INTRODUCTION
The American public often views today’s urban public schools pejoratively. Images of aging buildings, crumbling facilities, apathetic teachers, and troubled minority youth who are wholly disinterested in their education, primarily informed by popular media, seem to categorize how modern American society views these public institutions. Such concepts concerning urban education suggest inner-city public schools are failing to adequately educate children, presenting a clear and present danger to America’s future prosperity, and a violation of urban students’ state civil right to a high-quality education. Collective assumptions and biases concerning urban public education have been shaped by politicians and education reformers, as well as through popular media in films such as Lean on Me (1989), and Dangerous Minds (1995), to Waiting for Superman (2010) and a host of other movies. The widely accepted idea that America’s urban public education system is “failing”, has motivated policymakers, business leaders, and educational reform activists to use the “failure mantra” to alter the landscape of urban public education through legislation and neoliberal education reforms such as district-takeover, public school closure, and charter-ization.
Camden, New Jersey, a city long plagued by chronic poverty and unemployment, has over the past few decades, implemented various district and state interventions in hopes of improving educational outcomes in its public schools that yielded little statistical progress in assessment scores, graduation rates, and other traditional school performance metrics. Camden’s public schools, despite diversifying teaching practices, regularly changing school and district leadership, were still considered the worst schools in New Jersey. Like other American inner-cities, where charter schools are presented as the solution to historically under-performing districts, the newest urban school reform tactic in the Camden City School District (CCSD) is establishing of state-mandated, privately-run, charter management organization (CMO) operated Renaissance charter schools, as outlined in the Urban Hope Act of 2012. It is seldom mentioned, however, that Camden’s Renaissance charters will divert a significant population of district students and dollars away from district public schools thereby, putting the survival of public, non-charter, education in Camden, in peril.
Urban economists and urban geographers alike have long asserted that local public-school quality influences residential demand, housing prices, and increasing property value. As such, situated within a broader Camden redevelopment perspective, to state and local elites, the establishment of Renaissance schools in Camden is considered a positive for the city to improve education, and likely the potential for redevelopment. A growing body of research suggests the presence of charter schools in poor minority urban areas has the potential to attract middle-class millennials to move to the city, as well as raise property values in areas where charter schools are situated. Researchers have been increasing attention among academics linking urban redevelopment, gentrification, and the increasing presence of charter schools in cities across the country, such as Philadelphia, Boston, New York City, Chicago, and Atlanta representing a reversal of middle-class fight from urban America and opportunities for revitalization.
Among many politicians and individuals, urban redevelopment is generally seen positively as it typically denotes a reversal of white flight into the city the generating of a new tax base, and development of blighted neighborhoods. But, for low-income residents in urban neighborhoods, such urban “progress” initiated and enjoyed by those with political and social capital, can also yield displacement, disruption of community social networks, and marginalization of low SES residents from community participation. And, while many Americans believe in the transformative power of education and the societal benefit of public education systems, many low-income minority urban residents, like those in Camden, New Jersey, are routinely marginalized and disenfranchised from democratic participation in decision-making on matters affecting their communities; specifically, within the context of public education. The purpose of this study was to research how Camden’s current residents, who are routinely excluded from meaningful decision-making processes, as well as prospective Camden residents, interpret these mandated renaissance schools alongside broader Camden redevelopment.
Research Questions
This study will investigate the following questions:
- How does the establishment of Renaissance Charters influence current and prospective residents’ decision to move into, remain, or leave Camden?
- How do current residents of Camden, as well as prospective residents interpret the opening of renaissance charters? a.Why do current and potential residents believe renaissance schools established? b. Who are renaissance schools and recent Camden development intended to benefit c. What will Camden look like in the future?
- Are current and prospective residents interested in sending their child/children to renaissance charters?
- What matters to residents and prospective residents when thinking about schools for their child?
- Who do residents and prospective residents believe are making decisions concerning education and redevelopment in Camden?
Explored within this text, I seek to contextualize urban locales wherein urban public-school districts are generally situated before focusing on Camden specifically. Additionally, Better for Whom will discuss the topics of white-flight, residential segregation, coupled with urban divestment before examining the issues of neoliberal education reform, and charter schools. Next, this book will explore gentrification, neoliberal urbanism, and then turn its focus to Camden’s recent efforts, from 2012-2015, toward revitalization through “meds and eds” and revamping of its police department; in addition to attracting corporations to the city through the New Jersey Redevelopment Act of 2013. This book will also include the discussing of local Democratic powerbroker George Norcross III, the Urban Hope Act of 2012 and the state takeover of Camden’s public-school system in 2013, thereby contextualizing the establishment of Renaissance schools and broader Camden redevelopment. Finally, Education Reform and Gentrification in the Age of #CamdenRising: Public Education and Urban re-development in Camden, NJ will conclude by presenting Camden’s residents’ and prospective residents’ ideas of who Camden’s massive changes, specifically within public education, are intended to benefit.
