Neoliberal Education Reform and Community Resistance in Bronzeville, Chicago

ABSTRACT

RACIALISED DISCOURSES OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY: NEOLIBERAL EDUCATION REFORM AND COMMUNITY RESISTANCE IN BRONZEVILLE, CHICAGO

by Lauren Kate Sandeman

Neoliberalism has dramatically altered the landscape of urban education, in which public education is increasingly governed by private operators and market logics, facilitating the closing of ‘failing’ public schools and implicating education reform in broader processes of neoliberal urbanism. In 2004, Chicago’s Board of Education launched ‘Renaissance 2010’ (Ren2010), a neoliberal reform which intended to revitalise the city’s public schools, yet resulted in the disproportionate closure of neighbourhood schools in African American communities. This thesis employs Critical Discourse Analysis guided by Critical Race Theory to examine the dominant and counter discourses of Ren2010, by identifying how changes to educational opportunities are differentially framed and characterised by key stakeholder groups, prioritising the lived experiences and counter- stories of the African American community of Bronzeville. This research reveals how the Bronzeville community successfully disrupted neoliberal education reform and recontextualised the dominant discourse by invoking narratives of spatialised inequality and framing school closings as a racialised attack on the community. Critically, through the expansion of their spaces of engagement, the community rescaled the politics of Renaissance 2010 and situated the local injustice of an historic African American community in the national conversation on the fight for educational justice.

RACIALISED DISCOURSES OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY: NEOLIBERAL EDUCATION REFORM AND COMMUNITY RESISTANCE IN BRONZEVILLE, CHICAGO

A Thesis

Submitted to the

Faculty of Miami University

in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

Lauren Kate Sandeman

Miami University

Oxford, Ohio

2021

Advisor: Dr. Damon Scott

Reader: Dr. Marcia England

Reader: Dr. Denise Taliaferro Baszile

This Thesis titled

RACIALISED DISCOURSES OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY: NEOLIBERAL EDUCATION REFORM AND COMMUNITY RESISTANCE IN BRONZEVILLE, CHICAGO

Lauren Kate Sandeman

has been approved for publication by

The College of Arts and Sciences

and

Department of Geography

______Dr. Damon Scott

______Dr. Marcia England

______Dr. Denise Taliaferro Baszile

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 1 1.1. The Bronzeville Neighbourhood 2 1.2. Research Objectives 4 2. Neoliberalism, Education Reform, and the Production of Urban Space 7 2.1. Neoliberal Urbanism and Education Reform 7 2.1.1. Neoliberalisation of Public Education: Accountability and School Choice 8 2.1.2. Neoliberal Urbanism: Accumulation by Dispossession 13 2.2. Production of Racialised Space and Black Resistance 14 2.3. Conclusion 18 3. Bronzeville: Public Housing and Education in the Black Metropolis 20 3.1. History of Chicago’s Black Metropolis: Segregated Housing and Schools 21 3.1.1. Concentration of Youths and Overcrowded Schools 24 3.1.2. Housing Reform: Depopulation and Destabilisation 25 3.2. Neoliberal Education Reform: Chicago’s ‘Renaissance 2010’ 27 3.3. School Closings and Choice in Bronzeville 30 3.4. Dyett High School: The Importance of Community 33 3.5. Conclusion 37 4. Methodology 39 4.1. Theoretical Underpinnings of a Critical Discourse Analysis 39 4.2. Qualitative Research Design: Data Collection and Sources 42 4.3. Data Analysis: Coding and Interdiscursivity 47 4.4. Limitations and Considerations: COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and White Privilege 49 5. Discourses of Resistance: The Contested Spatial Politics of Education Reform 51 5.1. Framing Educational Change: School Closings and Opposing Narratives 53 5.1.1. Neoliberal Elite: Consolidations as an Opportunity 54 5.1.2. Community Resistance: War on School Closings and Institutional Racism 57 5.2. School Closings and the Spatialised Politics of Resistance 61 5.2.1. Contested Cognitive Spatialities 62 5.2.2. Spaces of Resistance: From the Table to the Street 66 5.2.3. Rescaling School Closings: Spatialised Politics of Resistance 70 5.4 Conclusion 72 6. Conclusion 73

Bibliography 76 Appendix: Data sources for CDA 89

iii

List of Tables

Table 3.1 Total population and number of children in Bronzeville, 1950 - 2010 26

Table 3.2 Bronzeville schools closed or turned-around, 2000 - 2013 31 Number of school age children per CPS socio-economic tier in Bronzeville, Table 3.3 32 2010 - 2019 Table 4.1 Stages of the research framework 43

Table 4.2 Secondary data sources gathered for critical discourse analysis 45

List of Figures

Map illustrating the racial segregation of African American residents in Figure 1.1 4 Chicago Transformation of Bronzeville from overcrowded slums to the ‘second Figure 3.1 23 ghetto’

Figure 3.2 Willis Wagons and overcrowding in Black schools 25

Figure 3.3 Location of school closings in Bronzeville, 2000-2013 30

Figure 3.4 Photographs of Bronzeville schools slated for closure in 2013 32

Figure 3.5 Walter H. Dyett and DuSable High School 34

Figure 3.6 Photographs taken during the Dyett Hunger Strike in 2015 36

Figure 5.1 Chicago Board of Education board room and public comment stand 67

Figure 5.2 Dyett High School protests and Hunger Strike 69

Acknowledgements

I am sincerely grateful to Dr. Damon Scott for all of his support, encouragement, and advice during my graduate studies at Miami University. I wish to thank him for his dedication to my academic success, and for providing such constructive comments and advice throughout the development of this thesis. During my first week of classes in August 2019, Dr. Scott encouraged me to join his field trip class to Chicago, and it was during this visit where we learned from Bronzeville resident Harold Lucas about the changing dynamics of the neighbourhood and the worsening educational opportunities over time. I was struck by the compounding disadvantage of the neighbourhood and inspired by the community’s resilience, and am grateful to Harold Lucas for sharing his stories with us. This thesis would undoubtedly look very different had I not been given the opportunity to join the field trip to Chicago during my first week of graduate school.

I also wish to thank Dr. Marcia England of the Department of Geography, and Dr. Denise Taliaferro Baszile of the Department of Educational Leadership, for their valuable support and insightful comments. I am particularly grateful for their dedicated support when the COVID-19 pandemic required a significant change to the research design. Additionally, I wish to thank the Department of Geography and its faculty for supporting me throughout my studies and offering such thought-provoking and interesting classes.

Lastly, I wish to sincerely thank my family for their love, support, and encouragement. I am incredibly grateful for all of the opportunities they have provided me, and for inspiring me to never stop learning.

1. Introduction

Neoliberalism’s rapid infiltration into the public education system has extensively transformed urban educational opportunities across the United States, in which public education is increasingly viewed as an economic good to be governed by private operators in an education market. However, the inherent spatiality of neoliberal policies which are predicated on capital accumulation by the dispossession of poor, often racialised populations, has resulted in the large- scale spatial restructuring of urban landscapes (Brenner & Theodore, 2002; Harvey, 2005; 2007;

Peck & Tickell, 2002). The creation of education markets enabled through the closing of public schools is constitutive of neoliberalism as ‘creative destruction’, implicating education reforms in broader process of neoliberal urbanism and the racialised reimagination of urban space to aid capital accumulation (Buras, 2013; Harvey, 2007; Lipman, 2011). Critically, scholars comment on the profound implications of neoliberal education reform on urban communities of colour, in which high-stakes standardised testing fails to account for the legacy of racialised disinvestment in educational opportunities, and instead facilitates disproportionate school closings in African

American neighbourhoods (Au, 2009; Lipman, 2011; Lipman & Haines, 2007). Thus, despite more than sixty years since Brown v Board of Education1, contemporary public education policies remain inherently spatialised, and African Americans’ access to educational opportunities remains inextricably bound to the legacy of racial segregation, disenfranchisement, and systematic disinvestment by political elites (Massey & Denton, 1993; Squires & Kubrin,

2005; Lipman, 2011).

Chicago is at the forefront of neoliberal governance and has instigated some of the most ambitious revitalisation and restructuring agendas seen in the United States, with key public institutions including public housing and education radically overhauled and increasingly

1 Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). The Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were inherently unequal and the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine of Plessy v Ferguson (1896) was overturned. The ruling paved the way for school desegregation. 1 privatised (Crump, 2002; Hyra, 2012; Lipman, 2011). In 2004, Chicago’s Board of Education launched ‘Renaissance 2010’ (Ren2010), a neoliberal education reform that intended to revitalise the Chicago Public School (CPS) system through market-oriented governance, holding schools accountable and promoting competition under the ideology of ‘school choice’. However, the Board of Education sought to open over 100 new ‘renaissance schools’ of choice to be managed by private educational organisations, resulting in disproportionate closings of ‘failing’ traditional neighbourhood schools in low-income African American communities in order to promote the growth of the education market (Lipman & Haines, 2007). Critically, Arne Duncan, who launched Ren2010 as CPS CEO, espoused the role of the free market in regulating public education, and arguably his promotion to Secretary of Education under President Obama contributed to the expansion of choice ideologies into the national strategy (Lipman, 2011).

Chicago’s urban transformations and policy implementations have long revealed key lessons for political elites nationally, yet despite being paradigmatic, Chicago remains a starkly divided city of neighbourhoods in which reform is disproportionately implemented in low-income communities of colour, resulting in profound implications for the stability of systematically disenfranchised and racialised communities (Harvey, 2005; Lipman, 2011; Nijman, 2000;

Squires et al., 1987).

1.1. The Bronzeville Neighbourhood

The historic African American neighbourhood of Bronzeville on Chicago’s South Side has long been exploited by Chicago’s elites as an incubator for socio-spatial transformation under forces of capital accumulation by dispossession, and thus, has endured extensive large-scale racialised restructuring and systematic disinvestment throughout its history (Boyd, 2008; Hyra, 2008). In the early 20th Century, Bronzeville became a racial refuge for African Americans in Chicago, and was home to a vibrant Black culture, successful Black businesses, and a world-renowned Jazz scene (Boyd, 2008; Drake & Cayton, 1970). However, racist housing policies confined

Black populations to Bronzeville contributing to rampant overcrowding and slum conditions,

2 exacerbated by the onset of the Great Depression (Drake & Cayton, 1970; Hunt, 2009; Spear,

1967). Subsequent urban renewal and revitalisation projects led to Bronzeville being home to the largest concentration of public housing in the United States, with over 40 high-rise buildings concentrated in a three-mile stretch, contributing to serious overcrowding in the neighbourhood’s segregated Black schools (Herrick, 1970; Hunt, 2001). Critically, the roll-out of neoliberal housing and education policies over the last thirty years ignited significant trauma and community destabilisation, as the recent demolition of over 10,000 public housing units displaced thousands of residents, providing justification to shutter many of the neighbourhood’s depopulated and disinvested open-enrolment public schools under Ren2010 (Ewing, 2018;

Lipman & Hursch, 2007). Thus, Bronzeville’s complex racialised history, defined by large-scale urban transformation, makes it an important site for examining the ways in which ahistorical and colour-blind reform is enacted and resisted by Black communities who have endured perpetual institutionalised disinvestment and dispossession of key public institutions throughout history.

Measuring just thirteen square kilometres Bronzeville is a geographically small, yet profoundly significant African American neighbourhood within the community areas of Douglas and Grand

Boulevard. As a low-income African American neighbourhood on prime Chicago real estate, located just three miles south of downtown Chicago, Bronzeville is a critical site for exploring neighbourhood-level implications of city-wide policies. Notably, under Ren2010, Bronzeville has endured disproportionately high numbers of school closings, with the neighbourhood losing over 20 traditional public schools since 2000 (Ewing, 2018; Lutton et al., 2018). As such, the neighbourhood’s public school system is highly fractured and privatised and there are currently only two traditional open-enrolment neighbourhood high schools, yet eight ‘choice’ high schools with city-wide attendance boundaries, including charter and selective enrolment programs (CPS,

2021a). Figure 1.1. situates Bronzeville in the racially segregated city of Chicago.

Data sourced from the US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2018 Estimates. Created with MAP Publisher and Adobe Illustrator. (Sandeman) Figure 1.1. Map illustrating the racial segregation of African American residents in Chicago, Illinois

1.2. Research Objectives This study adopts a qualitative research design combining a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) with the central tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in order to examine the dominant and

4 counter discourses of Renaissance 2010 in the historically racialised and systematically disenfranchised Bronzeville neighbourhood. In particular, this research seeks to reveal how neoliberal education reform was differentially enacted and resisted by the city’s elites and the

Bronzeville community, and notably gives greater weight to the legitimate lived-experiences and discursive formations of the African American community. In doing so, this research contributes to the developing body of literature on how Black communities discursively and spatially resist changes to educational opportunities under neoliberal ideologies, and builds on existing scholarship which reveals how neoliberal education reform implicated in broader processes of neoliberal urbanism disproportionately harms communities of colour. The following research objectives guide this thesis:

i. Examine the ways in which key stakeholder groups differentially characterise and experience the changes in educational opportunities under Renaissance 2010.

ii. Critically analyse how the opposing stakeholder groups spatially enact and resist neoliberal education reform in Bronzeville.

Through exploring these objectives, this thesis promotes the agency of Black communities in disrupting and resisting the dominant neoliberal agenda in the fight for educational and racial justice, and reveals the importance of spatialising oppositional politics to transform perpetually disinvested neighbourhoods into important sites of resistance.

In the following chapters, a detailed literature review is first conducted to establish what is known about the neoliberalisation of public education and its implication in neoliberal urbanism and the production of space. The review reveals key conceptual considerations for understanding how education reform spatially restructures urban landscapes both materially and symbolically,

5 and advocates critical race research as an important lens for further scholarship on understanding community resistance to urban change. Chapter 3 synthesises the intertwined history and impact of housing and education reform policies on the racialised geography of opportunity in

Bronzeville, and reveals the disproportionate impact of Ren2010 on the community. Following, Chapter 4 describes the research methodology, explores the theoretical underpinnings of a critical discourse analysis with critical race praxis, and explains the research design, data sources, and key stages of analysis. Chapter 5 presents a critical analysis of the discursive formations of Ren2010 in Bronzeville. Analysis focuses first on the divergent discursive practices of the key stakeholder groups, before presenting a detailed examination on the spatial strategies employed by the opposing groups to enact and resist the dominant and counter discourses. Critically, this chapter explores the agency of Black communities in disrupting neoliberal agendas and contesting cultural hegemonies inherent in neoliberal education structures. The analysis concludes with an overview of the important findings and important considerations for the centralising of race and Black voices in future research and policy.

2. Neoliberalism, Education Reform, and the Production of Urban Space

Extensive examination of the literature on education reform, neoliberal urbanism, and the production of space reveals key conceptual considerations for analysing how the Bronzeville community conceptualise, contest, and experience education change under the spatial restructuring of Chicago. Over the last thirty years, neoliberalism has infiltrated the public education system to transform education into an economic good, increasingly governed by private operators and held accountable through high-stakes standardised testing. Yet, neoliberal reforms across society have resulted in the spatial transformation of cities through the disproportionate displacement and disinvestment of communities of colour, giving rise to community-driven contestations and the creation of alternative spaces for resistance. This literature review situates recent public education reforms within broader processes of neoliberal urbanism, before examining the ways in which racialised urban space reproduces hegemonic power, and more critically how Black communities engage in oppositional politics through the production of alternative spaces to contest neoliberal urban change.

2.1. Neoliberal Urbanism and Education Reform Neoliberalism has significantly transformed contemporary social and political economies through the deregulation of state governance, driven by the ideology that individual choice in a self-regulating and competitive market will aid the accumulation of capital and economic development (Brenner & Theodore; 2002; Harvey, 2005). Such agendas, however, are known to result in the privatisation of public goods and services, the retrenchment of the welfare state, and a predisposition toward global capital, the consequences of which lead to highly uneven urban geographies and the exacerbation of race- and class-based inequalities (Harvey, 2005; 2007;

Peck & Tickell, 2002). Scholars argue that neoliberalism operates through both destructive ‘roll- back’ and creative ‘roll-out’ state intervention policies, firstly to destroy existing practices and institutions which inhibit capital accumulation, and secondly to create new markets and practices

7 which could serve to aid capital accumulation (Peck & Tickell, 2002). Harvey (2007) outlines how neoliberalism as ‘creative destruction’ is both shaped by and reinforces class structures across unequal geographies. The creation of education markets enabled through the closing of public schools is constitutive of neoliberalism as creative destruction, implicating education reform policies in the spatial re-ordering of the city through capital accumulation by dispossession (Buras, 2013; Lipman, 2011).

Over the last thirty years, the neoliberal state has instigated extensive transformation and spatial restructuring of urban education, in which market-oriented governance prioritises the ideology of private sector efficiency in regulating public education. The expansion of urban education markets through increased accountability and the roll-out of school choice policies implicates public education in broader processes of neoliberal urbanism and ‘accumulation by dispossession’ (Buras, 2013; Hankins, 2007; Harvey, 2005; Lipman, 2004; Lipman, 2011;

Lipman & Haines, 2007). Scholars argue that high-stakes standardised testing provides justification to close ‘failing’ schools predominantly in communities of colour, supporting gentrification, the return of capital to the city, and a new politics of containment of poor People of Colour (Au, 2016; Good, 2017b; N. Smith, 2002; J. Smith & Stovall, 2008). Colour-blind policies fail to consider the structures that create and perpetuate low educational attainment among African American youths, where under-performing schools are a direct result of historic disinvestment, segregation, and unequal property tax distribution (Good, 2017a; Owens, 2017). Examination of the literature on the facets of education reform reveals several key considerations for the spatial implications of public education in the racialised restructuring of the city, each of which is considered below.

