ‘black underachievement’” (Powell Pruitt, 1997, p. 3). Analytically plying apart the strands, we attend to Whiteness as a form of status property connected with racialized privilege and location within material and social relations (Harris, 1995). The ties to privilege are dependent not only on exclusion but also the masking capability of race aversion, or “colorblindness,” which conceals racialized processes that maintain the tightness of Powell Pruitt’s many stranded knot. Figure 3 illustrates how the forces of opportunity and exclusion create a taut hold on the three strands, reflecting different aims and commitments. The loose strands in Figure 3 represent resistance to these forces and will be addressed in the discussion section.A tightly wound braid: Forces of opportunity and exclusion within an era of school choice legislationAll authorsElizabeth A. Gilblom, Hilla Sang, Jonathan E. Messemer, Anne Galletta & Rene Molenaurhttps://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2019.1629818Published online:17 September 2019 Figure 3. The three forces of opportunity and exclusion that affect educational opportunity by social class, race, and geography. Display full size Figure 3. The three forces of opportunity and exclusion that affect educational opportunity by social class, race, and geography. This paper is designed to produce a critical analysis of this landscape within a study of the topography of a portfolio system of school choice. Environmental psychologist Cindi Katz (2001) underscores how critical topography allows for the excavation of “layers of process that produce particular places and to see their intersections with material social practices at other scales of analysis” inviting “the vivid revelation of social and political difference and inequality” (p. 1228). The use of topography “assumes the historical examination of social process in three-dimensional space” (Katz, 2001, p. 1231). We look closely at these relations and processes as evident within Cuyahoga County and the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD). Literature review The following literature review is split into each of the three strands that forms our previously described braid. Drawing on critical race theory as a frame for analysis, we examine each strand, looking at the national and state-level judicial and legislative actions that have affected educational opportunity by social class, race, and geography. First strand: The ideological coupling of colorblindness and accountability Sedimenting over time in federal, state, and local educational policy is an ideology that champions individuality within a capitalist framework. Educational paradigms increasingly reflected “arithmetical particularism,” an ideological standpoint “in which the unattached individual-as-consumer is de-raced, declassed, and degendered” (Apple, 2000, p. 60). From this perspective, the critical and politically relevant characteristics of race, gender, class and culture are disregarded for an approach that treats all students uniformly. Attention to historical injustice, structural inequality, race, social class, and gender inequality, or other critical perspectives that acknowledge discrimination or problematic practices are also dismissed (Nobbs, 2017). By depoliticizing individuals through the eradication of discrete characteristics, the neoliberal system maintains inequity, which then creates an opening for outsourcing of private entities. Advocates for privatization of education tend to dismiss local participatory processes as time-consuming and unruly. As the capitalist ontology fragments collective means of decision-making in the public sphere, it pursues the arrangement of opportunity and exclusion, justified by a meritocratic belief system where all are presumed to be treated in the same way—as a consumer in a marketplace free from social class, sex, gender and race. However, this ideology of colorblindness favors those individuals with education, wealth and ability to make a “rational” decision, which means that the beneficiaries of market-based educational policies are often the most economically advantaged. The colorblind ideology sits comfortably within neoliberal tenets and structures. Neoliberalism is a term that encompasses a variety of economic, social, and political ideas, policies, and practices, that operate on both individual and institutional levels (Plehwe, Walpen, & Neunhoffer, 2006; Saad-Filho & Johnston, 2005). Neoliberalism is often discussed as the dominant economic principle in the United States and its notions as the foundation of American ethos (Apple, 2004; Chomsky, 1998; Giroux, 2002, 2005; Harvey, 2005; Hursh, 2007; McLaren, 2005; Peck & Tickell, 2002). Three broad concepts encompassed in neoliberal ideology include: the benevolence of the free market; minimal state intervention and regulation of the economy; and the individual as a rational economic actor (Harvey, 2005; Turner, 2008). The extension of economic rationality into cultural, political, and social realms is a distinctive feature of neoliberalism and may be its most influential ideological tool (Baez, 2007). Neoliberalism is an economic, political and social ideology that casts the individual as an independent decision maker and consumer whose sole purpose is to maximize his or her own personal potential without restrictions from the government. In a neoliberal world, no distinction exists between the market and the state, public and private, or the individual and the social; everything is economic (Lemke, 2001). Neoliberal proponents seek to establish private institutions and market identities, values and relationships as the organizing life principles (Giroux, 2005). From the neoliberal perspective, if public institutions and spaces do not resemble markets, with a range of options for consumers to choose from, then individuals lack freedom. As Apple (2000) states, “In the case of neoliberal policies, democracy is now redefined as guaranteeing choice in an unfettered market. In essence, the state withdraws” (p. 67). Therefore, the goal of neoliberalism is to rollback government influence, privatize public services, or (as in the case of school vouchers and charter schools) develop forms of consumer choice and market discipline in the public sphere. Neoliberalism “re-defines the social as an economic domain, governed by the ‘rational choices’ of entrepreneurial individuals who see everything they do in terms of maximizing their ‘human capital’” (Baez, 2007, p. 7). The ideal citizen is first and foremost a consumer. Neoliberalism also works to persuade individuals that an alternative to capitalism is no longer possible, or even imaginable, and ensures that the “pervasive, polymorphic and insidious” discourse of privatization is accepted and normalized, and perhaps, ultimately revered (Ball, 2007). Neoliberalism and federal education policy As neoliberalism became the prevailing socioeconomic policy in the United States, a parallel process of neoliberal expansion transpired within public education. Those pushing a neoliberal agenda in education argue that marketization ensures flexibility and efficiency in the education system, which results in a capitalist restructuring of education. According to Sturges (2015), “When neoliberalism and educational reform are held under the same light, the theme of collective good is replaced with collection of goods” (p. 1). Neoliberal proponents stress global competitiveness, the reduction of the publicly-financed costs of education, and the necessity for greater market choice and accountability. From the neoliberal critique of public education, public schools are “‘black holes’ into which money is poured—and then seemingly disappears—but which do not provide anywhere near adequate results” (Apple, 2000, p. 59). Therefore, emphasis is placed on privatization as achieving the greatest investment returns in student scores on state tests and more cost-saving measures in compensating teachers and school staff. As such, privatization transforms public education into a tool for profit. This is particularly the case in traditional charter schools (TCS) and charter management organizations (Sturges, 2015, p. x). Even as the forces of privatization maintained the ideological coupling of colorblindness and accountability, erasing race categories on input inequity, there was a re-insertion of race through subgroup test score measures that increasingly justified increased privatization of public education. Hastening this shift toward accountability for outcome measures was Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education and its report A Nation at Risk (Gardner, 1983). In 1994 the formulation of achievement measures, particularly the use of high-stakes standardized test scores, were written into law in order to assess school effectiveness and determine consequences for persistent academic underperformance (Rebell & Wolff, 2008). These policies took on increased consequences in the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) into No Child Left Behind. Lodged in a discourse of civil rights and market efficiency, the requirements for corrective action were specifically focused on adequate yearly progress through students’ state standardized test scores (Koretz, 2017). These policies had deeply racialized consequences. Neoliberalism, colorblindness and education policy In this dialectic of