The Significance of Education Reform and Gentrification in the Age of #CamdenRising: Public Education and Urban re-development in Camden, NJ
In an era where cities are experiencing a mass “return-to-the-city” movement by gentrifying white and black middle classesseeking to return to low-income minority neighborhoods lured by shorter commutes, urban amenities and culture, and attractive home prices, poor minority residents are increasingly excluded from the decision-making processes that influence the future of their communities and education systems. And while efforts to attract a wealthier, more educated, and often whiter urban public appears to be urban planners’ method of choice to revitalize cities, local residents have seen an erosion of their democratic rights, loss of political influence as actions are taking by the powerful, and politically-connected, supposedly, to benefit their current residents.
The emergence of Camden’s renaissance schools is an example of such a phenomenon. Camden’s public schools have long been demeaned and labeled “failing” by local and state politicians, and in January 2012, the Urban Hope Act (UHA) was passed into law establishing state-mandated charter schools in Camden to run by CMOs. Camden residents had no opportunity to participate in the process that will yield fifteen new charter schools with no public accountability, and at the same time, significantly impact Camden’s public-school budget and future sustainability.
At the same time, between 2012 and 2015, other significant revitalization and redevelopment efforts in Camden took place. After nearly 140 years of service, Governor Christie, along with Mayor Dana Redd, dismantled the Camden Police Department (CPD) and started the Camden County Metro Department (CCMD). This action, too, was executed without the input of residents, despite vocal resident pushback criticizing the move. The stated rationale was that this move was to keep residents safer by putting more officers on the streets.
Following the passage of the New Jersey Redevelopment Act 2013, which authorized billions of dollars in tax credits, tax abatements, and grants for corporations and medical and educational institutions (meds and eds), willing to relocate or expand in Camden. Large amounts of Camden real estate including the Waterfront and Downtown areas have been purchased by these organizations, despite there being no mandate that these companies hire Camden residents. Since 2012, the narrative has been such drastic spending is necessary for Camden’s future revitalization because jobs are coming to Camden. Because of this, there has been a precipitous increase in home prices in the Downtown area, coinciding with rising tax and rental rates. Coupled with the lessened availability of low-income and affordable housing, the current reality the most Camden residents cannot afford to purchase new market-rate homes or rental apartments in specific areas, some residents have already been displaced.
The guiding focus of this work, Education Reform and Gentrification in the Age of #CamdenRising, was to center and lift up the voices of Camden residents who are too often marginalized because of their race, socio-economic status, and lack of political agency. Outside of Camden alone, this study is significant to both urban education policymakers and city planners, as well as urban residents across the country, in that it seeks to understand how an often-silenced population, who bear the consequences of redevelopment and education reform decisions, perceive these recent changes.
Additionally, Education Reform and Gentrification in the Age of #CamdenRising seeks to forward the views of prospective Camden residents, those the city is trying to attract to live here, perceive these changes as well. And while urban redevelopment projects and the presence of charter schools are not unique to Camden, they are often presented in research as from a clinical perspective based on the observations and findings of the researcher’s interpretation. This study, however, unapologetically steers away from influencing participants’ opinions and interpretations of the changes they are witnessing, and what such changes mean to them. In short, in this work, it is the views of the participants that matters – not those of the researcher. And while Camden, the most populous city south of Trenton, NJ is the singular city of focus in this work, this study could provide a context by which policymakers in other areas, consider the perspective of residents and future residents, and subsequently make policy decisions relating to education and redevelopment in other urban cities like Camden.
Understanding Education Reform and Gentrification in the Age of #CamdenRising‘ s Theoretical Grounds
Standpoint theory, which frames this study, seeks to put forward subjugated groups’ voices, interpretations, and critiques concerning how dominant groups exert authority upon them. While standpoint theory in past research was primarily dominant in feminist studies generally, and subsequently the experiences of black feminists, and Hispanic feminists more specifically, standpoint theory seeks to highlight the perceptions of any non-dominant group whose views are often disregarded or ignored altogether yet are grounded in their own lived experiences as a marginalized group. While standpoint theory shares similarities with other modern critical theories such as critical race theory, critical feminist theory, critical queer theory and neo-Marxist theory as they present counter-narratives to dominant hegemonic white, capitalist, hetero-patriarchal values, standpoint theory uses the perspectives and lived experiences of the marginalized as the central unit of analysis. Where other theories emerge from the exclusionary processes and traditions of established disciplines, standpoint theory’s priority is uplifting and including the voices of the oppressed rather than adhering to rigid academic research traditions.
Social justice theory, popularized by John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice and subsequent academics like Robert Nozick, F.A. Hayek, and others wrestle with ideas of how equality, fairness, and opportunity are distributed among individuals in a democratic society. Other social justice theorists see social justice as both a process and goal, through which resources and agency are disseminated and ensuring all have equal access to opportunity. Though social justice is a common term employed increasingly in contemporary policy and literature, what it is, and what it looks like has yet to concretely be determined or defined. While some philosophers view social justice as the balancing of accountability, equality, and democratic consensus, others see social justice through the lens of redistribution of goods and resources to benefit the disadvantaged.