2.1.1. Neoliberalisation of Public Education: Accountability and School Choice Neoliberal ideologies prioritise the freedom to consume and make choices in a market, which in the context of public education results in increased accountability through testing to promote

8 competition and choice between schools, in a market where parents and students are consumers

(Apple, 2006; Au, 2016; Lipman, 2011). Ideologically, school choice policy serves as a mechanism which has the potential to break down the geographic barriers preventing educational attainment, by enabling students to choose schools out with their neighbourhood and therefore mitigating racial and social inequalities that result from unequal geographies of opportunity

(Berends, 2015; Bonds et al., 2009; Owens, 2017; Massey & Denton, 1993; Squires & Kubrin,

2005). However, school choice policy is founded on the assumption that ‘choices’ in a free- market are equal, in which “most people will exercise their right to choose, and if they do make a choice, it will be a well-informed one” (Huddleston, 2017, 155). School choice in practice relies on high-stakes standardised testing to quantify both student performance and school quality, providing data for ‘consumers’ (parents and students) to make school choices, determining which schools are chosen or avoided, and which students will be accepted or rejected (Au, 2009; 2016; Lipman, 2004; Ravitch, 2016). Critically, standardised testing is also utilised to provide justification to school boards on which ‘failing’, and ‘underperforming’ schools should be closed

(Au, 2009; Au, 2016; Lipman, 2004; Lipman & Haines, 2007). Thus, to improve ‘failing’ schools, the neoliberal state champions the notion that schools will continue to fail to provide quality education unless engaged in a market of competition through school choice, resulting in either performance improvement or justification for closure (Butler & Hamnett, 2007;

Billingham & Hunt, 2016; Lipman, 2011).

The adoption of market-logics in public education systems creates profound implications for urban communities of colour, in which legacies of racialised disinvestment, and high-stakes standardised testing result in the exacerbation of stratified educational opportunities, perpetuation of attainment inequalities, and disproportionate school closings in African

American neighbourhoods (Anyon, 1997; Au, 2016; Billingham & Hunt, 2016; Kotok et al., 2017; Lipman, 2004; 2011). Critically, the literature exposes the dissonance between the theory and practical application of school choice policy, in which standardised testing fails to account

9 for the legacy of racialised educational injustice, which stratifies test scores by race and class, thus further constraining disadvantaged students from engaging in the choice process equally and accessing better quality schools (Au, 2009; Lipman, 2004). Additionally, colour-blind policies also fail to consider the socio-economic constraints restricting disadvantaged students from logistically engaging in school choice in large urban areas, which often involves significant travel across cities and gang territories (Kotok et al., 2017; Shedd, 2015; Lipman, 2011).

Many scholars argue that school choice reinforces segregation, facilitated through the exodus of

White students, and the concentration of ‘low-performing’ Black students in under-resourced traditional public schools (Berends, 2015; Butler & Hamnett, 2007; Kotok et al., 2017; Riel et al., 2018; Saporito, 2003). Consequently, while the retrenchment of judicial oversight in regulating the racial composition of charter schools catalyses White flight, territorial stigmatisation inhibits the movement of students and teachers to ghettoised and disinvested

‘other’ communities. (Anyon, 1997; Kotok et al., 2017; Saporito, 2003; Taylor et al., 2019;

Wacquant, 2008). Critically, the reliance on free-market logics to ‘fix’ educational opportunities fails to consider that not everyone will be able to exercise their right to choose, thus for African

American students systematically hindered from exercising their right to choose, the schools in which they remain are flagged as under-enrolled, under-resourced, and low-performing; a key strategy which provides justification for their closure or turnaround to private operators

(Huddleston, 2017; Lipman, 2011). Thus, scholars argue that school choice policy is instead implicated in the exacerbation and perpetuation of unequal geographies of opportunity.

Racially demarcated neighbourhood boundaries have long determined educational opportunities, as school quality is capitalised into house prices, and property taxes disproportionately fund neighbourhood schools, driving a cycle of segregation, and creating a racialised geography of educational opportunity (Anyon, 1997; Bonds et al., 2009; Massey & Denton, 1993; Owens,

2017). Geographically differentiated program offerings result in an overrepresentation of

10 military academies and non-academic vocational programs in predominantly low-income communities of colour, in comparison to rigorous college preparatory, Advanced Placement, and STEM programs offered more widely in White and wealthy schools (Lipman, 2004; Orfield,

1996). Additionally, teaching and discipline within schools further influences whether African American students are empowered or discouraged in their educational journey, as instruction is often delivered by well-intentioned but implicitly biased White educators, whose cultural inability to understand racialised students’ lived experiences can foster resistance and low self- esteem in the classroom (Carter et al., 2017; Gershenson et al., 2018; Howard & Navarro, 2016;

Warikoo et al., 2016). Meritocracy narratives also guide teacher expectations, and scholars argue that as implicit bias emerges through unequal expectations and entrenched stereotypes, excessive punishments and exclusionary practices disproportionately harm African American students; first, by removing them from the classroom, and thus the learning environment, and second, through the intensification and disproportionate contact of Black youths with law enforcement at a young age (Anyon, 1997; Morris & Perry, 2016; Rosenbaum, 2018; Shedd, 2015). Out-of- school conditions further stratify racial disparities in educational attainment and opportunity, as financial constraints limit children’s access to learning opportunities, particularly over summer breaks when attainment gaps widen through ‘summer fall-back’ (Farkas, 2003; Gershenson et al., 2018).

Scholars assert that education reform serves not to eliminate or mitigate against existing disparities, but through standardised testing and school choice policy, is instead implicated in the generation of new barriers to opportunity that perpetuate existing unequal geographies of opportunity by classifying schools, and their students, as good or bad, determining whether they are worthy of investment or subject to disinvestment (Huddleston, 2017; Lipman, 2004; Lipman,

2011; Ravitch, 2016). Critically, standardised testing fails to account for the structural disadvantages of systemically racialised populations, in which the prohibition of African

American education throughout slavery, de jure school segregation, and on-going exclusionary

11 curricula that prioritises White history and experiences, stratifies educational opportunities and attainment by race and class (Au, 2016; Howard & Navarro, 2016; Tate, 1997). Thus, high- stakes standardised testing is not a neutral means to gauge attainment and success, but rather is an inherently exclusionary mechanism that produces differentiated student identities for a racially stratified job market (Lipman, 2004; Orfield, 1996; Ravitch, 2016). Scholars expose the racialised implications of attaching market logics to public education systems, particularly as testing masks the historical legacy and structural disadvantages imposed on students of colour, and prioritises a system in which ‘choice’ is inhibited through test-score based selective enrolment and socio-economic barriers.

School choice policy is also a mechanism for disinvesting from ‘failing’ traditional neighbourhood schools, justifying their closure to make way for the growth of privately-operated schools and the restructuring of the urban landscape to encourage capital accumulation (Lipman,

2011). School closings are justified in a landscape of increased accountability, in which individual ‘choice’ in a free-market masks the systemic state disinvestment of public institutions, which determines the extent to which students can exercise choice into or out of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ schools (Au, 2016; Good, 2017a; Huddleston, 2017). As Wacquant outlines, “it is as if public policies were designed to devalorize public institutions so as to encourage exit into the private sector by all those who can still leave the sinking ship of the hyperghetto and its separate and unequal facilities” (2008, 222). School closings are therefore a mechanism of disinvestment masquerading as ‘choice’, which facilitates the privatisation of public education, enabling the growth of privately managed charter and choice schools (Buras, 2013; Lipman, 2011). Critically, the legacy of racialised disinvestment and exclusionary curricula result in volatile school closings occurring disproportionately in low-income African American communities, exacerbating the destabilisation of the community and its educational opportunities (Ewing, 2018; Lipman, 2011; Lipman & Haines, 2007).

Thus, education reform and the neoliberalisation of public education through increased accountability and school choice exacerbates barriers to educational opportunity, by relying on standardised testing which stratifies students by race and class, and subsequently systematically disinvesting from ‘failing’ neighbourhood schools (Lipman, 2004; Lipman & Haines, 2007). Scholars argue that state disinvestment of neighbourhood schools is a clear example of neoliberal urban restructuring by encouraging growth of the private education market, espousing the notion of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ and enabling the spatial restructuring of the city by capital (Buras, 2013; Harvey, 2005; Lipman, 2011).

2.1.2. Neoliberal Urbanism: Accumulation by Dispossession

Scholars argue that the paradigmatic shift towards market-oriented governance has resulted in an intensified geographic transformation of urban spaces, in which “neoliberalisation is both predicated on and realised through uneven spatial development” (Peck et al., 2009, 52). The inner contradictions of capitalism restructure the city, in which the overaccumulation of capital is invested into built environments to further aid economic growth for the wealthiest, at the expense of the poorest (Harvey, 2001; 2005; Peck et al., 2009). Most notably, these geographic transformations occur in disadvantaged neighbourhoods framed as ‘blight’, whereby neoliberalism’s creative destruction is manifest through the ‘revitalisation’ and redevelopment of inner-city neighbourhoods to encourage speculative development and capital accumulation (Harvey, 2007; Hyra, 2012; Lees et al., 2008; Peck et al., 2009). Scholars argue that the scale of neoliberal restructuring projects constitutes a ‘new urban renewal’, as the city is reimagined through spatial transformations driven by market forces and global capital (Hyra, 2012). Neoliberalism’s manifestation thus exemplifies the ways in which urban space is constitutive of capital accumulation (Harvey, 2005; N. Smith, 1996).

Scholarship reveals that ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ is manifest through the destruction of low-income blighted neighbourhoods, to make way for the creation of space that enables the growth of new markets and institutions, as exemplified in processes of gentrification and the appropriation of low-income racialised neighbourhoods (Brenner & Theodore, 2002; Harvey, 2007; Lees et al., 2008; Peck et al., 2009; Peck & Tickell, 2002; Smith, 2002). Neoliberal restructuring projects are also inherently connected and path-dependent, in which the systematic disinvestment and destruction of one institution, such as public housing, facilitates the dispossession and destruction of associated institutions, such as public education, thus cumulatively dispossessing neighbourhoods to create new spaces which serve capital accumulation (Brenner & Theodore, 2002). Harvey (2005; 2007) argues that neoliberalism can be conceptualised as a process of ‘accumulation by dispossession’, in which the creation of a new system is both inherently and intentionally destructive, reinforcing race- and class-based hierarchies through the dispossession of the racialised poor. Neoliberal education reform exemplifies accumulation by dispossession, as the systemic disinvestment of inner-city public schools enables the creation of education markets, which further serves to aid gentrification as a strategy for capital accumulation (Lipman, 2011). Examining education reform through the lens of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ is useful in understanding how school closings are deeply implicated in the inequitable spatial logics of capital, and thus, disproportionately impact systemically disinvested low-income racialised neighbourhoods.

2.2. Production of Racialised Space and Black Resistance

Neoliberalism transforms cities both through the material spatial practices that physically restructure the urban landscape, and also through the reframing of neighbourhoods and cities through symbolic and cognitive representations of the urban imaginary (Soja, 1996; Keith &

Pile, 1993; Weber, 2002; Wilson et al., 2004). Lefebvre’s (1991) work on the production of space reveals the contestations between conceived, abstract representations of space, perceived spaces of material social practices, and lived spaces of representation, which Soja (1996)

14 develops to highlight the trialectics of spatiality through the concept of ‘thirdspace’. Critically,

Soja argues that lived spaces of representation are both simultaneously conceived-and-perceived, real-and-imagined. Lived spaces of representation become key sites of resistance, in which competing symbolic representations and social practices are engaged in a spatial struggle over the reproduction and contestation of power (hooks, 1989; Soja, 1996). Thirdspaces, where the real and imagined meet, give rise to the invention of radical spaces through the disruptive material and symbolic practices of Black communities, producing sites of opposition and fostering communities of resistance (Ares, 2017; hooks, 1989; Soja, 1996; Wilson et al., 2004).

Scholars argue that in the spatial production of power, racialised social meanings and practices become attached to specific places and sites, influencing the ways in which space is dominated and claimed by the elite and alternatively experienced by its users (Keith & Pile, 1993; Soja, 1996). Neoliberal ideologies that reimagine the city for capital accumulation rely heavily on racialised discursive practices which strategically reframe and construct neighbourhoods as spaces of ‘blight’ or ‘failure’ to justify their dispossession and subsequent revitalisation (Lipman, 2011; Wacquant, 2008; Weber, 2002; Wilson et al., 2004; Wilson & Sternberg, 2012).

Consequently, in ascribing symbolic meanings to space, the identities of individuals who occupy, live, and experience these spaces are racially reproduced and constructed as a means to control racialised bodies and reproduce hegemony (Delaney, 2002; Hesse, 1993; Jackson, 1987). As

Delaney argues, space is “an ‘enabling technology’ through which race is produced” (2002, 7). Critically, the social construction of Black spaces, such as the ‘inner-city’ and the ‘ghetto’, conflates race and space, in which urban space is inextricably racialised as a mode to maintain social and spatial hierarchy (Delaney, 2002; Gregory, 1998; Wacquant, 2008). Under education reform, framing traditional schools as ‘failing’ in historically racialised and ghettoised neighbourhoods further perpetuates racial stereotypes of ‘dangerous’, ‘unruly’ Black youths, from ‘dysfunctional’ households, systematically encouraging choice out of the school while deterring choice into the school, justifying further disinvestment and dispossession of Black

15 spaces for the purposes of capital accumulation (Lipman, 2004; 2011; Wacquant, 2008). Thus, the neoliberal state maintains social control and hegemonic power through territorial stigmatisation, by classifying institutions in Black spaces as ‘failing’ and ‘under-resourced’, highlighting the importance of recognising the ways in which the elite’s social construction and attachment of symbolic meanings to poor, racialised space reproduces power and control (Soja,

1996; Wacquant, 2008).

Communities of resistance construct distinct and alternative material and symbolic spaces in contestation of neoliberal ideologies and practices that perpetually racialise Black spaces to promote revitalisation agendas and the removal of Black residents from high-value land areas (Gregory, 1998; hooks, 1989; Lipman, 2011; Tyner, 2006; Wacquant, 2008; Wilson et al., 2004).

Social change and the disruption of power enabled through the racialisation of space must therefore revolve around the construction and production of spaces of resistance as conceptualised in ‘the right to the city’ (Gottdiener, 1993; Lefebvre, 1991). Lefebvre and

Harvey’s ‘right to the city’ is both a metaphorical and material struggle of excluded and disinvested communities in transforming the city, and thus themselves (Harvey, 2008). Harvey develops Lefebvre’s work to highlight how urbanisation, an inherently capitalistic phenomenon, exploits and dispossesses poor racialised populations for capital accumulation, denying them of their right to engage in democratic control over the circulation of capital in the city in which they live. The ‘right to the city’ therefore represents an anti-capitalist struggle, perpetuated through neoliberal urbanism and the racialised restructuring of the city by market forces. Thus, in contesting neoliberal ideologies, communities of resistance are engaged in oppositional politics over space in their attempt to remake the city for themselves (Ares, 2017; Gregory, 1998; hooks, 1989; Keith & Pile, 1993; Roy, 2017; Tyner, 2006; Wilson et al., 2004).

Black community resistance centralises the need to widen ‘spaces of engagement’ for politics of opposition, in order to create alternative spaces which collectively empower, articulate, and

16 centralise the social identities and experiences of racialised populations (Cox, 1998; Gregory,

1998; hooks,1989; Tyner, 2006; Wilson et al., 2004). Cox (1998) highlights how communities and individuals mobilise beyond the local spaces in which their day-to-day lives function and depend on, by expanding their reach through the construction of alternative spaces he defines as ‘spaces of engagement’; thus, communities rescale politics through mobilising beyond the local boundaries of their communities to save the spaces on which they depend. Scholars highlight the geographically contingent nature of Black resistance and contestation throughout history, including Black Power and the Black Panther Party’s expansion of their ‘spaces of engagement’ to gain international prominence and voice in an effort to remake their urban spaces (Tyner,

2006). Critically, as Griffin argues “the contest over space is symbolic of the larger contest over [B]lack bodies” (1995 in Delaney 2002, 7), and thus, the ways in which Black bodies are controlled, constructed, and perceived by White elites. Scholars recognise the importance of the multiplicity of the public sphere, in which subaltern counter-publics of excluded and marginalised individuals mobilise and organise to contest the dominant hegemony (Fraser, 1990;

Gregory, 1998). Such mobilisations are crucial for not only disrupting neoliberal and capitalist ideologies, but also for the projection and representation of Black needs, interests, and identities

(Fraser, 1989; hooks, 1989). Thus, oppositional politics of Black communities utilises spatial strategies to both contest the material dispossession of urban space, and critically the perpetual racialisation of those spaces’ residents under colour-blind neoliberal governance.