erasing and re-inserting racial categories within judicial and legislative action, the Supreme Court and Congress shifted into a discourse of colorblindness in the 1980s and thereafter for most though not all of its actions related to public education. As the courts reflected an increasingly colorblind stance in their ruling on desegregation cases, the federal government recrafted anti-poverty legislation and employed racial categories no longer to track impediments to educational opportunity but to introduce accountability mechanisms for measuring outcomes. Ironically, the concerns in the 1980s over “mediocre” public education and threats to global competitiveness and national security occurred at the very same time there had been a substantial narrowing of the racial achievement gap after 30 years of race-conscious desegregation policy. Despite efforts to press for improved academic outcomes, the degree to which the gap narrowed in the late 1980s has not been surpassed (Barton & Coley, 2010; Koretz, 2017; Rooks, 2017). Recent policy directives from the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education draw heavily on an aversion to employing racial categories to assess constraints on educational opportunity. In 2018 the departments of Justice and Education withdrew support for the voluntary use of race to achieve diversity in elementary and secondary schools (Marcus & Gore, 2018). The erasure and re-insertion of categories strengthening White privilege and exacerbating Black and Brown exclusion is evident in anti-poverty federal legislation as it relates to education. While not employed within the realm of educational opportunity measures, categories of race are widely used within formulas employed by states to identify school and district “failure.” Additionally, arguments for privatization equate access to TCS as a civil right for poor and working-class students of color. Federal backing for TCS has had bipartisan support and has been in place since 1994 through that year’s reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). With the 2002 and 2015 reauthorizations of ESEA, TCS expansion has held a key role as a theory of action facilitating exit for students presumably “stuck” in schools deemed underperforming through state measures including high-stakes standardized testing. TCS played strongly into corrective action as well as a strategy for closing and/or converting underperforming schools into TCS. In 2009, $200 million of federal stimulus funds were appropriated to assist with starting TCS (Frankenberg & Siegel-Hawley, 2009; Ravitch, 2010, 2013; Rooks, 2017). After investing over $3 billion in the TCS sector, in September 2015 the federal government offered an additional $157 million through its Charter Schools Program to fund the creation and expansion of public TCS across the nation (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). As state funds for public education have stagnated or diminished, federal funds for the establishment of TCS provided a stream of dollars to generate local alternatives funded by public dollars yet governed by privatized interests. These federal mechanisms have increased the porousness of boundaries between private non-profits and corporations and that of traditional public schools (TPS), as elaborated in the second strand. Second strand: Legal and policy mechanisms to facilitate permeability between public and private sectors The public financing of TCS start-ups and the private governance structure of this hybrid style of delivering education (Hochschild & Scovronick, 2003), particularly in poor communities of color, has thinned the boundaries between public and private spheres. This is particularly evident within city school districts historically under desegregation court rulings that have shifted into mayoral control. Mayoral control in some cities offered a route into public-private partnerships, and diminished public governance, laying the groundwork for the privatization of education. Free market forms of school choice have contributed to more race and class isolation (Mader, Hemphill, & Abbas, 2018). As some schools have become more racially and economically isolated, other schools provide economic and racial diversity, offering educational opportunities within arrangements sustaining white privilege (Cucchiara, 2013; Kimelberg, 2014; Lareau, 2014; Pattillo, Delale-O’Connor, & Butts, 2014; Posey-Maddox, 2014). This is particularly evident in cities that have structured school choice through what is referred to as a portfolio system, reflecting the language of market deregulation and efficiency. The permeability between the public and private sphere is most evident within portfolio school districts, offering school options that include TPS, schools run by private organizations, and TCS managed by nonprofits. Portfolio systems comprise three core elements: (1) the creation of autonomous new schools that operate within a context of school choice and the assumption that competition will improve the school quality; (2) the development of an accountability system measuring academic performance; and (3) the closure of schools and ending partnerships for managing schools when accountability standards are not met (Bulkley, 2010). The portfolio approach is used in large urban districts such as Chicago, Denver, Hartford, New Orleans, New York City, Washington D.C., and elsewhere. Henig (2010) refers to portfolio districts as “contracting regimes,” noting that government units contract with private providers. Henig distinguishes portfolio systems, or “portfolio managed models” from an “idealized market” that responds solely to parents as consumers. Instead, the primary consumers of the portfolio school system are “government entities, operating within legal, political, and institutional constraints” (p. 29). Some outcomes of contracting regimes include a diminished role for parents, teachers, and school boards. This is particularly the case for parents who are encouraged to think about individual schools that meet their child’s needs, not the interests of a broader collective of parents and children. In addition to shifts in authority from elected school boards to mayors, city councils, governors, and state legislators, and the broader financial community, such as private foundations and other sources of investment capital, portfolio management systems engage and ally with outside organizations as sources of legitimacy when implementing policies and procedures new to the system (Au & Ferrare, 2015; Fabricant & Fine, 2012; Henig, 2010; Patterson & Silverman, 2013; Ravitch, 2010, 2013). The portfolio idea incorporates elements of four large reform efforts: common standards and assessments for all schools; district decentralization to increase schools’ freedom of action; test-based accountability for schools; and increased diversity of TPS via investment in new instructional designs or new school providers, as in chartering (Hill & Campbell, 2011). One tenet of the portfolio strategy is to hold all schools accountable and transform or replace underperforming schools. Closing the lowest-performing schools is seen as a vital step in the portfolio system’s operation, also described as “continuous improvement” (Hill & Campbell, 2011) and “creative destruction” (Smarick, 2012). In this manner, legal and policy mechanisms facilitate permeability between the public and private sectors, changing the nature of relations within public education. Policies of accountability rely on measures of achievement through high-stakes standardized testing. However, the diversity of TCS arrangements has yielded variation in the degree of success of students in TCS. Students in some TCS perform academically at levels higher than neighborhood schools, particularly when the school’s marketing strategies draw parents with some degree of resources or social networks that distinguish them from many of the students living in the neighborhood in which the TCS is located. This level of resources may benefit other children in the school. In contrast, however, are TCS that under-perform academically. Broadly speaking, Ohio TCS have not exceeded TPS academic performance (Center for Research on Educational Outcomes, 2014, 2019). While they have provided educational opportunity for some, their presence has sustained exclusion for others. Third strand: The targeting of specific neighborhoods by race and social class through free market strategies Past research indicates that free market choice options, including TCS and public voucher programs, contribute to racial and socioeconomic containment. Several studies found that TCS are associated with higher minority enrollments (Carnoy, Jacobsen, Mishel, & Rothstein, 2005; Cobb & Glass, 1999; Eckes & Rapp, 2005; Rapp & Eckes, 2007). Research suggests that TCS tend to be located near areas with higher rates of poverty and Black populations and avoid the poorest neighborhoods (d’Entremont, 2012; Gulosino & d’Entremont, 2011; LaFleur, 2016; Saultz & Yaluma, 2017). Using spatial statistics, Gilblom and Sang (2019) calculated that TCS in CMSD in Cleveland, Ohio, cluster more tightly than TPS do on the east side of Cleveland in predominantly Black and lower income neighborhoods. However, they also position themselves in census tracts adjacent to predominantly Black neighborhoods, which may be a purposeful strategy to enroll a steady stream of