Increased attention in both academic and public policy research is dedicated to marginalized populations, such as the poor and racial/ethnic minorities, who are being denied social justice and restricted from equitably participating in American democracy. Getting a good education is often viewed as the primary way for the marginalized population to become empowered in a democratic society. It follows then that the typical justification for instituting neoliberal education reforms, vis-a-vis the imposition of charter schools in urban areas is to give urban parents and their children better educational options that will, presumably, lift urban students out of their social and economic predicament. Paradoxically, while touting the merits of education reform measures like charter schools and broader school choice to improve educational and, potentially, economic outcomes for alienated groups, with the increased presence of imposed charter schools in urban centers, furthers the marginalization and disenfranchisement of communities; thus, intensifying the demand for social justice in urban minority communities.
Camden residents, like millions of other poor urban minorities across the country, through the institution of neoliberal education and urban revitalization practices, have been excluded and silenced entirely from education-related decision-making processes that impact their neighborhoods. They are also faced with the possibility of experiencing demographic changes in their community through urban redevelopment as well.
Using standpoint theory to guide this
study, the researcher hopes to highlight marginalized residents’ perspectives
and interpretations of imposed Renaissance schools and other Camden
redevelopment projects. Additionally, this study seeks to understand whether
such efforts, namely Renaissance schools, positively influence prospective
residents to consider moving to Camden, a small post-industrial city directly
east of Philadelphia.
How to Read Education Reform and Gentrification in the Age of #CamdenRising: Public Education and Urban re-development in Camden
Education Reform and Gentrification in the Age of #CamdenRising is intentioned to inform readers of the interpretations and views of Camden’s current and prospective residents concerning substantial redevelopment changes relating to public education, economics, and land. As much of what we see in Camden today, is not unique to this specific nine-square-mile, post-industrial municipality, but we recognize common elements of Camden across the country, the early portions of the book are meant to contextualize what we see when we look at the spaces. We will look at essentially, how we got here. From post-industrial residential and employment discrimination, to shrinking employment opportunities within cities; to urban disinvestment, the collapsing of the city municipal infrastructure, to white and middle-class suburban flight, in a few short pages Education Reform and Gentrification in the Age of #CamdenRising tries to provide a survey, rich in sourced material, describing the collapsing urban ecology from the post-industrial era into today.
From there, this book takes a similar approach in describing the turn from a collapsing urban milieu, to the adoption of neoliberal urbanism which is also increasingly emblematic in cities across the country. As an answer the to the choreographed, and racialized reduction of public investment into urban America, a space increasingly occupied by low-income persons of color, neoliberalism has swooped into America’s inner-cities intent on profiting from private investment in supplying public sector goods and services once provided by the public, in addition to land development and public education. We will provide a similar overview of what redevelopment and public schooling looks like in the increasingly neoliberal American city.
Next, Education Reform and Gentrification in the Age of #CamdenRising will pull in much closer to look at how what we described here nationally, and more generally, looks in Camden specifically. This approach was taken to help illustrate that what we see, and will read here, is not exclusive to Camden, but that this city is emblematic of the shifts and trends endured by cities all over the country. We will identify approaches taken by policymakers to remake an economically impoverished city with a shrinking population, and even less in the way of economic opportunity. From there we will discuss the era of #CamdenRising where we currently find ourselves with massive changes in public safety, land development, economics and public education, vis-à-vis, state-imposed renaissance schools. Using a wealth of primary source documents, we seek to identify the who’s, the what’s, the why’s, and how’s specific to Camden, so that the reader, within a few pages can read and have solid understanding of today’s #CamdenRising landscape.
The following chapters will present current and prospective Camden residents’ views and interpretations of all the changes they are witnessing around them, but primarily centered on the arrival of state-imposed renaissance schools. The significance here is not so much whether participants’ responses are completely factual or well-researched, as the concept behind this book is to highlight what respondents think, what they see, what they feel; their interpretations. And in that no interpretation is completely objective, or free from bias, the reader should expect to see bias presented in participants’ comment. The presence of bias alone should not cause the reader to disregard the views of Camden’s current and prospective residents, but instead, readers should be cognizant that, likely, it is participant’s experiences here or near the city, that is contributing to what they see and how they process it. In short, with respect to participants’ views, what is true and what may be an exaggeration, or even completely false is not what is to be grappled with solely – but what participants think, and why they think it, is much more what this book is challenging readers to consider. Remember, the purpose of Education Reform and Gentrification in the Age of #CamdenRising is to highlight and center the voices of the unheard, and it is totally fair, and proper for readers to evaluate all shared views.
And with that, let’s rock…
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