In claiming the ‘post-racial’ society, neoliberalism’s colour-blindness absolves elites of responsibility in eradicating racial inequality and ignores the perpetuation of structural and institutional racism that permeates every aspect of society (Au, 2016; Carter et al., 2017; Lipman, 2011; Tate, 1997). Yet, the continued racialisation of spaces through market-oriented governance is inextricably implicated in the racialisation of social identities (Delaney, 2002; Kobayashi & Peake, 2000; Lipsitz, 2007; Price, 2010). Race, and its social and spatial construction is thus central to the ‘right to the city’, with critical race theorists calling for the

17 urgent need to challenge dominant discourses and re-centralise race in education policy and research (Carter et al., 2017; Howard & Navarro, 2016; Stovall, 2006; Tate, 1997). The central tenets of critical race theory (CRT) seek to reveal the endemic nature of racism in society through research and policy which centralises race, challenges dominant ideologies, and most importantly, centralises the experiential knowledge and counter stories of People of Colour

(Solórzano & Yosso, 2002; Tate, 1997).

2.3. Conclusion

Examination of the literature reveals key conceptual considerations for understanding the ways in which neoliberalism’s infiltration into the public education system disproportionately impacts communities of colour. Critically, this review reveals the complex interconnections of education reform in the spatial restructuring of the city, in which the dispossession and disinvestment of neighbourhood schools justifies school closings, enabling the growth of education markets in gentrifying neighbourhoods. Scholarship on the production of space also explores the ways in which urban space is implicated in the reproduction of hegemonic power and racial hierarchies, and thus, gives important insight into the ways in which communities of colour spatially contest neoliberal education reform both symbolically and materially. Thus, adopting a framework on the production of racialised space and resistance provides important theoretical considerations when examining how Black communities contest neoliberal agendas implicated in the restructuring of Black urban space.

Scholarship to date has largely concentrated on the deconstruction of dominant neoliberal elite agendas and the ways in which space is racialised to reproduce power and facilitate capital accumulation. Fewer scholars have attempted to examine and deconstruct the counter-discourses and spatial tactics of Black communities of resistance in contesting neoliberal agendas across different scales. Notably, spaces of resistance are critical platforms for the elevation of counter- stories and -discourses which contest the dominant neoliberal ideology, and are key sites for

18 research which seeks to challenge the structures of White supremacy and promote spatialised tactics of resistance in Black communities. Thus, in promoting the ‘right to the city’ as a contestation over ‘accumulation by dispossession’, critical race research can serve to centralise and promote legitimate racialised experiences, and build on scholarship which highlights Black resistance to urban change from an educational perspective.

3. Bronzeville: Public Housing and Education in the Black Metropolis

Bronzeville has endured large-scale racialised urban transformation and systemic disinvestment of public institutions, making it a critical site for examining the ways in which neoliberal education reform is enacted and resisted by Black communities at the neighbourhood-level. In

Chicago, neoliberal urbanism instigated some of the most ambitious revitalisation plans seen in the United States with key public institutions, such as public housing and education, radically overhauled and increasingly privatised (Crump, 2002; Hyra, 2012; Lipman, 2011). Critically, as a city of distinct neighbourhoods, the impact of these revitalisation plans varied greatly across Chicago. The roll-out of neoliberal policies in the Bronzeville neighbourhood ignited a period of significant disruption, trauma, and insecurity extending over the past thirty years, with the demolition of over 10,000 public housing units displacing thousands of residents, and contributing to serious issues for the provision of basic human rights such as shelter and education. The disproportionate implementation of housing reform through Chicago’s ‘Plan for Transformation’2 is directly implicated in the restructuring of public education in Bronzeville and the closure of over twenty neighbourhood schools under ‘Renaissance 2010’, both of which are defined by the legacy of institutional regulation and social control that marked much of the preceding century. Critically, the interconnectedness of Chicago’s housing and education reform policies reveal how neoliberal restructuring projects are inextricably connected and path dependent on the institutional regulations that preceded and defined their emergence.

In 2004, Chicago’s Board of Education launched ‘Renaissance 2010’ (Ren2010), a neoliberal education reform driven by the same ideologies as ‘Plan for Transformation’, which prioritised market logics, consumer choice, and arose out of serious fiscal crises and endemic policy

2 The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) launched ‘Plan for Transformation’ in 2000 using federal funds through the Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE VI) initiative, which sought to demolish distressed public housing complexes and improve accountability amongst public housing residents by issuing vouchers to encourage choice in the private market. (See Section 3.1.2.) 20 failures. However, these were not isolated events, but rather were determined and connected by the historical legacy of racialised control over the ways in which Black people were allowed to live in Chicago. Thus, Bronzeville’s history, emblematic of large-scale urban transformations driven by racialised urban policies, is central to understanding the ways in which education reform was enacted and experienced in the neighbourhood. This chapter first provides important contextual information on Bronzeville’s racialised history, enabling a detailed exploration of the intertwined racialised impacts of neoliberal policies which sought to replace publicly funded housing and schools with choice models that encourage growth of the private housing and education markets. The following section explores the racialised history of housing and education in the neighbourhood, and thus, the disparate impact of Chicago’s ‘Plan for Transformation’, before outlining Chicago’s ‘Renaissance 2010’ plan and its disproportionate impact on Bronzeville with its declining and destabilised population.

3.1. History of Chicago’s Black Metropolis: Segregated Housing and Schools Recent neoliberal policies in public housing are the latest phase in a long history of state interventions in the housing market that have disproportionately and negatively impacted African Americans in Bronzeville. In the early 20th Century, the influx of African American populations from the South and the predominance of racist housing practices, White hostility, and race-based restrictive covenants in the North, led to the ghettoisation and systemic confinement of Black populations in Bronzeville (Drake & Cayton, 1970; Hunt, 2009; Wilson, 1987). However,

Bronzeville was more than merely a Black Ghetto, it became a racial refuge and metropolis, a place in which there was a vibrant Black culture, with successful Black businesses, strong community leaders, and a bustling social and arts scene (Boyd, 2008; Drake & Cayton, 1970).

Rapid population growth due to migration between 1910 and 1920 led to significant overcrowding and the increased visibility of African Americans in Chicago, resulting in the violent augmentation of segregation in Bronzeville; “as Negroes became more numerous and

21 conspicuous, [W]hite hostility increased and Negroes encountered an ever more pervasive pattern of exclusion” (Spear, 1967, 48). In contrast to the neoliberal policies implemented over the last thirty years which attempted to deconcentrate poor, Black populations, the housing policies and practices in the early 20th Century systematically worked to concentrate and contain African Americans in small sections of the city.

Overcrowding, resulting from racist housing practices, and the Great Depression saw Bronzeville enter into a period of neighbourhood decline from the 1930s. Sustained migration however, resulted in extreme population density, with over 150,000 people living in Bronzeville’s three square miles by 1940, creating demographic challenges that would transform the neighbourhood’s public education and housing institutions for decades to come (Ewing, 2018;

Wirth & Bernert, 1949). Subsequently, post-World War II urban renewal and revitalisation in Bronzeville led to the razing of overcrowded slums, and the expansion of the new vertical

‘second ghetto’ by the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) in the form of high-rise public housing complexes (Hirsch, 2009, see Figure 3.1.). Scholars argue that this signified contemporary ghettoisation and the continued racialised confinement of severely disadvantaged

Black populations in Bronzeville (Hirsch, 2009; Hunt, 2009). The literal rise and fall of Chicago’s public housing complexes is perhaps the most tumultuous period in Bronzeville’s housing history.

Figure 3.1.: Transformation of Bronzeville from overcrowded slums to the ‘second ghetto’. ‘Federal Street Slums’ (left) were demolished to make way for the construction of public housing in the imposing ‘State Street Corridor’ (right). Images sourced from Hirsch, 2009, 26 & 244 respectively.

Chicago’s public housing stock was extensive, and despite some geographical scattering across the city, the CHA’s largest public housing complexes, both in terms of unit numbers and storeys, were predominantly concentrated in the small, ghettoised neighbourhood of Bronzeville (Hirsch,

2009; Hunt, 2009). The high-rise ‘projects’ of the ‘State Street Corridor’ were vast, becoming increasingly more imposing towards the southern end of the corridor where the Robert Taylor

Homes were located, which Hirsch argues “cast the shadow of the original Black Belt in concrete” (Hirsch, 2009, 262). The Robert Taylor Homes were not just the CHA’s largest complex, they also represented the largest public housing complex in the United States, comprising 28 identical 16-storey high-rise buildings, housing 4,400 family units (Hirsch, 2009;

Hunt, 2001). With nearly 8,000 public housing units in the ‘State Street Corridor’, and a further

3,000 units in the ‘Wells Group’ located nearer the lakeside, public housing in Bronzeville became almost impossible to maintain, particularly under severe fiscal crises (Hunt, 2001; 2009; Venkatesh, 2000). The State Street Corridor housed the majority of the CHA’s ‘family apartment’ complexes, which comprised three- and four-bedroom units, and led to the significant concentration of youths. As youths overwhelmed Bronzeville, both in the ‘projects’ and the

23 schools, the exertion of collective efficacy by the outnumbered adults became a serious challenge, leading to the rise of vandalism, extreme violence, and social disorder.

3.1.1. Concentration of Youths and Overcrowded Schools

The construction of the Robert Taylor Homes in 1962 alone brought over 10,000 additional elementary aged children into Bronzeville, which soon became a neighbourhood of children, with over 16,000 children per square mile compared to the city average of 4,000 children per square mile, thus placing significant pressure on Bronzeville’s public-school system (Ewing,

2018; Herrick, 1970; Hunt, 2001; Rury, 1999). Bronzeville’s overcrowded yet under-resourced Black schools neighboured half-empty White schools, yet school segregation and active dissent by White residents prevented Black children from enrolling (Spear, 1967). Consequently, public education in Bronzeville during the 1950s and 1960s saw Black children placed on double-shifts, with pupils attending in the morning and swapping in the afternoon, in schools where the per- pupil expenditure was only two-thirds of those received by White schools (Rury, 1999). However, Herrick notes “the really astonishing thing was the number of Negro children who managed to get a sound and useful education and find places for themselves in an unhelpful world”, a world in which they were unjustly denied the educational opportunities afforded to

White children (1970, 306).

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Superintendent3, Benjamin Willis, was a prominent figure during this period, in which his commitment to the neighbourhood school saw him denounce bussing by not permitting “schools to become an instrument for the transformation of the spatial relationships of power and privilege that defined Chicago’s landscape” (Rury, 1999, 131).

However, the consequential construction of more Black schools and temporary trailer classrooms further entrenched racial segregation into Chicago’s landscape, prevented Black children from

3 In 1995, the Chicago Public Schools ‘Superintendent’ was replaced with ‘Chief Executive Officer’. 24 attending suitably resourced and under-enrolled nearby White schools, and failed to properly alleviate problems of overcrowding and inequalities in education (Herrick, 1970; Rury, 1999, see Figure 3.2.).

Figure 3.2.: Willis Wagons and overcrowding in Black schools. Temporary trailer classrooms called ‘Willis Wagons’ (left) were erected to alleviate overcrowding in Black schools, as photographed in the overcrowded study hall at DuSable High School (right) Images sourced from ’63 Boycott, 2014 and City of Chicago, 2012.

For African Americans, Willis’ failure to act on school integration resulted in the temporary classroom trailers for Black schools being coldly referred to as ‘Willis Wagons’ with calls for his removal as superintendent (Anderson & Pickering, 1986; Herrick, 1970). Critically, anger in the

Black community led to the growth of community resistance and mobilisation efforts on educational justice, with protests against Willis and CPS adopting resistance and dissent tactics of sit-ins, strikes, and marches that would continue to be utilised more than 60 years later (Anderson & Pickering, 1986; Rury, 1999).

3.1.2. Housing Reform: Depopulation and Destabilisation Despite once being an overcrowded neighbourhood, the demise of Bronzeville’s public housing initiated major demographic changes in the neighbourhood, facilitated in part by systemic disinvestment by Chicago’s Housing Authority, the lifting of racially restrictive housing practices, and latterly the implementation of housing reform. In 2000, Chicago launched its

HOPE VI initiative ‘Plan for Transformation’, which intended to promote self-sufficiency and

25 increased accountability amongst public housing residents, demolish severely distressed complexes, and prioritise mixed income development. Discourses of disaster, which were central to the justification of housing reform, perpetuated stereotypical and stigmatised perceptions of public housing that blamed ‘blight’, poverty, and urban disorder on the geographic concentration of the poor (Crump, 2002; Slater, 2013). With the largest concentration of public housing in the

United States, Chicago’s ‘Plan for Transformation’ disproportionately affected Bronzeville, with the neighbourhood losing over 10,000 public housing units to demolition, razing the ‘State Street Corridor’, and leaving extensive vacant lots that remain today. With demolition, Bronzeville experienced major demographic changes, in particular the loss of youths from the projects, and therefore the neighbourhood schools, leading to a marked drop in school enrolment numbers (Ewing, 2018). Table 3.1. outlines the dramatic loss of Bronzeville’s population and children between 1950 and 2010.

Table 3.1.: Total Population and number of children in Bronzeville, 1950 – 2010. (Chicago Statistical Abstract and Census Data for the Douglas and Grand Boulevard Community Areas).

Bronzeville Total Population Total Children (Ages 0-18) 1950 193,302 54,434 1970 121,426 54,664 1990 66,549 25,527 2010 40,167 14,039

The strategic demolition of public housing to deconcentrate poverty and remove poor racialised tenants from the inner city was inextricably bound up in processes of gentrification and urban restructuring, with scholars conceptualising deconcentration and demolition housing policies of the 1990s, as a ‘new urban renewal’ driven by neoliberal agendas seeking to restructure and reimagine Chicago through spatial transformations and market forces (Crump, 2002; Goetz,

2011; Hammel, 2006; Hyra, 2012; Samara et al., 2013; Vale, 2013). Critically, demolition led to the destabilisation of community support networks, with scholars arguing the repercussions of such actions not only failed to improve the conditions and opportunities for highly stigmatised

26 public housing tenants, but they also generated trauma and exacerbated tenants’ anguish (Crump,

2002; Miller, 2008; Samara et al., 2013). The impact of ‘Plan for Transformation’ in Bronzeville is complex and multifaceted, not least for the impact on public housing tenants, but particularly for its role in enabling neoliberal education reform to disproportionately impact Bronzeville through the consequential destabilisation and closure of public schools under ‘Renaissance

2010’. As Wacquant outlines “few organizations are more revealing to the degree of institutional abandonment suffered by Chicago’s hyperghetto than public schools” (2008, 85).

3.2. Neoliberal Education Reform: Chicago’s ‘Renaissance 2010’ Four years after the launch of the ambitious housing reform plans for Chicago’s public housing stock, the Chicago Board of Education launched an equally ambitious plan to revitalise Chicago Public Schools under ‘Renaissance 2010’ (Ren2010). CPS intended to close up to 70 failing public schools, and open 100 new ‘renaissance schools’ of choice, over two-thirds of which would be operated by private and for-profit education organisations (Lipman, 2009; Lipman & Haines, 2007). The Board sought to improve educational opportunities by holding schools accountable for student attainment and test-score performance. In doing so, Ren2010 epitomised the role of the private market in improving educational opportunities by promoting individual choice and competition amongst schools, and ultimately prioritising efficiency in a public school system managed by private organisations.

However, scholars argue that CPS’ rationale for closing chronically underperforming schools is implicated in broader neoliberal urban restructuring projects which seek to remove poor racialised communities from inner-city real estate through gentrification (Ewing, 2018; Lipman

& Hursch, 2007; Lipman, 2011). Declining school enrolments were used to justify closures, yet scholars argue these are not simply the result of naturally changing demographics, but rather

“declining school enrolments in specific places are socially produced in the nexus of capital

27 accumulation” (Lipman, 2011, 68). The justification of school closings under Ren2010 was predominantly concerned with under-utilised and under-resourced schools, yet scholars and community members questioned how CPS could punish schools for lacking resources which

CPS had systematically denied them of; “how could one person charged with doling out resources condemn an institution for not having enough resources?” (Ewing, 2018, 5). Critically, race was central to the roll-out of Ren2010, as the legacy of racial segregation in housing and schools played a significant role in determining which schools were under-utilised, under- resourced, and under-performing, and thus, would be closed by CPS. Accountability strategies also failed to consider the lens of White privilege from which students were tested, forgetting that just a few decades prior, CPS schools were overcrowded with children from homes of rural South migrants, where education had been systematically denied for centuries that it was “so substandard as to be almost without meaning” (Herrick, 1970, 305).