poor, Black students with less mobility while attracting high-ability students with more mobility and more diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Lubienski, Gulosino, and Weitzel (2009) performed a geospatial analysis of TCS in three cities with high proportions of TCS: Detroit, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. The researchers discovered that TCS in each city “showed patterns of exclusionary strategies that schools embraced to enhance market position” which increased the racial and socioeconomic segregation in each district (p. 601). They concluded that TCS may be purposely cultivating student demographics by selecting locations that serve their interests. Similarly, Gulosino and d’Entremont (2011) found that racial segregation in New Jersey communities is most extreme within the immediate census block group surrounding TCS that enroll greater percentages of Black students. Some critics of school choice policies argue that TCS have incentives to “cream” higher ability students of favorable backgrounds who cost less to educate from the local TPS to boost their performance and “crop,” or exclude, students who require more resources (Cobb & Glass, 1999; Fiske & Ladd, 2001; Henig, 1996; Lacireno-Paquet, Holyoke, Moser, & Henig, 2002). Given this, critics are concerned about the containment of students who are left behind in TPS that are often underperforming, and thereby exacerbate stratification by race and ability (Lee & Croninger, 1994; Wells, 1993). School choice advocates argue that racial integration will improve through choice policies because, in theory, families can send their children to schools outside of their racially segregated neighborhoods and promote integration (Chubb & Moe, 1995; Finn, 1990; Hoxby, 1998; Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2004; Wolf, Howell, & Peterson, 2000). In contrast, several scholars have not found this hypothesized integration taking place at TCS (André-Bechely, 2007; Butler, 2003; Frankenberg & Siegel-Hawley, 2009; Gulson, 2011; Kotok, Frankenberg, Schafft, Mann, & Fuller, 2017; Lipman, 2011; Mickelson, Bottia, & Southworth, 2008; Wells, 2009; Zimmer et al., 2009). Whether or not school choice programs may encourage integration may depend on the preferences of parents. Some evidence suggests that parents may enroll their children at schools with enrollment characteristics that reflect their own race and socioeconomic status (Booker, Zimmer, & Buddin, 2005; Garcia, 2008; Mickelson et al., 2008; Renzulli & Evans, 2005). Several studies have suggested that the general public values integration, but in-depth interviews with White individuals and studies of White flight have indicated that most White individuals are unlikely to freely integrate with Blacks and Latina/os (Bonilla-Silva, 2001; Massey & Denton, 1993; Orfield & Eaton, 1996; Renzulli & Evans, 2005). When some White parents have a choice, even liberal and progressive White parents may choose segregated schools and are willing to relocate or challenge district boundaries to send their children to them (Taylor, 2015). Orfield, Ee, Frankenberg, and Siegel-Hawley (2016) and Frankenberg, Siegel‐Hawley, Wang, and Orfield (2010) provide substantial evidence linking school segregation to inequality of educational opportunity and the perpetuation of stratification in society. Alternatively, they note significant advantages diverse schools offer in learning and achievement. The authors stress that desegregated schools effectively prepare students for a diverse society, enhancing their social and cultural capital in community and employment settings. Other studies indicate the detrimental and long-term effects of racial segregation in schools on Black children, including lower academic and economic growth (Bankston & Caldas, 1996; Bifulco & Ladd, 2007; Roscigno, 1998; Rumberger & Palardy, 2005; Wells & Crain, 1994). When targeting specific neighborhoods by race and social class initially through government policies and increasingly through free market strategies, the benefits associated with racial and economic desegregation become unavailable to students who reside in the most economically vulnerable and racially isolated neighborhoods. A recent study of New York City trends in gentrification and school enrollment by race and social class notes that shares of intensely segregated (90–100% non-White) and hypersegregated (99–100% non-White) elementary schools declined in the city’s gentrifying areas. However, intensely segregated and hypersegregated elementary schools increased in non-gentrifying areas (Mordechay & Ayscue, 2019). The authors report that “the overwhelming majority of charter schools remained intensely segregated or hypersegregated in 2015” (p. 11). Summary In sum, we have explored the literature on national and state judicial actions influencing educational opportunity by social class, race, and geography within neoliberal principles and infrastructure. Here we see the reach of free-market ideology, altering fundamental ways of being in relation within public education. Evident in the literature are three strands, which we conceptualize as holding in place the forces of opportunity and of exclusion, as the promise of reform is entangled with the reality of unchanged inequities. First, we see the coupling of colorblindness and narrow notions of “accountability.” This has led to the parallel processes of erasure and re-insertion of racial categories as measures of educational opportunity by race were replaced by student outcomes by race, leading to punitive consequences for schools presumed to be irrevocably categorized as “failing.” Second, the federal government and states have put in place legal and policy mechanisms, such as the establishment of TCS as an alternative to district schools, the creation of portfolio school systems, and the replacement of parent and community governance by public-private agencies, thinning the boundaries between the public and private spheres. Third, there is evidence of the targeting of specific neighborhoods by race and social class initially through government policies and increasingly through free market strategies. This literature suggests an altered topography of schooling over time, backed by the federal government, has expanded access to TCS. It raises important questions about educational opportunity and exclusion as it relates to social class, race, and geography at the state and local level. The methodology for addressing these questions is outlined below. Methodology We explore the braiding of three strands representing geographic, social and material relations through a study of what has happened over time to the urban educational landscape of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and more locally within CMSD. Our longitudinal study locates the timeframe within an era informed by the “logics of extraction,” where bodies and spaces “become known (made visible, recognized, and assessed) by the data [they] are said to produce” (Kuntz, 2015, p. 39). Our use of images in photographs, Geographic Information System (GIS) maps, archival data, and policy documents is intended to assist in understanding how the local topography of educational opportunity has shifted over the past 15 years. A description of each method is provided below. Data sources Data sources include U.S. Census Bureau and the Common Core of Data (CCD) available from the DOE’s National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) for the years 1999–2000, 2004–2005, 2009–2010, and 2014–2015. The CCD data contained longitude and latitude information, enrollment characteristics, including race and grade level for the academic school year and the percentage of enrolled disadvantaged students, which is the percentage of students who receive free or reduced-price lunches. The student counts by race, which were converted into percentage by calculating the total of the racial group within the school (variables BLACK, WHITE, and HISP) over total students of all grades (variables MEMBER). CCD data were merged with data from the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) website and includes racial enrollment characteristics and the percentage of disadvantaged students for the years 2004–2005, 2009–2010, and 2014–2015. PI scores and the percentage of disadvantaged students enrolled were not available for the 1999–2000 school year. Census tract data from the American Community Survey (ACS), 5-year estimates available from the U.S. Census Bureau were downloaded for the years 2000, 2010, and 2015. Census data were not available for 2005. Data include the data tables for race (DP05) and income (S1901). Income was included only for households and was grouped for households whose annual income was under $35,000 (combining variables HC01_EST_VC02, HC01_EST_VC03, HC01_EST_VC04, and HC01_EST_VC05). Sample The sample (Table 1) included brick-and-mortar public schools (TPS and TCS) that operated in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, during the time periods 1999–2000, 2004–2005, 2009–2010, and 2014–2015. Schools that were online, vocational, special education or other/alternative and schools that did not report any data or that reported they were closed were excluded from analysis.A tightly wound braid: Forces of opportunity and exclusion within an era of school choice legislationAll authorsElizabeth A. Gilblom, Hilla