Education research has often overlooked how the long durée of resistance for Black education has shaped current educational policy. We complicate notions of Black public school closures in two case studies from extensive ethnographic research in post-Katrina New Orleans through our reading of the plantation. Findings suggest these institutions…

High schools are viewed by policymakers, practitioners, and researchers alike as key institutions in facilitating access to college, especially for minoritized students from low-income families. A school-wide strategy for making college accessible is for high schools to establish a college-going culture that normalizes college attendance, elevates…

Departing from mainstream accounts of the post-Katrina New Orleans state takeover and the more recent "unification" of schools under local governance, this case study utilizes the plantation (Hartman, 1997; Woods, 1998, McKittrick, 2011) as a theoretical device and the silenced archive (Trouillot, 2015) as a method of inquiry to better…

From 1910 to 1940, a grassroots effort in America called the high school movement led to a "spectacular educational transformation" in this country. Enrollment of 18-year-olds grew from 19 percent to 71 percent, and graduation rates rose from 9 percent to more than 50 percent--lifting the US to the forefront of educational attainment in…

Cowen Institute polls provide insights into how parents and guardians view New Orleans' uniquely decentralized K-12 public education system. This is the second of two briefs on the 2024-2025 poll, which is based on polling conducted in the fall of 2024. The survey polled 1,000 public and private school parents and guardians in Orleans Parish, as…

Multiple studies have documented the positive effect of school choice on college attendance. We focus instead on the quality of colleges, which is linked to higher graduation rates and later-in-life wages, especially for Black and Hispanic students. We examine the effect of the New Orleans school reforms, a district-wide reform creating an almost…

School choice policies, such as charter schools and vouchers, are in part designed to induce competition between schools. While several studies have examined the impact of private school competition on public schools, few studies have explored school leaders' perceptions of private school competitors. This study examines the extent to which public…