School closings came to symbolise Ren2010, and despite CPS’ claims to open educational opportunities to all students regardless of geography, race, or ability, Ren2010 instead created a fragmented and complex public school system functioning under free-market logics in a racialised urban landscape. Between 2001 and 2010, CPS closed or ‘turned-around’4 over 80 schools, with a further 119 closed or turned-around between 2011 and 2018, impacting over

70,000 students (Lutton et al., 2018). Significantly, 88% of CPS students who lived through and experienced a school closing or turnaround are Black, highlighting the disproportionate impact of education reform policies on institutionally disinvested communities. Notably, school closings occurred concurrently with public housing demolition, with many students experiencing traumatic displacement from both their homes and their schools, with one teacher stating “the children [from the Robert Taylor Homes] would literally be watching their homes being destroyed. It was hugely traumatic” (Lutton et al., 2018, para. 28). Displaced students were re-

4 Turnaround schools were incorporated in Ren2010 in 2006, in response to protests surrounding school closures. The turnaround process retains students in the same school, but all faculty and staff are dismissed, with operations and management handed over to private educational administrators (Lipman, 2011). 28 allocated to ‘designated welcoming schools’, yet these were often miles away, in unfamiliar communities, and meant students could travel across gang lines (de la Torre et al., 2015; Lipman, Person & KOCO, 2007; Ryan, 2017; Shedd, 2015). Research has also shown that neither

Ren2010, nor Plan for Transformation resulted in public housing students accessing better schools, with 84% of Ren2010 displaced students being reassigned to academically similar schools with below average standardised test scores (Catalyst Chicago, 2007; Lipman, 2011).

Additionally, designated welcoming schools were destabilised as students from rival communities were brought together, resulting in significant tensions over territory between rival gangs, with fights in school escalating into fatal shootings and violence on the streets as students travelled home (Lipman, 2011; Ryan, 2017; Shedd, 2015). Ren2010 received significant criticism for the disproportionate roll-out of school closings in African American neighbourhoods, and for the traumatic destabilisation that students and communities had to endure, sometimes more than once.

Despite radically overhauling the Chicago Public School system by 2010, leaving a trail of destruction and intense community resistance, CPS continued to shutter schools at a rapid rate, with the largest mass closures in Chicago’s history occurring in 2013, when over fifty-four schools were slated for closure. In large part the extension of Ren2010 strategies can also be attributed to President Obama’s Secretary of Education and former CPS CEO during Ren2010,

Arne Duncan, who prioritised choice and competition in the national strategy, and saw closures of chronically failing schools as essential for the privatisation of public education (Lipman,

2011). Today, Chicago’s schools are ranked on a five-tier performance system that is predominantly calculated based on test scores and student outcomes, which are then utilised by CPS to guide their decisions on future closings and turnarounds (CPS, 2021b). Despite the chaotic and disproportionate implementation of Ren2010 and the intense resistance to it, neoliberal strategies remain dominant in Chicago’s educational landscape almost 20 years later.

3.3. School Closings and Choice in Bronzeville

Bronzeville has endured a tumultuous educational history since its founding as the Black Metropolis, yet more than a century later, the neighbourhood’s educational opportunities remain bound to a legacy of racial segregation and systemic disinvestment. Between 2000 and 2013, Bronzeville experienced disproportionately high numbers of school closings, with over 20 neighbourhood schools being permanently closed or turned-around (Ewing, 2018; Lutton et al.,

2018). Figure 3.3. illustrates the geographical concentration of the vast number of school closings in Bronzeville.

Figure 3.3.: Location of school closings in Bronzeville, 2000-2013. (Sandeman)

As outlined in Table 3.2., the majority of Bronzeville schools closed were elementary and middle schools, with seven schools impacted in 2013 alone; of the fifty-four city-wide 2013 closings nearly 13% of these occurred in Bronzeville. Additionally, of the four open-enrolment neighbourhood high schools in Bronzeville, all were slated for closure or turnaround under

Ren2010. These circumstances formed the basis of powerful community resistance to Dyett High

School’s closure, culminating in a hunger strike which led to the extraordinary reversal by CPS to re-open Dyett as an open-enrolment neighbourhood school.

Table 3.2.: Bronzeville Schools Closed or Turned-around, 2000 – 2013

Bronzeville School Year Status Type Daniel Hale Williams Elementary School 2002 Closed Elementary/Middle Terrell Elementary School 2002 Closed Elementary/Middle Carter G. Woodson North Middle School 2003 Closed Elementary/Middle Zenos Coleman Elementary School 2003 Closed Elementary/Middle Donoghue Elementary School 2003 Closed Elementary/Middle Douglas Community Academy School 2004 Closed High School Benjamin W. Raymond Elementary School 2004 Closed Elementary/Middle Doolittle Elementary School 2004 Closed Elementary/Middle Hartigan Elementary School 2004 Closed Elementary/Middle DuSable High School 2006 Closed High School John Farren Elementary School 2006 Closed Elementary/Middle Abbott Elementary School 2009 Closed Elementary/Middle Princeton Elementary School 2009 Closed Elementary/Middle Wendell Phillips High School 2010 Turnaround High School Helen McCorkle Elementary 2010 Closed Elementary/Middle Fuller Elementary School 2012 Turnaround Elementary/Middle Price Elementary School 2012 Closed Elementary/Middle Woodson South Elementary 2012 Turnaround Elementary/Middle Dyett High School 2012 Closed/Re-opened High School Anthony Overton Elementary School 2013 Closed Elementary/Middle Parkman Elementary School 2013 Closed Elementary/Middle Mayo Elementary 2013 Closed Elementary/Middle Williams Elementary and Middle School 2013 Closed Elementary/Middle Pershing West Middle School 2013 Closed Elementary/Middle Crispus Attucks Elementary School 2013 Closed Elementary/Middle Canter Middle School 2013 Closed Elementary/Middle

Figure 3.4.: Photographs of Bronzeville schools slated for closure in 2013. Crispus Attucks Elementary (left) and Overton Elementary (right). Images sourced from Kevil, 2013 and Preservation Chicago, n.d. respectively.

Bronzeville’s school closings occurred alongside pronounced neighbourhood gentrification, with community meetings highlighting how school closures and new renaissance schools are tools of displacement for neighbourhood transformation (Lipman, 2009). However, gentrification resulting from school closings further serves to disadvantage local Bronzeville students, as CPS’ complex admissions process to ‘choice’ schools attempts to equitably distribute seats by socio- economic status, which gentrification significantly alters (Burke, 2018). When applying to

‘choice’ schools, students are ranked against others within their socio-economic tier, however, Bronzeville students experienced noteworthy changes to their CPS socio-economic tier (Table

3.3).

Table 3.3.: Number of school age children per CPS socio-economic tier in Bronzeville, 2012 – 2019. Note: Tier 1 areas have the lowest socio-economic status, while Tier 4 areas have the highest socio-economic status. Tier data per census tract gathered from CPS and aligned with American Community Survey data on the number of school age children per census tract.

2012-2013 2019-2020 Total Children Percent Children Total Children Percent Children Tier 1 4400 47.1 2491 24.5 Tier 2 2734 29.3 4074 40.1 Tier 3 1851 19.8 2765 27.2 Tier 4 356 3.8 825 8.1

Table 3.3. illustrates that the number of Bronzeville students in Tier 1 (the lowest socio- economic tier) almost halved from 2012/13 to 2019/20, while the number of students in Tier 2, 3, and 4 (the highest socio-economic tier) doubled. Consequently, if Bronzeville students with Tier

3 and 4 status applied to the choice process, they would be competing against students from affluent and privileged neighbourhoods that have been afforded much greater educational opportunities by CPS, both through Ren2010 and throughout history. Thus, traditional open- enrolment neighbourhood schools are of critical importance for the Bronzeville community, particularly so when the admissions process to Chicago choice schools is nearly as selective and rigorous as admission to college (Dampier, 2019).

3.4. Dyett High School: The Importance of Community As community cornerstones, Bronzeville’s schools reflect the profound history of the neighbourhood and African American heritage, with the schools named after former residents such as Anthony Overton, founder of the Chicago Bee, and Walter H. Dyett, one of the most influential educators of Bronzeville (Ewing, 2018). For a neighbourhood to name a school after a teacher, Ewing notes “it is a way of saying that a life lived in the service of Bronzeville is a notable life, and that the legacy of someone so dedicated to the community is worth memorialising with something important” (2018, 21). Walter H. Dyett was a profound educator and musician in Bronzeville, and is estimated to have taught over 20,000 students during his career as director of the music program at Wendell Phillips and DuSable High School before his retirement in 1960 (City of Chicago, 2012). Notably, Dyett was more than merely a music teacher, he taught his students responsibility and discipline, and ultimately placed DuSable High School “on the world’s cultural map” as the most influential high school in the history of jazz

(Reich, 2012).

Figure 3.5.: Walter H. Dyett and DuSable High School. Walter H. Dyett led the music programs at Phillips and Dyett, instructing some of the most renowned jazz musicians throughout his career, including Nat King Cole who credits Dyett as fundamental to his success (left). DuSable High School opened in 1935 to relieve overcrowding at Wendell Phillips High School that resulted from the mass migration of African Americans to Bronzeville in the early 20th Century (right). Images sourced from City of Chicago, 2012, 21 and 11 respectively.

DuSable High School, which closed in 2005 and was subsequently split into three privately-run CPS preparatory schools, has since been given landmark status after alumni sought to ensure the lasting legacy of the school after its closure. DuSable cultivated numerous prominent Black leaders, and was profound in inspiring Black students to achieve leadership and success, resulting in an extraordinary list of alumni including renowned Jazz musician Nat King Cole,

Chicago’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington, and John H. Johnson, the first African American on Forbes 400 (Briscoe, 2018; City of Chicago, 2012; Jeffers, 2010). Historian and

DuSable alum, Timuel Black, noted the powerful importance of the school’s community in overcoming the racialised challenges that beset the neighbourhood; “it was a solid community, where education was not only provided, it was demanded” (Briscoe, 2018, para. 11).

Bronzeville continues to uphold the importance of community and neighbourhood schools, and this became especially evident during the community’s resistance to the closing of Walter H.

Dyett High School. In 2012, the Chicago Board of Education voted to phase out5 and ultimately close Dyett High School by 2015 citing low enrolment and poor performance. The Bronzeville community rallied to save Dyett in a four-year campaign, forming the Coalition to Revitalise

Dyett in 2013, holding sit-ins, protests, filing a Title VI Civil Rights complaint alleging racially discriminatory action by CPS, and culminating in a 34-day hunger strike. Jitu Brown, education organiser for the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organisation (KOCO), and national director of the Journey for Justice Alliance (J4J), led the community’s resistance and branded CPS’ demonisation of Dyett’s students and its failing status as ‘sabotage’. Critically, the community argue that Dyett was systematically set up to fail from the beginning, as CPS converted Dyett from a middle school into a high school in 1999 but provided no suitable high school resources to aid with the transition; on the first day there were just seven books in the library (Gutierrez &

Lipman, 2013). In the years that followed CPS continued to cut resources and funding, even when CPS shuttered Englewood High School in 2006 and Dyett became the welcoming school.

CPS also cut Dyett’s successful college preparatory programme, and by 2011 there was just one honours class and no Advanced Placement classes (Gutierrez & Lipman, 2013). As a result of valuable community investment in the face of institutional disinvestment, Brown highlights that

Dyett experienced the largest increase in students going to college in all of Chicago in 2008, and the largest decrease in arrests and suspensions in Chicago for two years running (Gutierrez &

Lipman, 2013; Real News Network, 2015). In 2011, the school was awarded $4 million dollars through the ESPN Rise Up programme which would renovate the school’s athletic facilities. Yet, CPS ignored the community’s efforts in improving student outcomes and gaining external investments, and voted to phase-out Dyett High School by 2015.

Community resistance efforts to Dyett’s phase-out started to succeed when CPS announced in

2014 it had reversed its decision to permanently close Dyett High School, calling for proposals

5 CPS phased-out schools by allowing currently enrolled students to remain until graduation, without admitting new students. 35

for a new school (Adams, 2016; Karp, 2014). However, what followed was a year of broken

promises, delayed hearings, and CPS’ rejection of all proposals, resulting in the Coalition to Revitalise Dyett formally announcing a hunger strike in August 2015 until CPS agreed to move

forward with plans to re-open Dyett as an open-enrolment neighbourhood school under the Coalition’s proposal of Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology High School. On August

17, twelve community activists, composed of local residents, parents, and education activists,

began a gruelling thirty-four-day hunger strike that left two strikers requiring hospitalisation. The community also mobilised hundreds of protestors to disrupt the Mayor’s meetings, attend

protests and sit-ins at City Hall, and help broadcast the story of Dyett each day of the hunger

strike (Figure 3.6.).

Figure 3.6. Photographs taken during the Dyett Hunger Strike in 2015. Activists blocked the elevators during a sit-in at City Hall (top-left); after a peaceful march to President Obama’s Chicago home, community members joined the hunger strikers for a vigil (top -right); during another night of the hunger strike, activists and community members gathered outside the Tribune building for a peaceful protest (bottom-right). Hunger strikers photographed during the sit-in at City Hall (bottom-left). Images sourced from (clockwise) Alliance to Reclaim our Schools, 2021, WYNC, 2015; Mills, 2015; Ramos, 2020. 36

The community’s actions resulted in national media attention, with CPS eventually agreeing to re-open Dyett as a public, open-enrolment school, and in 2016, the school was re-opened as Dyett High School for the Arts, with over $14 million dollars of investments (Masterson, 2016).

The extensive efforts of Bronzeville’s residents, parents, and activists in saving Dyett High School reveal the critical importance of schools as community organisations. Notably, in a highly fragmented public school system - one which disproportionately impacts students of colour and exacerbates racial disparities in education - the community’s actions starkly reveal the importance of traditional open-enrolment neighbourhood schools as key educational institutions in Black communities.

3.5. Conclusion

Bronzeville’s history as a site of disinvestment and disenfranchisement under racial segregation has had a profound impact on the educational opportunities of Bronzeville’s children in the last

20 years, and such patterns are critical to recognise when examining the impact of education reform under neoliberalism. Throughout Bronzeville’s history, its neighbourhood schools have consistently been under-resourced, segregated, and lacking vital investment from CPS, ultimately influencing the educational outcomes of thousands of the neighbourhood’s African American youths. Notably, neoliberal reforms in public housing and education are systematically dismantling Bronzeville’s once vibrant African American community, in which the literal demolition and shuttering of Bronzeville’s public institutions, the same ones that provided fundamental human rights to exploited and oppressed Black populations, symbolises neoliberalism as creative destruction and presents critical challenges that only well-organised and sustained Black community resistance can attempt to disrupt. Thus, the complex interdependency of neoliberal restructuring projects in Bronzeville reveals the force of neoliberal urbanism, enabled by a legacy of racialised institutional disinvestment and the reimagination of the socio-spatial structure of the city.

The Dyett Hunger Strike epitomised the legacy of struggle for educational justice in Bronzeville, in which overcrowded and underfunded Black schools over the last century have endured systematic racialised disinvestment by CPS and city officials. Arguably, the roll-out of Ren2010 in Bronzeville is largely shaped and determined by the neighbourhood’s racialised history, which has endured large-scale transformations at the governance of White elites. Thus, understanding the complex racialised history of the neighbourhood is essential when examining the ways in which neoliberal reform is enacted, experienced, and resisted in Black communities, particularly as neoliberal governance adopts ahistorical and colour-blind logics that mask the conditions upon which reform is founded. Notably, as a neighbourhood which has largely featured as the city’s incubator for trialling socio-spatial transformation, Bronzeville remains a critical site for examining how Black communities resist the socio-spatial reimagination of their community under accumulation by dispossession. The following chapter introduces the methodology, which employs Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the competing discourses that arose out of

Ren2010’s roll-out in Bronzeville.

4. Methodology

Through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this research examines the discursive formations of

Ren2010 to understand how neoliberal education reform was enacted and resisted at the neighbourhood-level. Using a qualitative research design and a detailed systematic assessment of a wide range of secondary data sources, this thesis analyses the discursive practices and spatial strategies of opposing stakeholder groups in characterising, experiencing, and contesting education change. In Chicago, neoliberal education reform is implemented at the city-scale, yet in a perpetually segregated city of neighbourhoods, the impact of reform varies significantly at the local-level. Thus, this study focuses on the historic African American neighbourhood of

Bronzeville, on Chicago’s South Side, to understand the neighbourhood-level implications of city-wide educational reform policies on communities of colour. To strengthen the CDA, this study incorporates Critical Race Theory (CRT) as praxis to centralise race, and the experiences and counter-stories of Bronzeville’s African American community in their resistance to neoliberal education change; thus, greater weight is given to the discourses formed by the

Bronzeville community and the strategies employed in contesting reform. First, this chapter provides an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of CDA supported by CRT. Sections 4.2. and 4.3. outline the qualitative research design, data collection, sources, and stages of analysis.

The chapter concludes with a section on the limitations and considerations of this research, having been conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and intensified Black Lives Matter global protests during Summer 2020.

4.1. Theoretical Underpinnings of a Critical Discourse Analysis

Discourses are powerful modes of language which are both representative and constitutive of social practices, particularly in the reproduction of dominance and social order (Fairclough, 1989; 1993; 1995; 2001). Scholars argue there is a dialectical relationship between language and power, in which discourses and the specific construction and use of language can serve to

39 reproduce and maintain unequal societal structures (Fairclough, 1989; Fairclough & Wodak,

1997; Foucault, 1980; Hall, 1997; van Dijk, 1993a). Thus, discourse is not merely a linguistic concept, but rather the “use of language seen as a form of social practice” (Fairclough, 1995,7).