Sang, Jonathan E. Messemer, Anne Galletta & Rene Molenaurhttps://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2019.1629818Published online:17 September 2019 Table 1. Cuyahoga County, Ohio TPS and TCS included in the study by school year. CSVDisplay Table GIS mapping procedures All CCD data were uploaded to the GIS database for analysis and the longitude and latitude data from the CCD were used to geolocate the schools. These point shapefiles were later used to create kernel density maps that illustrate hotspots of enrollment characteristics and TCS development, and graduated color maps that illustrate variations in census tract socioeconomic characteristics. The U.S. Census data were merged with U.S. Census TIGER shapefiles to illustrate the census tract characteristics. Cuyahoga River shapefiles were obtained from ESRI’s ArcGIS Open Data (available at opendata.arcgis.com). County borders and schools district shapefiles were downloaded from Ohio’s Transportation Information Mapping System (TIMS, http://gis.dot.state.oh.us/tims/Data/Download) and included as layers on the maps. These data were used for ease of reference and were not included into any statistical or spatial calculation. The maps were created in ArcMAP 10.3 (ESRI, 2014). The maps included in this study illustrate the particularities of Cuyahoga County in Ohio, and its urban school district, CMSD, as a single case of the statewide trends. Statistical analyses We conduct descriptive statistics to compare racial and total enrollment characteristics and the mean percentages of disadvantaged students attending TPS and TCS located inside and outside CMSD and Cuyahoga County as a whole. We also compare the mean percentages of White and Black individuals and the mean percentages of households within the census tracts surrounding TCS and TPS who earn $35,000 or less or $100,000 or more annually. Our use of descriptive statistics is a purposeful strategy intended to illustrate the longitudinal development of school options within local communities inside Cuyahoga County over a 15-year period and is not intended to be generalizable (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009; Gall, Gall, & Borg, 1999). While we do not test for statistical relationships between or among variables, this research contributes to a broader understanding of “the shape and nature of our society … [and] provokes the ‘why’ questions of explanatory research” (de Vaus, 2001, pp. 1–2). Findings: The Ohio context In our findings we present historical information, GIS mapping data, and descriptive statistics to offer an analysis of a changing educational landscape. We report the ways in which national policy directives, often argued as responsive to equity concerns and other times embedded in the language of neoliberalism, deregulation and efficiency, manifested at the state level in Ohio and reproduced inequitable structural arrangements within school by race, class, and geography within CMSD and Cuyahoga County. Figure 4 is a timeline presenting key historical junctures influential in the legislation and expansion of TCS in Ohio. As Katz’s notion of topography is multi-layered and “assumes the historical examination of social processes” (Katz, 2001, p. 1231), we present our findings in a historical chronology.A tightly wound braid: Forces of opportunity and exclusion within an era of school choice legislationAll authorsElizabeth A. Gilblom, Hilla Sang, Jonathan E. Messemer, Anne Galletta & Rene Molenaurhttps://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2019.1629818Published online:17 September 2019 Figure 4. Timeline of the evolution of charter schools in Ohio. Display full size Figure 4. Timeline of the evolution of charter schools in Ohio. Examining the topography of educational opportunity and exclusion in a charter friendly state To understand the local conditions of schooling in Cleveland, it was necessary to shift the analytic lens geopolitically upward to the state and federal levels. Historical sources indicate that the district was declared “unitary” and released from its desegregation ruling in 1998. Judge George W. White declared the gap in academic performance to be “the result of socioeconomic status and factors directly related to it, not race” (Hendrie, 1998). Concerns about academic performance of Cleveland students justified the state’s decision to establish a tuition voucher program in 1995 for low-income students in Cleveland (Carl, 2011). Ohio history points to support for TCS in 1997 through House Bill (HB) 215, a pilot project in Lucas County that allowed for the opening of a TCS (Ohio Department of Education, 2016b). Later that same year, HB 55 permitted the establishment of TCS in any of Ohio’s eight urban districts (OEUD) that were considered “challenged” and, according to corrective action logic, warranted reform through school choice (Ohio Department of Education, 2016b). Also in 1997, the state Supreme Court ruled Ohio’s system of school funding unconstitutional in DeRolphe v. the State of Ohio, and plaintiffs would approach the courts several times until judicial action related to the case was prohibited in 2003 by the state Supreme Court. Efforts to secure compliance in formulating an equitable school funding formula from the state legislature were unsuccessful (Hendrie, 2003). In 1999, TCS opened in 21 districts after HB 292 enabled TCS expansion to any “challenged” district rated at the lowest level (“academic emergency”) as part of state’s accountability system (Ohio Department of Education, 2016b). Understanding how these broader policy trends shaped the landscape of schooling in terms of racial and economic segregation, we look at GIS data for a visualization of the early years of TCS growth. Figure 5 is a kernel density map that illustrates hotspots of enrollment by race within Cuyahoga County TPS during academic year 1999–2000. The CMSD boundary line (in black) and the Cuyahoga River (in white) are demarcated on each map. These maps illustrate that Black students are geographically separated from White students by the Cuyahoga River and the CMSD boundary. Black student enrollment is concentrated in the central area of the county, primarily toward the northeast section of Cleveland where higher populations of Black individuals live while White students are concentrated in the central area of the county toward the west, southwestern, and eastern periphery of county borders.A tightly wound braid: Forces of opportunity and exclusion within an era of school choice legislationAll authorsElizabeth A. Gilblom, Hilla Sang, Jonathan E. Messemer, Anne Galletta & Rene Molenaurhttps://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2019.1629818Published online:17 September 2019 Figure 5. Student enrollment in TPS by race for academic year 1999–2000. Display full size Figure 5. Student enrollment in TPS by race for academic year 1999–2000. State and federal intervention: Altering race and social class topography of public education In Ohio early forms of neoliberal “intervention” at the state level, shaped heavily by wealthy conservative donors to the state’s governor and assembly (Carl, 2011), set in place policy mechanisms that would later merge with liberals’ dissatisfaction with persistent under-funding and under-performance of TPS. Tensions within these uneasy political arrangements appear to be tempered by an increasing belief that public-private partnership would provide much needed resources, even at the cost of reduced public participation in school governance. The shrinking of the state’s fiscal responsibility and its increasing allocation of funds to private entities created openings for greater privatization of public education. State laws and the federal school accountability context laid the groundwork for TCS expansion in Ohio. In 2001, HB 364 expanded to allow districts in the lowest two levels of state-defined categories of academic performance (“academic emergency” and “academic watch”) to establish a TCS (Ohio Department of Education, 2016a). Between 1999 and 2013, the growth rate of Ohio’s TCS was double the national rate (Squire, Robson, & Smarick, 2014). After the reauthorization of NCLB as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, states were given flexibility in how they would bring TCS into existing accountability systems, which include indicators of school performance. States also were provided with grants to open new TCS and improve the quality of existing ones (Thomsen, 2017). State pressures on districts that performed poorly on state measures prevailed in producing a significant shift in school funding arrangements. A district reform plan was signed into law in 2012 through a partnership among the Cleveland district CEO, the mayor, the chamber of commerce for the Northeast Ohio region, TCS leadership, and, when pressed to include them, the teachers’ union. This legislation, HB 525, approved the Cleveland Plan in which CMSD was reconfigured from a traditional school district into a portfolio system of charter, district, and private sector schools in an effort to provide choices to poor children of color and to ameliorate educational disadvantages in the district (Ohio Department of Education, 2016b). This reform strategy forestalled a state takeover and created blurred boundaries between public and private entities in policies of district governance and funding. The district