Building on Foucault’s (1980) work on the production of knowledge through language, Hall defines discourses as “ways of referring to or constructing knowledge about a particular topic of practice”, resulting in discursive formations of “ideas, images, practices, which provide ways of talking about, forms of knowledge and conduct associated with a particular topic, social activity or institutional site in society” (1997, 6). Critical discourse analysts further define discourses as

“diverse representations of social life which are inherently positioned – differently positioned social actors ‘see’ and represent social life in different ways, different discourses” (Fairclough, 2001, 123). Critically analysing discourse can serve to unravel the inherent social structures and the discursive practices used by those in power to maintain them.

Critical discourse analysis recognises the dialectical relationship between language and social practice, and thus power, in which a discursive event is “shaped by situations, institutions and social structures, but it also shapes them… discourse is socially constitutive as well as socially shaped” (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997, 258; van Dijk, 1993a). A critical discourse analysis is thus concerned not simply with analysing texts, but rather the social practices and structures that produce certain discourses, which in turn serve as mechanisms in the reproduction and challenge of power and inequality (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997; Wodak, 2001; van Dijk, 1993a). Fairclough sees ‘texts’ as social spaces of representation and interaction, and thus analysis considers how such texts operate within practice (Fairclough, 1995). CDA provides a valuable analytical framework for research which aims to investigate and expose patterns of unequal power relations, racism, and inequality (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997; Blommaert & Bulcaen,

2000). This approach draws on Foucault’s work on discourse and discursive formations, in which discourse, and groups of statements, produce knowledge and meaning, which shape social practice and conduct (Fairclough, 1993; Hall, 1997; 2001). Notably, CDA is a valuable tool in

40 examining the discursive processes of social change, such as transformation under neoliberalism, in which discourse “‘(re)constructs’ social life in processes of social change” (Fairclough, 2012, 452). Under such processes of social change, a CDA seeks to reveal and understand differential patterns of dominance, social power, and access, most notably, the ways in which power elites attempt to control discourse, and reproduce hierarchies of power (van Dijk, 1993a).

CDA also recognises the inherent spatiality to social practice and power, and thus the dialectical relationship among language, power, and space (Richardson & Jensen, 2003). Critically, scholars argue that processes of urban change are enabled through rhetorical and discursive framing to promote the agendas of the neoliberal elite, particularly under processes of neoliberal urbanism and gentrification (Harvey, 1996; Richardson & Jensen, 2003; Wilson et al., 2004, Wilson, &

Sternberg, 2012). Discourse is central to the production of urban space, which becomes particularly evident under neoliberal governance that promotes racialised constructions and characterisations of poor communities of colour as culturally deficient and a threat to the city

(and thus, economic growth) in order to justify redevelopment and gentrification (Wilson & Sternberg, 2012). However, scholarship also highlights how discursive struggles over representation manifest in the growth of oppositional discourses that construct alternative symbolic and material spaces to contest processes of urban transformation and gentrification

(Harvey, 1996; Mitchell, 1995; Wilson et al., 2004).

Race is central in the discursive struggles over representation, particularly as dominant discourses claim colour-blindness whilst simultaneously exacerbating racial disparities and inequity through inaccurate racialised constructions of communities of colour (van Dijk, 1993b). Thus, CRT in praxis serves to strengthen the aims of a critical discourse analysis, particularly for research which aims to understand the ways in which discourse reproduces and challenges racism, social power, and inequality. As outlined in the literature review, the central tenets of

CRT seek to highlight the perpetuation of institutional racism by centralising race, experiential

41 knowledge, and counter-stories in research (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002; Tate, 1997). Thus, a critical discourse analysis of counter-discourses serves to highlight legitimate racialised experiences and the perpetuation of endemic racism and social inequality, which are often subtly maintained through the discursive strategies of the power elites (van Dijk, 1993a; 1993b).

4.2. Qualitative Research Design: Data Collection and Sources A qualitative research design combining the fundamental tenets of Critical Discourse Analysis with Critical Race Theory is used to conduct local level analyses of the discursive formations of

‘Renaissance 2010’ in Bronzeville. CRT in praxis centres the racialised experiences and knowledge of People of Colour, and challenges dominant ideologies, ahistoricism, and colour- blindness (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002; Tate, 1997). In doing so, this research prioritises the experiential knowledge and legitimate lived-experiences and perspectives of African Americans in Bronzeville by actively prioritising racialised counter-stories through purposeful sampling techniques. The research design assumes CRT as praxis in order to analyse discourses which give power to the voices of the Bronzeville community in their resistance to neoliberal educational change. Critical race theorists and geographers of race encourage the use of mixed-methods or qualitative research designs, particularly when researching socially constructed categories like race, as purely quantitative approaches may threaten to reduce complex subjective social worlds to seemingly objective facts that perpetuate inequality (Delaney, 2002; Peake & Schein, 2000). By adopting a qualitative approach this research gives weight and legitimation to the counter-stories and experiences of the Bronzeville community in a much more substantive way than if this research were to utilise only quantitative school data, which masks the experiences the research seeks to reveal.

Table 4.1. outlines the key stages that comprised this research framework. As is common in

CDA and qualitative research, this study engages in simultaneous data collection and analysis, in

42 which data collection need not be completed fully before analysis can start (Glaser & Strauss,

1967; Wodak, 2001). This approach enables the identification of analytic leads through coding and categorisation, which supports further data collection through purposeful and theoretical sampling.

Table 4.1.: Stages of Research Framework (adapted from Mullet, 2018, 122)

Key stages of analysis Description

Delimit the discursive Identified the key events, sites, and stakeholder groups engaged 1. field in the roll-out of Ren2010 in Bronzeville

Data sources and texts collected using a purposeful sampling Identified data sources 2. relevant to research approach. Types of data sources are described in Table 4.2., and focus fully listed in the Appendix.

Considered historical and social context, and examined the Explored background to 3. positionality of key stakeholders quoted in each text (neoliberal each text elite vs. community)

Coded and categorised Applied primary and secondary codes to identify the major 4. texts and identified key themes and subthemes, and key analytic leads. discourses

Considered the external social relations in analysing the Analyse the external relations between the intersection of the opposing discourses, and examined the 5a. coded texts extent to which the language and semiotic framing of education (interdiscursivity) reform is racialised and spatialised.

Analyse the internal Examined the language and linguistic features of the texts to relations between the 5b. understand the differing aims between the discourses of the coded texts (intertextuality) neoliberal elite and community.

Identified specific racial and socio-spatial strategies in the 6. Interpret the data discursive practices of the opposing stakeholder groups during neoliberal education reform and school closings in Bronzeville.

The timeframe for this research is concentrated around two significant events in the extended roll-out of Ren2010 between 2012 and 2017. In 2012, CPS declared an under-utilisation crisis, which portended the 2013 announcement that fifty-four public schools across the city would close. CPS’ announcement of the under-utilisation crisis marks the start of this research, enabling close examination of the discursive formations of major educational change from the outset.

Subsequently, data collection extended beyond 2013 to follow the ramifications of school closings, leading into the second major event which occurred in 2015; the Dyett Hunger Strike. As major events, the data collected was primarily produced in real-time alongside the events themselves, however by extending data collection beyond the events, this research is able to capture the discursive formations on the ramifications and reflections of these events.

The study draws on qualitative secondary data gathered from a rich variety of sources, including popular press coverage, public comment, local community media, social media, and TV, radio, and video recordings. The collection of both written texts and visual data enables greater analysis of the discursive formations of the key events, including the language use, intonation, power dynamics, and spatial strategies utilised by the Bronzeville community in resistance to the dominant discourse. Table 4.2. outlines the data sources and their subsequent data types.

This research is dependent on extensive data collection from alternative and local community media which prioritise the community and African American perspective, most notably from publications such as the South Side Weekly and the Chicago Defender. The research design intentionally prioritised data collection from sources which would highlight and give prominence to the important counter-stories and community discourses. While much research is expected to be guided by a neutral and objective stance, the central tenets of both CRT and CDA emphasise the importance of critical scholars adopting explicit socio-political stances as such research is predominantly concerned with social inequality and a commitment to racial and social justice

(Solórzano & Yosso, 2002; Tate, 1997; Van Dijk, 1993a). Thus, CRT and CDA research must

44 adopt the perspective of “those who suffer most from dominance and inequality” (van Dijk,

1993a, 252). Therefore, through a carefully constructed research design, this research will outline the discursive formations of Ren2010 which includes the dominant discourse, however, gives greater weight to the counter-stories and perspectives of the Bronzeville community.

Table 4.2. Secondary data sources gathered for critical discourse analysis

Type of Source Data Source Data Type Chicago Tribune Popular press, Washington Post Mainstream media, New York Times National media The Guardian Predominantly written BBC News newspaper and online articles. Chicago Defender Local community South Side Weekly and counter-media Chicago Sun-Times Chicago Reporter WBEZ – Chicago’s NPR Station NBC Chicago Alternative media, Written text sources, video Chalkbeat Radio, and TV clips, and radio recordings. The Huffington Post DNAInfo Chicago Public Schools Chicago Board of Education Written press releases and Chicago Teachers Union open letters. Organisations American Federation of Teachers Video recordings of Board Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools meetings (imagery & sound). Journey for Justice Alliance (J4J) Data included written text Twitter statements alongside visual Social Media Facebook sources including photographs YouTube and video recordings.

Scholarship on CDA does not outline required or expected procedures for data collection, particularly as it considers data collection to be a continuous phase of research (Wodak, 2001). However, as CDA is guided by Grounded Theory, this study adopts a purposeful and theoretical sampling technique for data collection, in which “the analyst jointly collects, codes, and analyses his data and decides which data to collect next and where to find them…” (Glaser, 1978 in

Coyne, 1997, 625). Through contextual research of the events, purposeful sampling was conducted through the knowledge of specific dates, times, and locations of key events, such as the announcement of school closings by CPS. From this stage, knowing the names of specific schools closed, extensive online searches were conducted using keywords including

‘Bronzeville’, ‘2013 school closings’, ‘CPS CEO’, and the Bronzeville schools including ‘Overton’, ‘Mayo’, and ‘Pershing’. These search terms were employed both on search engines such as Google, and using the search feature on source specific websites, including the Chicago Tribune and Defender. Theoretical sampling furthered data collection, as initial coding and categorisation identified key actors and organisations; these search terms included ‘Barbara

Byrd-Bennett’ (CPS CEO during 2013 school closings), ‘Jitu Brown’ (key Bronzeville activist), ‘KOCO’ and ‘Kenwood-Oakland Community Organisation’, and ‘Mollison’ (a welcoming school for the displaced Bronzeville students).

These sampling procedures continued for data collection on the Dyett Hunger Strike of 2015, with early search terms including ‘Dyett High School’, ‘Dyett closing’, ‘Dyett hunger strike’, developing into ‘Dyett city-hall sit-in’, ‘Dyett intersection protest’, ‘Dyett hunger strikers’,

‘Coalition to Revitalise Dyett’, ‘Jitu Brown’, Jeanette Taylor’ (hunger striker), ‘Irene Robinson’

(hunger striker), ‘Arne Duncan’, ‘Dyett Washington D.C.’. Critically, initial coding also identified key hashtags that were circulated on social media, and thus latter searches of social media platforms used the hashtags ‘#FightforDyett’ and ‘#WeAreDyett’. These sampling techniques strengthened search strategies as data collection progressed, and the identification of

46 analytic themes developed search terms, thus ensuing the collection of a variety of information- rich sources for analysis.

4.3. Data Analysis: Coding and Interdiscursivity

A key aim of the study is to examine how the Bronzeville community characterised and experienced neoliberal education change. By adopting a critical discourse analysis, it is possible to explore and understand the discursive formations of significant neoliberal change under

Ren2010, thus enabling analysis of the dialectical relationship between language, social structures, power, and resistance (Fairclough, 2001; Wodak, 2001). Data analysis occurred in two main stages (Steps 4 and 5 in Table 4.1.); first, data were reviewed, categorised, and coded to identify the key discourses, themes, and analytic leads. Second, the coded data were subsequently analysed both intertextually and interdiscursively; intertextual analysis considers the relationships of texts to each other, and notably examines the language and linguistic features to understand the aims of the different discourses (Fairclough, 1995; Fairclough & Wodak, 1997; Mullet, 2018). Interdiscursivity considers the relationship between the opposing discourses and examines the larger social practices that produce and are shaped by the opposing discourses on education reform and school closings. Critically, the second stage of analysis involved both the explicit examination of the discourse in revealing key discursive practices, and also the spatialities, social structures, and power dynamics which were utilised to enact or resist the discursive formations.

The initial stage of analysis focused on the early organisation and categorisation of the data. NVivo, a qualitative data analysis software package, was utilised to assist with these processes, in which individual statements, groups of statements, quotations, and concepts were open-coded. Coding is an essential feature of qualitative research which involves breaking down dense text data in order to draw observable themes and conclusions across the data set (Creswell, 2015;

Elliott, 2018; Saldaña, 2015). Initial analysis and coding resulted in the assignment of descriptive, open codes to the data set. These were influenced by the data, and were thus selectively imposed by the researcher. Early open codes included “community”, “activism”,

“race”, “school closure”. As analysis progressed, descriptive codes became analytic as key themes and connections between the data emerged. Analytic codes included “ignoring community voices”, “racism”, “battle for human rights”. This was a critical stage in the research process for identifying key themes, dates, locations, and people to support further data collection as outlined above.

Later stages of the research process involved the inter-textual and inter-discursive examination of coded data to reveal the ways in which the opposing stakeholder groups produced discourse on education reform, in particular examining the discursive material and cognitive practices, and spatial strategies performed in enacting and resisting neoliberal education change. First, analysis concentrated on the discursive practices involved in the semantic framing of Ren2010; this included the critical examination of framing strategies, language use, and intonation. In doing so, investigation of the data revealed the ways in which key stakeholder groups differentially framed and experienced neoliberal education change under Ren2010. Second, further critical examination was conducted to understand how the discourses were materially and cognitively enacted and resisted through these discursive practices, particularly through the use of spatial strategies. Spatial strategies were examined to reveal the cognitive spatialities and symbolic meanings embedded in the discourses, the spaces in which discourse occurred, and the scales at which the discourses were enacted and resisted. Thus, this analytical approach enables a critical examination of the racialised impacts of neoliberal educational reform, by centralising the experiences and strategies of Bronzeville’s African American community in their resistance to neoliberal education change.

4.4. Limitations and Considerations: COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and White Privilege

The research design initially considered for the study was significantly adapted as a result of restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. The initial plan was to conduct focus groups and semi-structured interviews in Bronzeville over a three-month period in the summer of 2020 in order to collect qualitative data which would help to identify and understand the generational experiences and framing of neoliberal education change in Bronzeville. This remains a potential avenue for future research. Due to the restrictions on travel and fieldwork, COVID-19 became an unavoidable limitation to the research design, and thus required significant changes to the data collection stages. The initial research design would have enabled the collection of primary data, although more crucially it would have enabled a greater engagement with the community and the development of trust and connection between the researcher and the community. While it would still have been possible to conduct semi-structured interviews remotely, this would have considerably hindered the opportunity to build meaningful connections in the community, and would have likely resulted in reduced engagement due to the distant and impersonal methods.

Early data on COVID-19 also revealed African American communities in Chicago were disproportionately impacted (Lutz, 2020, Maqbool, 2020; Ramos & Zamudio, 2020), and as such, this study was mindful of the heightened challenges faced by the community.

Furthermore, following the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and countless other African Americans by White police and supremacists in late Spring 2020, continual and extensive media attention was given to the Black Lives Matter movement, which gave important prominence to the fight for racial justice, but also contributed to further racial trauma in Black communities through the events themselves and subsequent performative White allyship. Conversations about anti-racist self-education and allyship circulated social media platforms, reminding White people that they are neither entitled to conversations, nor to be educated on racism by their Black friends and family (Wilson, 2020). While many viewed this as the perfect opportunity to engage with Black communities about their experiences, the reliance

49 on, and burdening of, disadvantaged and traumatised communities served to exacerbate the challenges they faced, particularly if such engagement were to come from an unknown outsider. Thus, a decision was made to amend the research design to gather solely secondary data, and in doing so it is hoped that this study could honour the community and its integrity without contributing to their challenges, trauma, and anxieties. Cognizance of positionality is critical for conducting research and integrating into research design (Milner, 2007; Mohammad, 2001), and the events of 2020 revealed the important need for sustained reflection and continual interrogation into one’s own White privilege and positionality.

Bronzeville is also a highly studied neighbourhood and community, so much so that Black Chicagoans themselves have endured unexpected challenges in participation, outsider status, and meaningful interaction when researching the neighbourhood. Boyd outlines how Douglas/Grand Boulevard residents feel about being subjects of research:

… as resident Althea Lane told me, many who live there “have a problem with these universities who just come into communities to do their papers or their theses and then they just leave. They don’t leave anything behind for the community”. (Boyd, 2008, xxviii)

This research would have undoubtedly benefitted from direct community engagement, however, the limited timeframe for meaningful contribution and engagement with the community by the researcher, in addition to the unprecedented and traumatic events of 2020 would have likely contributed to unacceptable harm. This research design therefore acknowledges the limitations and considerations outlined above, and recognises that while a reliance on secondary data is not an ideal, it is necessary under these unprecedented circumstances.

5. Discourses of Resistance: The Contested Spatial Politics of Education

Reform

Neoliberalism’s infiltration into the education landscape is highly contested by communities across the United States, particularly in Black and People of Colour communities disproportionately disadvantaged by displacement, gentrification, and the persistent restructuring of urban space under capitalism (Brisco & Khalifa, 2015; Buras, 2013; Ewing, 2018; Good

2017a; 2017b; Lipman, 2011). In Bronzeville, neoliberal education reform is characterised by the mass closures of ‘failing’ public schools as a result of increased accountability through high- stakes standardised testing, thus enabling the growth of the education market and creation of privately-operated ‘choice’ schools. Consequently, the roll-out of education reform in a landscape of perpetual disinvestment and dispossession of the neighbourhood’s public schools ignited a period of intense community resistance, leading to the emergence of two opposing discourses between stakeholder groups: the dominant neoliberal elite discourse, and the counter community resistance discourse. The neoliberal elite are composed of the Mayor of Chicago, their appointed Chicago Board of Education (BofE), and the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) leadership team including the appointed CPS CEO. Notably, as a national leader in neoliberal governance, Chicago’s public education system is governed by mayoral control and appointed school boards, and thus represents “the use of the coercive power of the state to enforce a neoliberal program” (Lipman, 2011, 61). Consequently, in opposition to the neoliberal elite, strong community activism emerged to contest the implementation of reform, particularly as the lack of an elected school board resulted in the absence of democracy in implementing change.

The community resistance stakeholder group is composed of Bronzeville community members, students, and parents, with the support of local organisations, including the Kenwood-Oakland

Community Organisation, the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett, and larger organisations such as the

Chicago Teachers Union, American Federation of Teachers, and education justice and leadership

51 charities including Journey for Justice Alliance. These two opposing stakeholder groups differentially experience and characterise education change, resulting in divergent discursive formations of Ren2010, and thus competing discourses which are utilised to enact or resist neoliberal education reform.

Through a critical discourse analysis this study examines these discursive formations of

‘Renaissance 2010’, highlighting the ways in which the discursive and socio-spatial practices of the opposing stakeholder groups reproduced and contested neoliberal education reform. Notably, this research places significant emphasis on the ways in which Black communities contest the privatisation of public education, manifested through mass school closings under the ideology of school choice. While education reform is inherently spatialised in the active transformation of urban spaces through policy, there is also a geographic specificity to the modes through which transformation is enacted and resisted. This chapter reveals the complex politics of resistance in the discursive shaping and contestation of change, and the transformation of Bronzeville from a site of educational disinvestment into a critical space of resistance epitomising the national struggle for educational justice.

This chapter first introduces the opposing stakeholder groups and reveals the divergent discursive practices utilised by the neoliberal elite, and subsequently the Bronzeville community, in the semantic framing of Ren2010. This section explores the framing strategies, language use, intonation, and rhetoric employed in the contentious dialogue on school closings, thus exposing how the Bronzeville community differentially characterised and experienced changes to the educational landscape in opposition to the official narrative. In the second half of the chapter, the spatialities of these discourses are examined in detail, revealing the socio-spatial strategies employed in enacting and resisting educational change; including 1) the cognitive spatialities involved in framing school closings, 2) the spaces in which discourse occurred, and 3) the scales at which they were enacted and resisted. Through an interrogation of the opposing stakeholder

52 groups’ differential literal and figurative framing of traditional public schools in urban space, this chapter reveals the agency of Black communities in disrupting neoliberal agendas and contesting cultural hegemonies inherent in neoliberal education structures.

5.1. Framing Educational Change: School Closings and Opposing Narratives

School closings were key discursive events of Ren2010, in which the opposing stakeholder groups applied divergent discursive practices in the semantic framing of school closings, igniting oppositional dialogue and narratives between the neoliberal elite and the Bronzeville community.

The neoliberal elite discourse employed decontextualised market language and framed Bronzeville and its schools in abstract and administrative terms, characteristic of neoliberal strategies which mask the systematic disinvestment of the neighbourhood’s schools by CPS throughout history. The discursive practices of the neoliberal elite portray educational change through a colour-blind lens, framing school closings as an opportunity for all by promoting competition and choice, and thus, overlooking the racialised history and perpetual disinvestment of the communities disproportionately impacted. In contrast, the community resistance discourse employs emotive language and warfare metaphors to racially recontextualise the neoliberal elite’s abstract framing of school closings. In doing so, the community characterise and conceptualise educational change as a racialised attack, exposing the racial disparities of school closings, and emphasising the pervasiveness of systemic violence against communities of colour. This section outlines the oppositional narrative and characterisations of the neoliberal elite and the Bronzeville community, first exploring the neoliberal elite’s conceptualisation of school closings as an opportunity, before examining the community’s discursive framing of school closings as an act of war and institutionalised racism.

5.1.1. Neoliberal Elite: Consolidations as an Opportunity

The neoliberal elite discourse conceptualises school closings as ‘consolidations’ for ‘opportunities’ for ‘every child’, yet justification and reasoning for individual school closings were framed using operational and administrative market language portraying closings as logically necessary in addressing a $1 billion deficit. This disjuncture is clearly encapsulated in

CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett’s messaging on the 2013 school closings, in which

‘consolidations’ are framed as both an ‘opportunity’ and a solution to fiscal crises. CPS’ announcement of the closure of 54 schools highlights how the 2013 ‘consolidations’ were driven by an ‘under-utilisation crisis’, with schools slated for closure described as ‘under-utilised’ and

‘under resourced’:

Every child in every community in Chicago deserves access to a high- quality education that will prepare them for success… but for too long children in certain parts of our city have been cheated out of the resources they need to succeed because they are trapped in underutilized, under-resourced schools. Barbara Byrd-Bennett Chicago Public Schools CEO Chicago Board of Education Meeting, April 2013 (CPS, 2013a)

Concurrently, CPS attempt to frame their actions as aligned with CPS parents, by claiming that

‘consolidations’ as a solution to under-utilisation will be viewed by parents as an ‘opportunity’:

With these consolidations, what will be made available to our children are the opportunities for an IB preparation school, the opportunity for a STEM school… I think that what will happen, and what our parents will sit back at the end of next year and say is ‘my child has a better opportunity’.

Barbara Byrd-Bennett Chicago Public Schools CEO CPS Video Message ‘A Better Opportunity’, March 2013 (CPS, 2013b)

Despite CPS’ narrative attempting to collectively frame ‘consolidations’ as ‘opportunities’, the underlying justification for individual school closings reveal motivations aligned more closely with the fiscal problems of ‘under-utilisation’. The six Bronzeville schools impacted in 2013 were all framed exclusively in terms of building utilisation and operational costs, with CPS documents describing schools as ‘building is half full’, ‘building requires $17.4 million to maintain and update’, ‘enrolment is down’. ‘Consolidations’ as ‘opportunities’ is thus rooted in a restructuring of capital, illustrative of neoliberal strategies of privatisation and preference for free-market operations in aiding capital accumulation. Schools were depicted as merely buildings, which were inefficient in their utilisation and a drain on the financial resources of the city. Although CPS makes reference to the injustice of the system by framing students as being ‘cheated out of’ resources, the neoliberal elite’s pervasive abstract framing of schools as inefficient spaces conceals CPS’ involvement in the perpetuation of an inequitable education system. In a neoliberal era that seeks to increase accountability, CPS’ framing of educational change makes no attempt to acknowledge their own accountability for the existing failures of the system.

The neoliberal elite decontextualise the narrative on closings through the use of operational and administrative language to frame closings as objectively neutral, abstracting themselves as accountable actors from the conditions which perpetuated the under-utilisation and resource crises. Critically, the use of market language characterises the problems of Bronzeville’s schools in financial terms, masking the context in which they became ‘half full’ requiring millions of dollars in investments. More broadly, the dominant narrative generalises the conditions of all fifty-four schools slated for closure, revealing a veiled attempt to brush over the racialised histories of the disproportionately disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Perpetual disinvestment, disenfranchisement, and displacement of residents through oppressive policies led to under- enrolment and low attainment in strategically under-resourced schools. Yet, in framing educational change as objective, the neoliberal elite’s rhetoric shifts accountability from those in

55 power to institutionally disinvested schools, marking a clear alliance towards neoliberal strategies which seek to increase accountability to promote competition and choice. CPS’ framing of disadvantaged neighbourhoods as ‘certain parts of our city’ reveals a reluctance to incorporate race into the dialogue and illustrates a reliance on the colour-blind strategies of neoliberal agendas. While this description in itself reveals an attempt through discourse to mask the racialisation of ‘consolidations’, the refusal to acknowledge and accurately describe the communities impacted implies a sense of othering, and thus reproduces the socio-spatial hierarchy of Chicago.

In response to accusations of racism, the neoliberal elite’s dialectical positioning is forced to incorporate race, yet it does so in such a way that reproduces the existing cultural hegemony and reduces racism and the disproportionate implementation of closings to an inevitable ‘fact’. This becomes evident when the dominant narrative aims to contextualise the under-utilisation crisis, claiming in a defensive, yet powerfully decisive tone, that “under-utilised schools are the result of demographic changes, and not race” (CPS, 2013a). The incorporation of race into the dialogue by the neoliberal elite does not alter the colour-blind lens through which it is directed, as the framing of educational change merely continues to take on a post-racial stance and thus fails to recognise the deep-seated structures of institutional racism. Leading CPS’ defence of the 2013 school closings in the Board of Education meeting following the announcement, CEO Barbara

Byrd-Bennett takes serious offence at accusations that the ‘consolidations’ are constitutive of racism, challenging the notion that, as a Black woman whose experiences and opportunities have been impacted by racism, her actions could be perceived as racist:

That is an affront to me as a woman of colour, and it is an affront to every parent in our community who demands a better education for their children… To refuse to challenge the status quo that is failing thousands of African American students year after year, consigning them to a future with less opportunities than others, now, that’s what I call racist.

Barbara Byrd-Bennett, 2013 Chicago Public Schools CEO Chicago Board of Education Meeting, April 2013 (CPS, 2013a)

Despite acknowledging the racial inequalities of educational attainment in Chicago, the neoliberal elite adopt a defensive and confrontational stance by claiming an ‘affront’, and more critically, by framing the community, in opposing school closings, as racist. The shift in discursive strategy attempts to discredit the counter narrative, a power move which serves to maintain the existing hierarchy and ultimately the restructuring of the urban education system and thus of capital.

5.1.2. Community Resistance: War on School Closings and Institutional Racism

The community resistance discourse emerged to contest the political actions and discursive practices of the neoliberal elite by adopting emotive language and war metaphors in reframing ‘consolidations’ as a racist attack and a violation of human rights. The Bronzeville community consistently frame school closings under education reform as ‘war’ initiated by the elite. In doing so, they also contest the neoliberal elite’s conceptualisation of closings as ‘opportunities’ for

‘every child’ by claiming that to CPS, children are considered ‘expendable’, and thus of little significance in the larger restructuring of the system:

You should not have to go to war with your school district to help your children. But to them, our children are collateral damage, they’re expendable, but they’re not expendable to us. So that’s where the battle lines are drawn. Jitu Brown Bronzeville community activist (The School Project, 2015)

Warfare metaphors are central to the resistance narrative, with activists and parents consistently incorporating war language such as ‘fight’, ‘war’, ‘battle-lines’, and ‘sabotage’ into the dialogue. Metaphors are a pervasive feature in everyday life, particularly in oppositional dialogues, arguments, and politics where “many of the things we do in arguing are partially structured by the concept of war” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 455). It is the prevalence of war metaphors that makes their utilisation a valuable discursive practice for resistance discourses, for they are easily understood and are salient features in the narrative (Flusberg et al., 2018). This is critical in reframing school closings as the use of war metaphors enables the community to contest, and draw attention from, the neoliberal elite, with the aim of preventing a rhetoric becoming a tangible action. Metaphors give greater representation and meaning to the underlying processes (Beckett, 2003; Steuter & Wills, 2008), and their use by the community helps to reveal the context that the dominant rhetoric masks. The community contend that the actions of CPS will result in discernible winners and losers, contesting the neoliberal elite’s rhetoric that ‘consolidations’ are a move for educational equality and for ‘every child’. Critically, the community’s use of war metaphors is not merely to imply that there is a verbal battle between opposing forces, but to equate the actions of CPS to the perpetuation of systemic violence against communities of colour. The resistance narrative conceptualises educational change as a form of systemic violence as school closings will detrimentally affect the welfare of students, disrupt learning, and destabilise the community; key features of systemic violence in education (Epp & Watkinson,

1997). Thus, the role of war metaphors and non-literal language in the community’s narrative enables the illumination and simplification of a complex socio-political issue for general understanding. In doing so, the community characterise ‘consolidations’ and the actions of CPS as an attack on Bronzeville and communities of colour.

Warfare metaphors inject emotion and a sense of despair into the discourse, challenging the neoliberal elite’s attempt to frame school closings in abstract and decontextualised language.

Long-term Bronzeville resident, activist, and Overton elementary grandmother, Irene Robinson,

58 describes the school closings as a “hate plan”, arguing “we have to fight for what’s right”

(Reveal, 2018). Similarly, Bronzeville activist and parent council member, Jeanette Taylor- Smith, describes the closure of Overton as “sabotage; it’s like you’re throwing a grenade in the school” (Leow, 2014, para. 31). Protest chants adopted the phrase “Education is a human right. What do we do?... Fight, Fight”, while support from the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) vowed to “put up a fight” against the “murder mayor”:

Rahm Emanuel has become the ‘murder mayor’. He is murdering public services. We don’t intend to die… So, we intend to put up a fight. We don’t know if we can win, but if you don’t fight, you will never win at all. Karen Lewis, 2013 President, Chicago Teachers Union (Chicago Teachers Union, 2013)

The Chicago Teachers Union strengthens the resistance dialogue by concurring that closings are

‘war’ in which they intend to fight, while making noteworthy reference to the systematic disinvestment of public education under mayoral control through their conceptualisation of Emanuel as the “murder mayor”, “murdering public services”; thus, highlighting the critical problems of neoliberal governance and appointed officials ‘attacking’ public institutions for the purposes of capital accumulation. Additionally, in conceptualising school closings as an attack, the community resistance discourse frames the war as unjust and therefore an infringement on human rights. The notion of engaging in a ‘fight’ and drawing the ‘battle-lines’ indicates there is a clear ideological opposition between the key stakeholder groups, yet one that results in tangible injustice on children’s educational and human rights.

The community resistance narrative centralises racism in contesting both the actions of CPS and the discursive practices that attempt to deracialise school closings. The community resituate race in the dialogue in two ways; first by accurately describing students, schools, and communities deracialised in the dominant rhetoric, and second, by explicitly arguing that the actions of CPS

59 are racist. Bronzeville activists and parents utilised public comment at CPS BofE meetings to challenge the neoliberal elite and directly charge their actions as racist. Bronzeville parent and activist, Kitesha Reggs implored “we do not want the blood stains on us… we just asking for your support, would you support our African American community?” (CPS, 2012, 36:53). The community concurrently invoke racism and war to stress the injustice of the system; a system in which the actions of CPS result in ‘blood stains’, both literally through the rise in youth violence and turf wars over school closings, and metaphorically in terms of losing the battle for educational justice. Similarly, at protest rallies, Bronzeville community activist, Irene Robinson, amplifies the discursive practices invoking war and racism by loudly asserting “closing schools is a hate crime, and it’s a direct attack on our children of colour… no more killing our children.” (Schoolhouse Live, 2016, 12:25). Comparing the closure of schools to the death of Black children is a stark example of the ways in which the community frame and experience what they perceive to be systemically violent Ren2010 policies.

The Dyett Hunger Strike represents a key discursive event in which the community’s conceptualisation of war through metaphors, becomes a real and material consequence. The actions of the people “on the frontlines of the fight for education justice” (The Chicago Reporter, 2017, 0:45) epitomised the battle between the community and the neoliberal elite, and symbolised the critical importance of neighbourhood schools through their willingness to fight and therefore die for their children. The dialogue on the hunger strike prioritised the language of war, with activists describing the hunger strikers as ‘warriors’, and highlighting the reality of

‘bodies on the line’ ‘to the last dying breath’. In calling for immediate intervention by the Mayor, medical professionals stressed the seriousness of the situation and implored the neoliberal elite to “discuss the situation with them as though they were human beings” (Chicago Sun-Times, 2015,

1:07). The neoliberal elite’s dehumanisation of the community served to maintain the existing cultural hegemony, further epitomised in their lack of meaningful intervention that resulted in the dangerously lengthy 34-day strike.

The divergent discursive practices of the two opposing stakeholder groups reveal how educational change under neoliberalism resulted in distinct characterisations and framing. The neoliberal elite’s conceptualisation of closings as ‘consolidations’ for ‘opportunity’, directly contrasts the community’s framing in which school closings are experienced as a racist attack perpetuating systemic violence on communities of colour. The use of emotive and metaphorical language in contrast to post-racial market language enabled the community narrative to recontextualise the event, highlight their lived-experiences, and contest the neoliberal elite’s discursive practices and actions. The following section develops the discussion to consider the socio-spatial practices of the opposing discourses and reveal the ways in which the geography and spatiality of the discourses reproduced and contested neoliberal education reform.