partnered with several higher performing TCS, sharing tax and levy funding—a first in the state. Cleveland’s plan described the strategy of targeting the lowest 10–15% of schools each year for “immediate and dramatic action, including closure and reassignment of students to better schools, closure and start-up of a new school, phase in of a new program and phase out of the old, or turning the school over to a capable charter operator” (Jackson, 2012, p. 7). The closure of 23 low-performing underenrolled schools occurred in a period of two years in 2010 and 2011. Reflecting national and local research on academic outcomes following school closure, students in these schools were transferred, or chose to attend, schools that were fairly similar with their closed school in terms of students served and academic outcomes (de la Torre, Gordon, Moore, & Cowhy, 2015; de la Torre & Gwynne, 2009; Galletta, 2019; Gordon et al., 2018; Steggert & Galletta, 2018). Issues of inadequate transportation and meeting TCS requirements for particular behavioral expectations and, in some cases, parental involvement may have acted as deterrents to exercising school choice. Given that many economically challenged families remained in underperforming district neighborhood schools, or transferred their child to the nearest district school if their child’s school closed, student movement across schools through school choice represented little change. This is evident in research across multiple cities (Buras, 2011; Good, 2017; Lipman, 2015). Since state legislation employed school choice as an alternative to underperforming neighborhood schools, TCS directed attention to recruiting students in neighborhoods where underperforming schools were located, particularly but not exclusively in poor and working-class neighborhoods in Cleveland. Figure 6 is a kernel density map that illustrates the growth of TCS within Cuyahoga County and CMSD during the 1999–2000, 2004–2005, 2009–2010, and 2014–2015 school years. Over the years, numerous hotspots of TCS growth appear on the eastside of Cleveland within the boundaries of CMSD. On Cleveland’s west side, smaller hotspots of TCS are also evident.A tightly wound braid: Forces of opportunity and exclusion within an era of school choice legislationAll authorsElizabeth A. Gilblom, Hilla Sang, Jonathan E. Messemer, Anne Galletta & Rene Molenaurhttps://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2019.1629818Published online:17 September 2019 Figure 6. Longitudinal maps of TCS development within Cuyahoga County between the academic years 1999–2000 and 2014–2015. Display full size Figure 6. Longitudinal maps of TCS development within Cuyahoga County between the academic years 1999–2000 and 2014–2015. As evident in Figure 5, during the 2014–2015 school year, several clusters of TCS had formed on Cleveland’s east side in some peripheral parts of the downtown area, which has undergone considerable growth in expensive residential real estate, with an increase of TCS in the neighborhoods in which earlier presence existed. In Ohio City, a gentrifying area on Cleveland’s west side, a cluster of TCS and TPS also formed. Additionally, TCS began to spread east of the downtown area while TPS has declined in this area. In addition to visualizing the increasing presence of privatized alternatives within and outside of the Cleveland district boundary, demographic data provide further context concerning available schooling options in Cleveland and in its surrounding Cuyahoga County suburbs. To visualize schooling options, we looked at census tracks by race to see what type of schools were in the census tracks. We then considered what this looked like when the average percentage by race is considered. In looking at Table 2, it is important to note that TCS were not permitted beyond city borders until 1999, so there is no mean percentage outside of CMSD until later, reflected in the 2010 data. The average percentage of White individuals living in the census tract surrounding TCS has fluctuated over the past 15 years. While the average percentage of White individuals living in the tract surrounding TCS outside of CMSD has remained around 46% for the last 6 years, the percentage of White individuals living in the census tract surrounding TCS inside the CMSD boundary decreased from 45.2% during the 2009–2010 school year to 40% in 2014–2015. Conversely, the average percentage of Black individuals living in the census tract surrounding TCS inside and outside of CMSD increased from about 47% to 50%. The average percentage of Black individuals living in the census tract surrounding TCS within CMSD fluctuated from 56% in 2000 to 47% in 2010 to 51% in 2014. Closures of TPS may have contributed to this fluctuation. While TCS have also been closed as well, new TCS have been established within CMSD. The establishment of new TPS within predominantly Black neighborhoods is less common.A tightly wound braid: Forces of opportunity and exclusion within an era of school choice legislationAll authorsElizabeth A. Gilblom, Hilla Sang, Jonathan E. Messemer, Anne Galletta & Rene Molenaurhttps://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2019.1629818Published online:17 September 2019 Table 2. The mean percentages of Black and White individuals living within the census tract surrounding TCS and TPS in 2000, 2010 and 2015. CSVDisplay Table Also evident in Table 2 is decreasing access by Black students on the east side of Cleveland to TPS. The average percentage of Black individuals living in the census tract surrounding TPS within CMSD fluctuated but overall decreased, changing from 59% in the 1999–2000 school year to 62% in 2009–2010, followed by a considerable decrease to 55% in the 2014–2015 school year, below both the 2000 and 2010 average percentages. These findings suggest that there were fewer TPS schools in the census tracts for many Black families, thus constraining their access to TPS. Conversely, the White population was decreasing in census tracts surrounding TCS and increasing in census tracts surrounding TPS inside CMSD. The White population was slightly decreasing in census tracts surrounding TPS outside of CMSD. This suggests a possible shift due to gentrification in the city and movement of low income families of color to the suburbs. In this manner, through closures of TPS and expansion of TCS within and outside CMSD, the types and locations of schools have altered considerably. Table 3 displays the growth of TCS, the decline of TPS and the enrollment fluctuations at TCS and TPS inside and outside of CMSD for the academic years 1999–2000, 2009–2010 and 2014–2015. Average TCS enrollment within CMSD increased from 214.5 students in 1999–2000 to 306 students in 2014–2015. At TPS inside CMSD, average enrollment declined from 624.7 students in 1999–2000 to 382.4 students by 2014–2015. TCS outside of CMSD experienced 14% enrollment growth between 2009–2010 and 2014–2015 academic years while TPS average enrolments remained steady.A tightly wound braid: Forces of opportunity and exclusion within an era of school choice legislationAll authorsElizabeth A. Gilblom, Hilla Sang, Jonathan E. Messemer, Anne Galletta & Rene Molenaurhttps://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2019.1629818Published online:17 September 2019 Table 3. Enrollment data and community racial demographics surrounding TCS and TPS inside and outside of CMSD. CSVDisplay Table At this point in our findings we draw on historical sources to offer a context of educational policy conditions in conversation with the GIS and demographic data. As noted in the demographic data in Table 3, the landscape of public education changes following the mid to late 1990s state legislation, and there was an increase in TCS (Churchill, O’Leary, & Aldis, 2017). This is particularly evident at the local level in Cleveland, the only district in the state to share local tax-levy funds with TCS with whom the district has chosen to partner. This arrangement was a direct result of state legislation in 2012 through House Bill 525, creating permeability between the public and private sector through state funding of TCS. While several TCS are partnered with CMSD and share in the city’s tax-based funding, representing some of the higher academically performing TCS in the state, many of the TCS in the district perform academically at similar levels to district schools (Churchill, 2018, p. 41). According to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an early nonprofit sponsor of Ohio TCS, at the time the ODE released its first round of high-stakes sponsor ratings in October 2016, eight percent of the state’s TCS were rated “poor,” and 62% were rated “ineffective” (Churchill et al., 2017, p. 18). In April of 2017 the state superintendent returned $22 of the $71 million in federal Charter School Program funds because only 5 of the 65 sponsors in the state received the “effective” or “exemplary” designation required to receive funding (O’Donnell, 2017, March, 21). TCS populate high-poverty neighborhoods in Cleveland and the inner-ring suburbs. It is important to note, however, that the educational landscape has also been altered by newly created district schools within Cleveland. Recently established district schools with access to resources from corporate, nonprofit, and philanthropic partners now draw students from within and outside the district. In the 2016–2017 school year, 2,866 students from suburbs outside Cleveland enrolled their children in CMSD TCS and district schools (Cleveland Transformation Alliance, Fall 2017, p. 23). Students from inside the district also attend several high performing TCS. These TCS partner with CMSD and have effectively created a cadre of higher performing schools. The district has since changed its open enrollment policy to allow for district school admission after the period of enrollment for CMSD students (Cleveland Metropolitan School District, 2018). It is not clear how this may have changed the ratio of enrollment of students within versus outside the district. Interdependence of circulation and conscription of opportunity producing racial and economic disparities To understand how the landscape reflects an interdependence of circulation and conscription of opportunity, we look at the income data in census track surrounding TCS and TPS provided in Table 4. In 2000, all TCS were located inside CMSD and, on average, 70.8% of the households located in the census tract surrounding each TCS earned less than $35,000 annually. This is not surprising, given state law before June 1999 restricted TCS development to the OEUD, reflecting high poverty census tracks. Moreover, in 2000 64.4% of households surrounding TPS within CMSD earned less than $35,000 annually. This contrasts with 34.1% of households surrounding TPS outside of CMSD that earned less than $35,000 annually, reflecting the wealth of the surrounding county. In 2010, household incomes improved slightly within census tracts surrounding TCS and TPS that are located both inside and outside CMSD. However, the economic disparity between high income and low-income households surrounding TCS and TPS, and school locations inside and outside of CMSD, held steady into 2015. Reflecting the persistence of concentrated poverty, there were more lower income households located within the boundaries of CMSD than outside of it. Neighborhoods surrounding TCS and TPS inside of CMSD tend to have lower average incomes than those TCS and TPS outside of CMSD. Additionally, the lowest average percentage of households earning $35,000 or less annually are in census tracts surrounding TPS outside of CMSD. This reflects the degree of middle class and affluent households in the county.A tightly wound braid: Forces of opportunity and exclusion within an era of school choice legislationAll authorsElizabeth A. Gilblom, Hilla Sang, Jonathan E. Messemer, Anne Galletta & Rene Molenaurhttps://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2019.1629818Published online:17 September 2019 Table 4. The mean percentages of households earning less than $35,000 annually and households earning $100,000 or more annually in 2000, 2010 and 2015. CSVDisplay Table Also evident in Table 4 is that the average percentage of households that earn $100,000 or more annually has increased in census tracts surrounding TCS and TPS both inside and outside CMSD since 2000, while the average percentage of households that earn $35,000 or less annually has decreased. By 2015, the average percentage of higher income households surrounding TCS within CMSD nearly tripled from 2.3% in 2000 to 6.3% while the average percentage of higher income households surrounding TPS doubled from 3% in 2000 to 6.1% in 2015. The average percentage of high income households surrounding TPS outside of CMSD increased from 16.9% in 2000, to 23.5% in 2010 and 26.1% in 2015. Likewise, high income households surrounding TCS outside of CMSD also increased. In 2010, 8.9% of households earned $100,000 or more annually. By 2015, that percentage grew to 13.2%. Figure 7 is a graduated color map that illustrates the percentage of households in each census tract within Cuyahoga County that annually earn $100,000 or more and those that annually earn $35,000 or less for the years 2000, 2010, and 2015. These maps illustrate the gradual increase in household income over the past 15 years within Cuyahoga County and CMSD. In 2000, census tracts in which 50–100% of the households earned $100,000 or more annually were concentrated on the eastern border of Cuyahoga County. Areas in which 25–50% of the households earned $100,000 or more are limited to the periphery of the county border and one small section on the northern coastline of CMSD, which is Bratenahl, an area of historic and current wealth. By 2010, the concentration of high income households that were located on the eastern side of the county, census tracts that were previously marked in red, decreased to one small zone outside of CMSD. However, more census tracts in which 50–75% of the households earned $100,000 or more appeared on the eastern area, portions of the southern area and the northwestern tip of the county. Areas with 10–25% of the households earning higher income also appeared within CMSD, specifically on the west side of the Cuyahoga River, areas within downtown Cleveland, and the western border of CMSD. In 2015, there were more areas in which 25–50% of the households living within the census tracts earned $100,000 or more annually inside and outside of CMSD. Inside CMSD, concentrations of high income households appeared on the west side of Cleveland by the Cuyahoga River and persisted in Bratenahl along the northern coastline on the east side of Cuyahoga County.A tightly wound braid: Forces of opportunity and exclusion within an era of school choice legislationAll authorsElizabeth A. Gilblom, Hilla Sang, Jonathan E. Messemer, Anne Galletta & Rene Molenaurhttps://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2019.1629818Published online:17 September 2019 Figure 7. Longitudinal maps illustrating the percentage of households earning $35,000 or less and households earning $100,000 or more within Cuyahoga County. Display full size Figure 7. Longitudinal maps illustrating the percentage of households earning $35,000 or less and households earning $100,000 or more within Cuyahoga County. In contrast, in 2000, census tracts in which over 75% of households earned $35,000 or less annually were concentrated in the east side of CMSD, with a few sporadic census tracts on the west side. Census tracts in which 50–75% of households were low income comprised the majority of CMSD, with a few tracts within CMSD around the western border of the district having 25–50% low income households and even fewer census tracts with 10% or fewer low-income households in the downtown area east of the Cuyahoga River and on the coastline Bratenahl area. By 2010, the number of census tracts in which 75% or more of households were low income increased on the west side of CMSD, while on the east side of CMSD, areas on the coastline of CMSD that previously had less than 25% low income households now included 25–50% low income households. In 2015 the density and distribution of census tracts in which 50% or more of households were low income resembles the 2000 map, with fewer low-income census tracts on the west side of CMSD, a cluster of high-density, low income households in the east side, and some coastline census tracts in which less than 25% of the households are low income. Conversely, census tracts outside CMSD have changed from containing 25% or more low income households to higher prevalence of census tract with under 25% of households being low income. These data suggest an increase in incomes across the county, while some concentration of low-income families persisted on the east side of Cleveland. Illustrating social class and geography, these kernel density maps and descriptive data provide context for returning to the question of the location of underperforming neighborhood TPS, underperforming and higher performing TCS, and higher performing theme-based district schools. The concentration of economic disadvantage is greatest in the eastern neighborhoods of CMSD, predominantly Black neighborhoods. At the same time, under-enrolled and often low-performing TCS in the inner-ring suburbs bordering Cleveland recruited Cleveland students. This created open borders sought in past desegregation plans that aimed for a metropolitan desegregation strategy. But Cleveland students could not attend what may have been a higher performing suburban district schools outside the city borders. Conversely, middle class Black and White students from outside CMSD enrolled in innovative and resourced theme-based district schools and higher performing TCS in Cleveland. However, as some of the district schools grew in popularity, these schools filled up quickly and were less accessible to economically disadvantaged students and/or students with parents who for a variety of reasons did not look beyond their neighborhood school for educational options. In this manner, the educational experience of poor and working class students of color in CMSD remained circumscribed as they either remained in their neighborhood school or changed schools that represented little change in resources, exposure to diverse others, and academic improvement. Discussion Our findings indicate the ways in which national judicial and legislative actions circulate and circumscribe education opportunity by social class, race, and geography at the state and local level. These federal policies and local conditions, held as three strands of a braid, intertwine and create tension, and result in substantial racial, economic, and geographic disparities among TCS and TPS census