5.2. School Closings and the Spatialised Politics of Resistance

School closings are inherently implicated in the restructuring of urban space, both symbolically and materially, and thus there exists a spatialised politics in producing and contesting power and knowledge surrounding educational change. This section explores the spatialities of the discourse, recognising the ways in which space is constitutive of the social experiences and meanings in the reproduction and contestation of power by Black communities (Gregory, 1998;

Keith & Pile, 1993; Lipman, 2009). Through normative and dominant ideologies and discourses, urban space is socially produced and constructed, the implications of which lead to contested lived experiences and spatial injustices (Harvey, 2008; Fraser, 1990; Mitchell, 1995, Soja, 1989).

Critical examination of the discourse must therefore consider the spatiality of educational change to understand the ways in which cognitive and physical spaces are constructed and transformed in processes of resistance. This section examines the dialectical relations between language, space, and power in three ways.

First, drawing on Lefebvre (1991) and Soja’s (1989) work on the trialectics of spatiality, the analysis explores the contestations between the conceived spaces constructed by the neoliberal elite and the production of lived spaces of representation and resistance by the community. In framing school closings, the neoliberal elite and community invoke divergent cognitive spatialities of the transformation of the Chicago Public School system. Such spatial practices serve to reproduce or contest the socio-spatial structure in which the discourses are produced.

Second, analysis considers the spaces in which dialogue on educational change are manifested, and thus the locations of struggle and dissent. Public spaces are critical for the representation of the community in resisting educational change, yet the politicisation and social construction of public space influences the ways in which the community can effectively represent themselves (D’Arcus, 2006; Mitchell, 1995; Tyner, 2006). Exploring the spaces in which educational change is contested reveals complex socio-spatial hierarchies and the subtle ways in which power is reproduced through discursive practices. Third, this section concludes with discussion on how the material practices and symbolic cognitive spatialities of the community rescale the politics of

Renaissance 2010. In expanding their ‘space of engagement’ (Cox, 1998), the community spatially transforms the discourse on Chicago’s school closings, injecting local politics into the national dialogue and disrupting the existing hegemonies. Critically, in widening their public sphere, the community were able to construct spaces in which their needs and identities could be expressed and contested in their own ways, distinct from the expectations and barriers established by the neoliberal elite (Fraser, 1989; Gregory, 1998). Thus, through a spatialised politics of resistance, the Bronzeville community transforms the neighbourhood both symbolically and materially from a site of educational disinvestment to a critical space of resistance that epitomises the national struggle for education justice.

5.2.1. Contested Cognitive Spatialities School closings driven by competition, choice, and free-market logics are inherently geographical, as they are embedded in policies of neoliberal urbanism that seek to restructure the

62 urban landscape in which capital is entrenched (Harvey, 2008; Hyra, 2012; Lipman, 2011). Such restructuring rests on how urban space is conceived and abstracted by neoliberal actors, leading to systematic disinvestment of ‘blighted’ inner-city neighbourhoods for the purposes of capital accumulation (Harvey, 2008). Discourses on educational change are therefore inextricably spatialised, shaped largely around the contestation between the abstraction of space by the neoliberal elite, and the production of lived spaces and resultant experiences of the community.

This is evident in the community’s framing of school closings which heavily invokes spatialised inequality and territoriality to contest and recontextualise the neoliberal elite’s abstract conceptualisation of their schools, and thus neighbourhoods. The framing of an ‘under-utilisation and resource crisis’ in ‘certain parts of Chicago’ highlights the problematic abstraction of space, schools, and neighbourhoods, whereby the reluctance to acknowledge the racial and spatial inequality reproduces the socio-spatial hegemony and disconnect between the neoliberal elite and communities of colour. Additionally, reducing schools to inefficient buildings masks the important role of schools in the stability of disinvested and disenfranchised neighbourhoods. The community’s socio-spatial framing of school closings focuses on invoking spatialised inequality and the importance of schools as anchors in the community. Thus, recontextualisation is critical in revealing the ways in which the dominant rhetoric is subtly guided by hegemonic socio-spatial imaginaries of inner-city neighbourhoods.

The community attach important symbolic meanings to Bronzeville’s schools countering the neoliberal elite’s framing of schools as merely buildings, while embedding the generational history and legacy of their families by invoking territoriality. Such strategies are critical in the fight against accumulation by dispossession of urban schools (Buras, 2013). Thus, framing the schools as “anchors” and the “heart” of the community reveals the critical importance of schools in the stability and survival of the community, and attempts to illustrate the rootedness of schools in communities as spaces of belonging:

This was our second home. It was more than just a school, the school is more than just a building, it’s a heart.

Irene Robinson Bronzeville community activist (A. Robinson, 2017)

The community not only symbolise Bronzeville’s neighbourhood schools as “home” and a

“heart”, but they also directly counter the neoliberal elite’s abstraction of schools as “under- utilised buildings” by explicitly claiming schools are “more than just buildings”. Critically, such framing serves to highlight that the community conceptualise and experience neighbourhood schools as an important lived space, a space which symbolises both the legacy of racialised struggle in the neighbourhood and one in which their identities remain historically and spatially situated. Notably, community residents and activists invoke territoriality and belonging by consistently framing schools as “ours”, revealing that schools are both important institutions for the children enrolled, but are also central pillars for the stability of the community. Critically, the community resistance narrative emphasises that schools belong to the community, contesting the notion of schools, and thus their children, as expendable CPS property. The emotive discursive practices of the community resistance discourse are thus mirrored in the symbolic spatiality the community attaches to Bronzeville and its schools; in doing so, it challenges the neoliberal elite’s abstraction of space, and promotes the community’s lived and cognitive spatialities in framing educational change:

It’s classic, let’s push low-income and working families out and make it brand new for the incoming gentry… So it’s gentrification on steroids and a disrespect to real community folks’ voice.

There’s no connection between 125 S. Clark [CPS headquarters] and 4415 S. King Drive [Mollison’s address]. They don’t have a clue. They’re too busy looking at us on a spreadsheet. Jeanette Taylor Bronzeville community activist (Leow, 2014, A. Robinson, 2017)

The community directly call out CPS’ abstraction of their neighbourhood and schools by framing the relations between CPS and the community in spatial terms, illustrating that despite being closely connected in terms of absolute distance, there remains little meaningful connection symbolically. The resistance narrative invokes school closings as spatialised inequality, by illustrating the critical cognitive disconnect between the political elites and the community, both in terms of space and hegemony. Further, the resistance narrative asserts a distinct spatial inequality in claiming “this bullshit wouldn’t happen up north!” (Leow, 2014, para. 27), thus by situating school closings in the north-south divide, the community emphasise that the actions of

CPS are spatial and disproportionate, while also implicating there remains a lasting legacy of racial segregation and inequality in Chicago between the White north side, and the Black south side. Chicago’s segregation is mirrored in the community’s conceptualisation of CPS as a two- tiered education system, with parents accusing the neoliberal elite of inequitable distribution of resources based on neighbourhood race, and pointedly asking “will you provide the resources that you have got in non-African American neighbourhoods?” (CPS, 2012, 35:57). Such questions are not simply a discursive practice in opposition of the dominant rhetoric, but represent real, lived experiences of African American neighbourhoods disinvested in at the hands of the neoliberal elite.

Reflective of Harvey’s (2008) notion of the ‘the right to the city’, the resistance narrative highlights the spatiality of violated human rights in making direct reference to the ways in which the neoliberal elite attempt to restructure the city through dispossession. The community assert that the actions of CPS are “city-mandated disinvestment in us” for access to “prime real estate” in order to “make it brand new for the incoming gentry” (Robinson, 2017, para. 20). In doing so, the resistance narrative further recontextualises the dialogue on neoliberal education reform to explicitly expose that school closings are bound up in processes of gentrification and systematic disinvestment. The community utilise their experiences of previous neoliberal transformations,

65 such as public housing demolition, to explicitly assert the existence and embeddedness of neoliberalism in the spatial structure of the city, beyond merely ideology and language.

5.2.2. Spaces of Resistance: From the Table to the Street

Examination of the spaces in which dialogue on educational change is manifested reveals important considerations for the role of discourse and space in the reproduction of power by the neoliberal elite, and dissent by the community. Public spaces are essential for giving prominence to resistance narratives, yet they are inherently politicised and contested resulting in locations of struggle in which representation and dissent are controlled by existing socio-spatial structures (Fraser, 1990; Mitchell, 1995). Analysing the spaces in which educational change is contested reveals the shrewd spatial tactics of the community in their dissent of school closings and the neoliberal elite’s conceptualisation of ‘consolidations’ as ‘opportunity’. There are two key spatialities in which the neoliberal elite and community enact and resist neoliberal education reform; 1) the official spaces of the neoliberal elite, and 2) the public spaces utilised by the community to legitimise their discourse of resistance. These contrasting spaces mirror the oppositional dialogue, with both spaces reproducing and disrupting the complex patterns of Chicago’s socio-spatial hierarchy.

The official and administrative spaces of CPS and the Board of Education reproduce and exert the dominance and power of the neoliberal elite, both through the physical structure of the space, and the regulations by which the space can be utilised, and language appropriately enacted.

Although the monthly board meetings are open to the public for viewing and comment, the use of official spaces maintains the subordination of the community under the neoliberal elite’s hegemony. The physical structure of the board room symbolises the hierarchy and division between the political elite and the public, with a physical partition between board members and the general public, and with board members’ seats raised higher off the ground (Figure 5.1.).

Critically, the neoliberal elite’s regulations over the space and public comment reveal most

starkly the exertion of control and reproduction of power, particularly as the use of such a space therefore determines the ways in which the resistance narrative is enacted. Notably, such

guidelines include the prohibition of “unsolicited comments and disruptive behavior”, and expectations of “respectful and civil behavior” (Chicago Board of Education, 2020), with

speakers limited to two minutes before being cut off. The hierarchical dynamic between the

community and neoliberal elite is clear when watching the meetings unfold, particularly when anxious community activists take to the podium to voice their concerns and legitimise their

experiences. As determined by the neoliberal elite, such action by the community is necessary in

the promotion of their resistance discourse. Jitu Brown outlines that the community always adheres to the bureaucracy of the system initially, in which the community “never start off in the

street, we always start off at the table” (Adams, 2015, para. 15), thus, playing into and reproducing the socio-spatial hierarchy set forth by the neoliberal elite. Thus, a move to the street

as a last resort spatially symbolises the community’s resistance tactics of widening their public

sphere to allow for the construction of alternative spaces in which their voices, needs, and identities can be expressed.

Figure 5.1.: Chicago Board of Education board room and public comment stand. Images sourced from Russo, 2015 and CPS, 2012.

Transition from the official spaces to public space is driven largely by the community’s struggle to gain a voice that CPS are willing to legitimise and act on, with community members often stating that they “pretended to listen to us” and “disrespected” the community voice. The community utilised several key public spaces in contesting the closure of Dyett High School, as their dissent in public space enabled greater mobilisation, representation, and legitimisation of the resistance narrative and the experiences of the community. Bronzeville activists and residents utilised multiple resistance tactics to widen the reach of their voices under their own terms, and out with the control of the neoliberal elite, building on a legacy of Black resistance tactics employed throughout history in which space was disrupted and constructed to promote Black voices in the fight for racial justice (Gregory, 1998; Tyner, 2006). Central to such practices is the basic need for the community’s voice to be heard, and legitimised, as captured in the Chicago

Teachers Union public support during the hunger strike:

This is a group that has held numerous protests, sit-ins, and taken arrests in order to create the kind of change needed in their community. This action is about listening to their voices, and this hunger strike is the last resort of people whose voices need to be heard. Jesse Sharkey Chicago Teachers Union Vice President (CTU, 2015)

The community’s discursive formations on school closings are thus augmented through important spatial strategies that serve to promote and legitimise their conceptualisation and experience of ‘consolidations’ in the public sphere. The use of public space to advance the resistance discourse is therefore critical, particularly when the realm of struggle is inherently spatial and territorial.

Figure 5.2.: Dyett High School Protests and Hunger Strike. Images sourced from @soit_goes, 2015 and Marachi, 2015

Dissent occurred in the most visible public spaces which enabled the greatest disruption to the

dominant rhetoric on school closings. The occupation of intersections, sit-ins, and protest chants

disrupted the existing cultural hegemony and brought the community’s narrative on the injustice

of school closings to the forefront of the dialogue. While their actions were subject to police

control, which in itself is a mechanism of control by the political elite, the community fought to

expand their spaces of engagement, and thus the reach of the resistance discourse. These

occupations of public space during the Dyett Hunger Strike brought further attention to the

extreme tactic of resistance utilised by the community. Critically, the community and activists

occupied the former school grounds every day during the hunger strike, and in utilising the very

spaces threatened by Ren2010, the community not only invoked territoriality through discourse,

but critically through their actions of dissent and occupation of public space. The significance of

the community’s actions in promoting the resistance discourse are evident in the expansion of

their dissent into Washington DC, occupying the sidewalks outside the Department of Education

for press conferences with national education leaders. Occupation of public space proved to be a

critical tactic for the community in disrupting neoliberal education reform, and rescaling the

spatialised politics of Ren2010.

5.2.3. Rescaling School Closings: Spatialised Politics of Resistance

While there are inherent scalar dimensions in the city’s hierarchy between the neoliberal elite and the community, the discursive practices and tactics of dissent utilised by Bronzeville’s activists and parents resulted in the rescaling of Ren2010 politics. The persistence of the community resulted in the spatial transformation of resistance politics from a local site of disinvestment to a national space of resistance. Such transformation was enabled through the strategic use of Black resistance tactics employed throughout history, most notably the construction and expansion of alternative spaces, which enable the collective contestation and promotion of under-represented identities on a larger scale (Gregory, 1998; Tyner, 2006). In broadening their spaces of engagement, the Bronzeville community sought out critical platforms for the propagation of their Black perspectives on educational injustice, starting local and fighting for expansion into the national spotlight. Thus, the resistance narrative extended beyond the city-scale, and injected the local politics of Bronzeville into the national dialogue on school closings and racial injustice. Arguably, such rescaling was critical to the success of the community’s resistance of CPS actions, ultimately saving the community’s last remaining open- enrolment neighbourhood high school from permanent closure and privatisation. Notably, the community activists’ decision to embark on a hunger strike in visible public spaces facilitated the expansion of the resistance discourse by attracting the attention of national media, justice organisations, and education leaders from across the United States and internationally. Dyett came to represent not only a critical lived space for the Bronzeville community, but also epitomised the national struggle over the rapid shuttering of America’s traditional public schools under neoliberalism. As Jonathon Stith, founder of Alliance for Educational Justice proclaimed,

“Dyett is the epicentre of a national struggle to reclaim the promise of education, which is the promise of justice, the promise of democracy… There are Dyetts in every community across this country” (Schott Foundation, 2015, 0:31).

In rescaling the politics of school closings during the Dyett Hunger Strike, the community’s network of solidarity grew to include countless key organisations and individuals such as the American Federation of Teachers, Alliance for Educational Justice, and civil rights leader Rev.

Jesse Jackson. Central to the rescaling of the dialogue in Washington D.C., were the local connections between the hunger strikers, south side native President Obama, and former CPS

CEO Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. As such, persistent media coverage led journalists from major outlets, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, to travel to Bronzeville to interview activists directly and project their voices into the national dialogue. In doing so, the activists who were intimidated and cut-off in official CPS BofE meetings, were given new and valuable space for their voices and experiences. Critically, despite being fundamental to boosting the success of their resistance politics, the community were empowered to continue fighting for what was right long after the hunger strike ended. Jeanette Taylor, Dyett Hunger Striker was elected to the Chicago City Council in 2019, stating “I love Chicago, I’m gonna fight to stay here” (Jacobin, 2019). Thus, the Bronzeville community’s discursive and spatial strategies were critical in not only diversifying the dialogue to ignite change and racial justice in education, but crucially also empowered local activists to take more significant and permanent roles in the representation of Black and under-represented voices in the city.

Thus, the impact of rescaling the politics of Ren2010, in particular the closing of Dyett High

School, became a critical resistance tactic in spatially transforming the dialogue to promote and empower Black voices. In doing so, the dominant rhetoric was disrupted, and more critically, the spatial struggles over communities of colour were exposed as injustice nationally. The decision to close schools is ultimately a struggle in the control of space, one in which the neoliberal elite persistently control. While the resistance tactics disrupted the system, continued persistent disruption and empowering of Black resistance politics is a step towards restructuring the cultural hegemony in the fight for justice and democracy.

5.3. Conclusion

Examination of the dominant and counter discourses of Ren2010 reveal the divergent discursive practices of the neoliberal elite and Bronzeville community in the conceptualisation and resistance of neoliberal education reform. Critically, the Bronzeville community frame school closings as a racialised attack, employing war metaphors and emotive language to contest and disrupt the dominant rhetoric of ‘opportunity’, which frames school closings in post-racial abstract terms to mask their implication in broader processes of neoliberal urbanism. The community’s discursive practices are strengthened through the spatialised politics of resistance, in which the community successfully promote the role of schools as the ‘heart’ of the community, invoke spatialised inequality, and employ spatialised dissent to expand their space of engagement. Thus, the Bronzeville community rescaled the politics of Ren2010 through the construction of alternative spaces for the promulgation of their oppositional and recontextualised discourse on school closings beyond the local scale and into the national dialogue. Crucially, the community’s tactics reveal the agency of Black community resistance and mobilisation in disrupting education reform and the consequential transformation of their urban space for capital accumulation.