tract demographics and segregation of White and Black students within CMSD and Cuyahoga County. Geospatial and statistical analyses show that Cuyahoga County’s TCS are concentrated in low-income areas with predominantly lower socioeconomic, Black residents. Increased stratification of education through race and class containment The strategic presence of TCS within high poverty neighborhoods, assured through state legislation, reveals a further fracturing and social stratification in the state’s educational system. In Ohio, low-income families across race are more likely to have had some interaction with schools outside the traditional public school system. Black students in high poverty neighborhoods are particularly likely to have TCSs in or near their neighborhoods. Our findings suggest that TCS enroll low-income students and are most concentrated in and surrounding Black, poor and working-class neighborhoods, a finding that supported by previous research (d’Entremont, 2012; Gilblom & Sang, 2019; Gulosino & d’Entremont, 2011; LaFleur, 2016; Saultz & Yaluma, 2017). Moreover, other studies examining school choice find that TCS and other specialty schools are associated with greater, not less, segregation (Brown & Vollman Makris, 2018; Saporito & Sohoni, 2006; Stein, 2015). As a result, one’s race, class, and geographic location may diminish the educational options of residents who already lack opportunities as a result of economic and racial segregation. Our study further highlights the ways in which the permeability between private and public interests results in diminished education opportunities for low income students. The establishment of TCS in low-income neighborhoods often relies on the closing or replacement of traditional district schools. Landmarks of disinvestment and accumulation by dispossession (Fabricant & Fine, 2012; Fine & Ruglis, 2009; Harvey, 2004) are increasingly evident, such as the empty field where the John W. Raper School once was located. Institutions and services once available through the state have become privatized with new forms of eligibility and exclusion. In this manner, the topography of inequity is shaped by the contour lines of race and social class isolation. This diminished opportunity can be observed by the distribution of TCS within CMSD. Whereas the entire CMSD district was declared as “academic emergency,” TCS were mostly located on the east side of CMSD. In Cleveland’s highly segregated geography, the separation of the river, a traditional demarcation between the predominantly Black east side and the White and ethnically diverse west side, the west-side TCS tend to be more racially and ethnically diverse, with some TCS serving majority White students. While TCS proponents state that educational markets are race-neutral and work to serve consumers, who are free to make decisions that benefit their own interests, hotspots of TCS development within CMSD occur in high poverty Black communities, which exacerbates race and class containment. If TCS educate a majority of Black students at a greater rate than White students, then the policy is in fact not a race neutral policy in its consequences. In this manner, these students’ experience remains circumscribed as they either remain in their neighborhood school or change schools that represent little change in resources, exposure to diverse others, and academic improvement. Additionally, the spread of funding across an expanded pool of choice offerings limits struggling TPS to realize their potential for improving material and relational conditions (Baker, 2018). In sum, three strands of policy enactments and structural conditions have been mapped out, conceptualized as a braid of entangled plaits, providing educational opportunity and exclusion. The research points to evidence of a movement of bodies and facilities while sustaining race and class stratification. Drawing from sociologist Patrick Sharkey’s concept of contextual mobility is useful in illustrating the absence of real change for poor and working class students of color. Sharkey (2013) notes that contextual mobility may involve leaving an economically stressed neighborhood for a location with better services, safety, and higher income level. Alternatively, it may involve a change in one’s neighborhood reflecting qualitatively better opportunities and supports for families. Sharkey’s (2013) attention to conditions associated with generational poverty addresses “the spatial expression of social processes, including processes of social and economic exclusion, discrimination, and disinvestment” (p. 47). This concept of how a neighborhood contributes to contextual mobility holds weight for the conditions of schooling, underscoring the absence of educational contextual mobility for poor students and students of color in a charter friendly state and in an urban portfolio school system. As noted by Archbald, Hurwitz, and Hurwitz (2018), the growing segregation by race and class in a public school system that prioritizes choice and market principles suggests that segregation is not a social or a policy problem. It is “what the market has produced and people are in the schools they want” (p. 30). From this perspective, segregation only becomes an issue if it is associated with legal or social problems resulting from state education policies. Within a capitalist ontology of schooling and a judicial favoring of colorblindness, individual free market choices supersede collective concerns about racial injustice. It is as Noliwe Rooks (2017) calls “segrenomics,” a business strategy of “profiting specifically from high levels of racial and economic segregation” (p. 2) Critical race scholars have attended to the ways in which laws and policies designed to reduce racial inequalities have failed to result in racial equity and have actually increased advantages for the White majority. The theory of interest convergence, which emerged from critical race theory (CRT), suggests that institutional efforts to realize racial equity occur when the interests of minority groups converge with the interests of the majority (Bell, 1980). Consistent with CRT, this longitudinal study on TCS expansion within an urban, portfolio school district indicates how policy that appears to benefit students of color may have consequences that disadvantage them. Prevailing predominantly White interests evident in the lobby for school privatization in Ohio drew on equity claims to carry out converging interests, where policies associated with equity are put in place when White interests are also secured. The connections among interest convergence, TCS and the colorblind and accountability policies surrounding them suggest that the proliferation of TCS in high poverty, Black communities within CMSD was designed on the surface to increase racial equity and benefit students of color in underperforming TPS. These policies have failed to thwart the social reproduction of White privilege as the Cuyahoga County arrangement of educational options continues to serve predominantly White, majority interests. Resistance toward the structural braiding of opportunity and exclusion by race and class Efforts to use the shrinking public space for contestation, to reinsert history and race-consciousness, and unravel the taut braid of race and class containment within free market approaches to school reform are at work. The accumulation by dispossession of public assets (Harvey, 2004) through educational privatization has not advanced without resistance from the local communities and organizations. Activist organizations, teacher unions, parent groups, and vibrant networks for protecting and asserting the protection of the public educational sphere are represented by the loose strands in our braid (Figure 2). Community mobilization across major cities in the U.S. has slowed the pace of TCS openings, allowed for the reclaiming of public school buildings, and reframed the discourse of corporate school reform. In July of 2015, the Journey4Justice (J4J) Alliance, based in Chicago and representative of civil rights, youth, and community organizations across the country authored a critique of corporate school reform in a letter to every U.S. senator, demanding educational equity for Black and Brown students. Their letter included a demand for a moratorium on the federal Charter School Program and an end to “the illusive promise of quality” (Resseger, 2015, July, 8). In February of 2017, J4J began its #WeChoose campaign, involving 25 cities and grassroots organizing groups in support of educational equity through public education (Resseger, 2018, October 23). The momentum is evident in the most recent meeting of the Network for Public Education, in which Jitu Brown, executive director of J4J outlined seven alternative choices of the campaign: (1) a moratorium on school privatization; (2) the creation of 10,000 sustainable Community Schools; (3) an end of zero-tolerance discipline policies; (4) a national equity assessment toward eliminating poverty effects; (5) a halt to the decline of the professional presence of Black teachers; (6) the end of state takeovers, appointed school boards, and mayoral control; and (7) the elimination of the over-reliance on standardized tests (Resseger, 2018, October 23). Additionally, the NAACP Task Force on Quality Education (2017) called for a moratorium on the expansion of TCS, arguing that they have mixed performance, they close frequently and jeopardize student success as students search for a new school, they suspend Black students and push them out at higher rates than White students, they lack financial transparency and accountability, and they increase racial and socioeconomic segregation. More specifically, local NAACP chapters are engaged in proactive efforts to protect the health and well-being of TPS. For example, in Massachusetts the NAACP chapters, parents, teacher unions, and community leaders actively engaged public support in defeating Question 2 on the 2016 ballot, which denied the state the authority to approve twelve more TCS or to expand existing TCS. Later, in April of 2018, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rejected efforts to remove the state’s cap on TCS growth. Through activism across community, educator, and legal collectives, the legal and policy structures that have eroded democratic participation of communities in public education and favored school privatization have been deeply contested. Limitations and future research This work is an important step in understanding the complex picture of TCS development in the neoliberal context of schooling, but more research is needed. Our findings are limited to one urban school district and its surrounding county in Ohio and cannot be generalized to other counties or school districts inside or outside of Ohio. Future research should assess the generalizability of these findings to other locations and/or investigate the characteristics and communities surrounding the excluded school types. Additionally, this study focuses only on three conceptual strands held together in the forces of circulation and circumscription of educational opportunity by social class, race, and geography. We acknowledge that other factors have affected the landscape of education that are not mentioned in this study. Research focused on additional influences would provide further insight into the ways educational opportunity is shaped. Lastly, the school enrollment data for this analysis relies on self-reported information extracted from the Common Core of Data. There is a possibility of an individual selecting invalid responses with self-reported data (Gall et al., 1999). Conclusion Traced in this project are strands that fueled the development of TCS, shaped the landscape of educational opportunity in urban districts and inevitably reproduce inequitable structural arrangements within schools by race, class, and geography. Our study offers a way into understanding the forces that are embedded in national policy directives and American life. Thus, what holds the braid of contrasting forces of circulation and circumscribing of educational opportunity affects the experience of students in other places and spaces. In this way, countertopographies provide opportunities to reveal the embeddedness of these and other strands in different places and spaces, revealing inequalities, and thereby bringing together people affected by the same forces. Our topography, and possibly future countertopographies, has the potential to provide Katz’s “impulse for insurgent change” and encourage researchers, communities and policy makers to imagine practical and political responses to the conflicts described herein (Katz, 2001). This study utilized a robust set of spatial analysis tools in GIS to create a visual display of economic and racial segregation and their relationships to TCS and TPS. These methods assisted in understanding how the local topography of educational opportunity has shifted over the past 15 years. We explored longitudinally the spatial dimensions of race and income isolation shaped by a period of accelerated school choice options within and beyond the urban context of a school portfolio system. We demonstrated how GIS functionality and statistical analysis can be combined to provide a picture of how socioeconomic factors are related to different forms of segregation in Ohio’s TCS. By meeting the aims of national and state policy directives, often argued as responsive to equity concerns and other times embedded in the language of deregulation and efficiency, urban districts inevitably reproduce inequitable structural arrangements within school by race, class, and geography. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. Table 1. Cuyahoga County, Ohio TPS and TCS included in the study by school year. School yearReported by NCESIncluded in sampleTPSTCSYearly Total1999–2000358328103382004–2005393336543902009–2010385316603762014–201537928780367    Sample Total 1,471 Table 2. The mean percentages of Black and White individuals living within the census tract surrounding TCS and TPS in 2000, 2010 and 2015.   Cuyahoga County Schools  200020102015  TCSTPSTCSTPSTCSTPSMean Percentage of WhitesWithin CMSD36.733.845.231.740.036.1Outside CMSD-81.346.276.046.173.0Cuyahoga County36.764.045.460.341.060.0Mean Percentage of BlacksWithin CMSD56.159.047.362.050.755.3Outside CMSD-15.047.619.450.021.1Cuyahoga County56.130.847.434.550.633.1 Table 3. Enrollment data and community racial demographics surrounding TCS and TPS inside and outside of CMSD.   Cuyahoga County Schools  AY: 1999–2000AY: 2009–2010AY: 2014–2015  TCSTPSTCSTPSTCSTPSNumber of Schools:Within CMSD101185111266101Outside CMSD-210920414186Cuyahoga County103286031680287Mean Enrollment:Within CMSD214.5624.7212.5416.8306.0382.4Outside CMSD-594.5285.7563.5325.0587.6Cuyahoga County214.5605.3249.1490.1309.4515.4 Table 4. The mean percentages of households earning less than $35,000 annually and households earning $100,000 or more annually in 2000, 2010 and 2015.   Cuyahoga County Schools  200020102015  TCSTPSTCSTPSTCSTPSMean Percentage of Households earning $35,000 or less annuallyWithin CMSD70.864.462.660.963.560.0Outside CMSD-34.147.531.744.631.3Cuyahoga County70.849.360.342.060.241.4Mean Percentage of High Income Households (Over $100,000/year)Within CMSD2.33.05.75.16.36.1Outside CMSD-16.98.923.513.226.1Cuyahoga County2.311.96.117.07.519.1References André-Bechely, L. 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Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation. [Crossref], [Google Scholar]Additional informationAuthor informationElizabeth A. Gilblom Elizabeth A. Gilblom is an assistant professor in the School of Education in the College of Human Development & Education at North Dakota State University. Her research interests include privatization in education, geographic information systems, and community-based education. Dr. Gilblom received her Ph.D. in urban education with a specialization in adult, continuing, and higher education from Cleveland State University. Hilla Sang Hilla Sang is a doctoral candidate in Health Policy and Management at Kent State University’s College of Public Health. She currently works as the Data Visualization and GIS Specialist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Lied Library. Her research interests include spatial analytics, geographic information systems, and health equity. Jonathan E. Messemer Jonathan E. Messemer is an Associate Professor of Adult Learning and Development, in the College of Education and Human Services, Cleveland State University. Dr. Messemer also serves on the faculty of the Urban Education Doctoral Studies Program at Cleveland State University with a specialization in adult, continuing, and higher education. His current research interests include: adult literacy, correctional education, adult learning gains, critical theory in adult education, factors influencing teacher decision-making in the prison classroom, college student satisfaction, program evaluation, and survey development. Previously, Dr. Messemer served as a research analysts for the Department of Urology, Indiana University School of Medicine where he co-authored numerous journal articles and book chapters on testicular cancer. Dr. Messemer holds an Ed.D. in adult education from the University of Georgia, an M.A. in adult education from Ball State University, a B.S. in supervision and an A.A.S. in computer technology from Purdue University. Anne Galletta Anne Galletta is Professor and Chair of the Department of Curriculum and Foundations in the College of Education and Human Services at Cleveland State University. As a social psychologist, her research interests include the nature of social and structural relations as they relate to equity in education. Dr. Galletta works with educators, youth, and community members in critical inquiry and action on issues affecting neighborhoods and schools. She employs qualitative research methods, with particular strengths in participatory action research, case study, and oral history. Dr. Galletta earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York. Rene Molenaur Rene Molenaur is a policy analyst for the Center for Educational Leadership at Cleveland State University. She is also a coordinator for the Ohio site of the Education Policy Fellowship Program at the Institute for Educational Leadership in Washington, D.C. Her current research interests include: policy implementation, school choice, eLearning, educational leadership, and global human capital trends. Rene holds a B.Ed. from Baldwin Wallace University, a M.Ed. from The University of Akron, and she is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Cleveland State University with a specialization in urban educational policy studies.