6. Conclusion

Through a spatialised politics of resistance, the African American Bronzeville community successfully disrupted neoliberal education reform and recontextualised the dominant discourse by invoking narratives of spatialised inequality and framing school closings as a racialised attack on the community. Crucially, through the expansion of their spaces of engagement, the community rescaled the politics of Renaissance 2010 and situated the local injustice of an historically Black community in the national conversation on the fight for educational justice.

Thus, through an examination of the dominant and counter discourses of Renaissance 2010 this research has shown how neoliberal education reform is differentially conceptualised, enacted, and resisted by Chicago’s neoliberal elite and the Bronzeville community. Critically, this research gave significant weight to the important counter-stories and legitimate lived experiences of the Bronzeville community to highlight the agency and organisation of Black communities in disrupting neoliberal agendas which threaten to exacerbate educational and racial injustice.

Bronzeville has endured systematic disinvestment and disenfranchisement at the hands of

Chicago’s elites throughout history, profoundly influencing the contemporary educational opportunities of the neighbourhood. Notably, the current culture of school closings justified by high-stakes standardised testing and enabled through the simultaneous demolition of public housing, is illustrative of an attempt to remove low-income racialised populations from inner- city neighbourhoods. The systematic demolition and shuttering of Bronzeville’s public institutions are symbolic of neoliberalism as creative destruction, in which the perpetual disinvestment and dispossession of the neighbourhood is implicated in the larger spatial restructuring of the city to aid capital accumulation. Thus, in examining changes to educational opportunities, this research adopted a framework which situates education reform as a

73 mechanism of neoliberal urbanism, and therefore acknowledges the inextricability of institutionalised racism in contemporary educational opportunities and disparities.

School closings were key discursive events in Chicago’s neoliberal education reform, giving rise to oppositional discourses, and divergent material and symbolic discursive practices by the opposing stakeholder groups. The neoliberal elite relied heavily on abstract and decontextualised discourse, using market language to frame closings as an ‘opportunity’ driven by an ‘under- utilisation’ crisis that was not determined by race. Critically, the dominant framing and implementation of education reform adopts a colour-blind lens which masks the racialised history and systemic disinvestment of African American communities. The discursive strategies of the neoliberal elite are thus central to understanding how reforms are discursively enacted, and consequentially resisted by the community. The community resistance discourse emerged to contest the actions of CPS and their decontextualised and deracialised framing of school closings, with the community discourse recontextualising school closings by situating them in the historical and racialised context which determined their closure. The Bronzeville community employed strategically divergent discursive practices using emotive language and warfare metaphors to conceptualise school closings as a racialised attack by CPS and thus highlighting the perpetuation of systemic violence against communities of colour.

Critically, the geographic specificity of neoliberal education reform resulted in a spatialised discourse of resistance, with the community both invoking narratives of spatialised inequality and the construction of alternative spaces to expand their spaces of engagement in disrupting the dominant narrative. The community situate their resistance in space, notably their space, and prioritise the narrative of neighbourhood schools as community anchors and cornerstones, further promoting the lived experiences of Bronzeville’s residents into the dialogue on school closings. Most crucially, the community’s spatialised tactics of dissent are critical moments in the disruption of neoliberal education reform, in which their transition from the table to the street

74 reveals the importance of dissent in public spaces for the representation and promotion of counter-voices marginalised in the rigid settings of the neoliberal elite. Notably, the community’s discursive practices and powerful mobilisation of resistance tactics resulted in the rescaling of

Ren2010 through the expansion of their space of engagement enabling the wider propagation of their struggle for educational justice. The Dyett Hunger Strike epitomises the role of Black agency and mobilisation in disrupting neoliberal education reform by rescaling the story of local injustice into the national dialogue. Thus, the extension of the resistance narrative beyond the local boundaries of Bronzeville and into the national sphere was critical in the propagation of the

Dyett story and the re-opening of Dyett High School as an open-enrolment neighbourhood school. Crucially, the spatial tactics of the Bronzeville community in expanding their spaces of engagement and framing school closings in their socio-spatial and racial context reveals the powerful ability of Black communities in disrupting inequitable policies and agendas of the neoliberal elite.

In examining the discursive formations of Ren2010, this research reveals the importance of supporting and promoting the legitimate lived experiences and counter-stories of African

American communities in research and policy decisions, and most crucially in challenging the everyday practices and discourses which serve to reinforce White supremacy and hegemony.

Future research and political decision-making should be actively mindful of the historical and racialised context upon which urban landscapes are continually and disproportionately restructured, seeking to both listen to, and understand the lived experiences and experiential knowledge of Black and People of Colour communities. Centralising race in theory, research, and practice is a critical step for achieving social and racial justice in an inherently unequal society.

Bibliography

Adams, O. (2015, October 5) Dyett: What’s Next? A new school and a new focus thirty-four days after the Dyett Hunger Strike. South Side Weekly. Retrieved from: https://southsideweekly.com/dyett-whats-next/

Adams, O. (2016, May 18). The New Dyett. South Side Weekly. Retrieved from: https://southsideweekly.com/the-new-dyett/

Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (2021). Chicago Organizers Lead Hunger Strike to Save Dyett High School. Retrieved from: http://www.reclaimourschools.org/updates/chicago- organizers-lead-hunger-strike-save-dyett-high-school

Anderson, A. B., & Pickering, G. W. (1986). Confronting the color line: The broken promise of the civil rights movement in Chicago. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Anyon, J. (1997). Ghetto schooling: A political economy of urban educational reform. New York: Teachers College Press.

Apple, M. W. (2006). Educating the" right" way: Markets, standards, God, and inequality. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Ares, N. (2017). Reterritorializing as Community Activism in an Urban Community-School Transformation Initiative. In Deterritorializing/Reterritorializing: Critical Geography of Educational Reform (Eds) Ares, N., Buendia, E., Helfenbein, R. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Ares, N., Buendía, E., & Helfenbein, R. (Eds.). (2017). Deterritorializing/reterritorializing: Critical geography of educational reform. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Au, W. (2009). Unequal by design: High-stakes testing and the standardization of inequality. New York: Routledge.

Au, W. (2016). Meritocracy 2.0: High-stakes, standardized testing as a racial project of neoliberal multiculturalism. Educational Policy, 30(1), 39-62.

Beckett, C. (2003). The language of siege: Military metaphors in the spoken language of social work. British Journal of Social Work, 33(5), 625-639.

Berends, M. (2015). Sociology and school choice: What we know after two decades of charter schools. Annual Review of Sociology, 41, 159-180.

Billingham, C. M., & Hunt, M. O. (2016). School racial composition and parental choice: New evidence on the preferences of white parents in the United States. Sociology of Education, 89(2), 99-117.

Blommaert, J., & Bulcaen, C. (2000). Critical discourse analysis. Annual review of Anthropology, 29(1), 447-466.

Bonds, M., Farmer-Hinton, R. L., & Epps, E. G. (2009). African Americans' continuing struggle for quality education in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Journal of Negro Education, 55-69.

Bowdle, B. F., & Gentner, D. (2005). The career of metaphor. Psychological review, 112(1), 193.

Boyd, M. R. (2008). Jim Crow nostalgia: reconstructing race in Bronzeville. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Brenner, N., & Theodore, N. (2002). Cities and the geographies of “actually existing neoliberalism”. Antipode, 34(3), 349-379.

Briscoe, F. M., & Khalifa, M. A. (2015). ‘That racism thing’: a critical race discourse analysis of a conflict over the proposed closure of a black high school. Race Ethnicity and Education, 18(6), 739-763.

Briscoe, T. (2018, February 25) Historian Timuel Black celebrates DuSable High School at black history event. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct- met-timuel-black-dusable-high-school-20180225-story.html

Buras, K. L. (2013). ‘We're not going nowhere’: race, urban space, and the struggle for King Elementary School in New Orleans. Critical Studies in Education, 54(1), 19-32.

Burke, C., W. (2018, October 25). Applying for school in Chicago? Your odds may have just changed. Chalkbeat Chicago. Retrieved from: https://chicago.chalkbeat.org/2018/10/25/21107236/applying-for-school-in-chicago-your- odds-may-have-just-changed

Butler, T., & Hamnett, C. (2007). The Geography of Education: Introduction. Urban Studies, 44(7), 1161–1174.

Carter, P. L., Skiba, R., Arredondo, M. I., & Pollock, M. (2017). You can’t fix what you don’t look at: Acknowledging race in addressing racial discipline disparities. Urban Education, 52(2), 207-235.

Catalyst Chicago (2007, February). Special Supplement: School autonomy all over the map. Catalyst Chicago. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagoreporter.com/wp- content/uploads/archive/assets/20070201/extra/0207reportcard.pdf

Chicago Board of Education (2020, March 20) Participation Guidelines. Chicago Public Schools Board of Education. Retrieved from: https://www.cpsboe.org/meetings/participation- guidelines

Chicago Public Schools (2012, October 26) Chicago Public Schools Board of Education Monthly Meeting October 24, 2012 Part 2. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMV0AuUJS1E&list=PLoxDXDgm- 6s7XaNTD1Vn4rffh_o3o__Td&index=5

Chicago Public Schools (2013a, April 3) CPS Board of Education Monthly Meeting April 3, 2013, Part 1. [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sINJ_gwNdvM

Chicago Public Schools (2013b, March 28) A better opportunity. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmdoA_Jw-Is

Chicago Public Schools (2021a) [CPS School Locator Map]. Retrieved from: https://schoolinfo.cps.edu/schoollocator/index.html

Chicago Public Schools (2021b) School Quality Rating Policy (SQRP). Chicago Public Schools. Retrieved from: https://www.cps.edu/about/district-data/metrics/sqrp/

Chicago Sun-Times (2015, August 28) Hunger strikers at City Hall. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQJvPofpwoc

Chicago Teachers Union (2013, March 21) President Lewis’ Statement on School Closings. [Press Release] Chicago Teachers Union. Retrieved from: https://www.ctulocal1.org/posts/president-lewis-statement-on-school-closings/

Chicago Teachers Union (2015, August 20) Dyett High School hunger strike – day four. [Press Release] Chicago Teachers Union. Retrieved from: https://www.ctulocal1.org/posts/dyett- high-school-hunger-strike-day-four/

City of Chicago (2012) Landmark Designation Report: DuSable High School. City of Chicago, Department of Housing and Economic Development. Retrieved from: https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/dcd/Zoning%20Application/ExhibADuSa blFinalReport.pdf

Cox, K. R. (1998). Spaces of dependence, spaces of engagement and the politics of scale, or: looking for local politics. Political geography, 17(1), 1-23.

Coyne, I. T. (1997). Sampling in qualitative research. Purposeful and theoretical sampling; merging or clear boundaries?. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 26(3), 623-630.

Creswell, J. W. (2015). 30 Essential Skills for the Qualitative Researcher. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Crump, J. (2002). Deconcentration by demolition: public housing, poverty, and urban policy. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 20(5), 581-596.

D'Arcus, B. (2013). Boundaries of dissent: Protest and state power in the media age. New York: Routledge.

Dampier, C. (2019, September 28). Which admissions process is tougher: CPS selective enrollment high school, or college? Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-life-selective-enrollment-college-admissions- tt-0928-20190928-476oka2x6vc4dlpdweksdmk5qm-story.html de la Torre, M., Gordon, M. F., Moore, P., & Cowhy, J. (2015). School Closings in Chicago. Research Report. The University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Delaney, D. (2002). The Space that Race Makes. The professional geographer, 54(1), 6-14.

Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2017). Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (3rd ed). New York: New York University Press.

Drake, S. C., & Cayton, H. R. (1970). Black metropolis: A study of Negro life in a northern city. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Elliott, V. (2018). Thinking about the coding process in qualitative data analysis. The Qualitative Report, 23(11), 2850-2861.

Epp, J. R., & Watkinson, A. M. (Eds.). (1997). Systemic violence in education: Promise broken. New York: SUNY Press.

Ewing, E. L. (2018). Ghosts in the schoolyard: Racism and school closings on Chicago's South Side. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. New York: Longman Inc.

Fairclough, N. (1993). Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity press.

Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. New York: Longman Group.

Fairclough, N. (2001). Critical discourse analysis as a method in social scientific research. In Wodak, R., & Meyer M. (Eds). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage Publications 121-138

Fairclough, N. (2012). Critical discourse analysis. International Scientific Researchers. (7) 452- 287

Fairclough, N., & Wodak, R. (1997) Critical Discourse Analysis. In van Dijk, T. A. (Ed) Discourse as Social Interaction. London: Sage Publications, 258 - 284

Farkas, G. (2003). Racial disparities and discrimination in education: What do we know, how do we know it, and what do we need to know?. Teachers College Record, 105(6), 1119-1146.

Flusberg, S. J., Matlock, T., & Thibodeau, P. H. (2018). War metaphors in public discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 33(1), 1-18.

Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge. New York: Pantheon Books.

Fraser, N. (1989). Unruly practices: Power, discourse, and gender in contemporary social theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. Social text, (25/26), 56-80.

Gershenson, S., Hart, C., Hyman, J., Lindsay, C., & Papageorge, N. W. (2018). The long-run impacts of same-race teachers (No. w25254). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). Discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine

Goetz, E. G. (2011). Where have all the towers gone? The dismantling of public housing in US cities. Journal of Urban Affairs, 33(3), 267-287.

Good, R. M. (2017a). Histories that root us: Neighborhood, place, and the protest of school closures in Philadelphia. Urban Geography, 38(6), 861-883

Good, R. M. (2017b). Invoking landscapes of spatialized inequality: Race, class, and place in Philadelphia’s school closure debate. Journal of Urban Affairs, 39(3), 358-380

Gottdiener, M. (1993). A Marx for our time: Henri Lefebvre and the production of space. Sociological Theory, 11(1), 129-134.

Gregory, S. (1998). Black Corona: Race and the Politics of Place in an Urban Community. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Gutierrez, R. R, & Lipman, P. (2013). Dyett High School & The 3 Ds Of Chicago School Reform: Destabilization, Disinvestment, Disenfranchisement. University of Illinois at Chicago, Collaborative for Equity and Justice in Education. Retrieved from: https://ceje.uic.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Fact-Sheet-Dyett1.pdf

Hall, S. (1992) The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power. In Hall, S. and Gieben, B. (eds.), Formations of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. 275-331.

Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. London: Sage Publications

Hall, S. (2001). Foucault: Power, knowledge and discourse. In Wetherell, M., Taylor, S., & Yates, S. J. Discourse theory and practice: A reader. London: Sage Publications. 72-81

Hammel, D. (2006). Public housing Chicago-style: transformation or elimination. Chicago’s geographies, Association of American Geographers, Washington, DC.

Hankins, K. B. (2007). The final frontier: Charter schools as new community institutions of gentrification. Urban Geography, 28(2), 113-128.

Harvey, D. (1996). Justice, Nature & the Geography of Difference. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc.

Harvey, D. (2001). Spaces of capital: Towards a critical geography. New York: Routledge.

Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Harvey, D. (2007). Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 610(1), 21–44.

Harvey, D. (2008). The right to the city. New Left Review, 53, 23-40

Herrick, M. J. (1971). The Chicago Schools. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications

Hesse, B. (1993) Black to Front and Black Again: Racialization through contested times and spaces. In Keith, M., & Pile, S. (Eds) Place and the Politics of Identity. London: Routledge

Hirsch, A. R. (2009). Making the second ghetto: Race and housing in Chicago 1940-1960. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. hooks, b. (1989). Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, (36), 15-23.

Howard, T. C., & Navarro, O. (2016). Critical race theory 20 years later: Where do we go from here? Urban Education, 51(3), 253-273

Huddleston, G. (2017) Welcome to Zombie City: A Study of a Full Service Community School and School Choice. In Deterritorializing/Reterritorializing: Critical Geography of Educational Reform (Eds) Ares, N., Buendia, E., Helfenbein, R. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Hunt, D. B. (2001). What went wrong with public housing in Chicago? A history of the Robert Taylor homes. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1998-), 94(1), 96-123.

Hunt, D. B. (2009). Blueprint for disaster: The unraveling of Chicago public housing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hyra, D. S. (2008). The new urban renewal: The economic transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hyra, D. S. (2012). Conceptualizing the new urban renewal: Comparing the past to the present. Urban Affairs Review, 48(4), 498-527.

Jackson, P. (1987). The idea of 'race' and the geography of racism. In Jackson, P. (Ed) Race and Racism: Essays in Social Geography. London: Taylor & Francis. 3-21.

Jacobin (2019, February 22) “I Love Chicago. I’m Gonna Fight to Stay Here.” Jacobin Magazine. Retrieved from: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/02/jeanette-taylor-koco- chicago-schools-20th-ward

Jeffers, G. (2010, June 11). Alumni seek landmark status for DuSable High School. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2010-06-11-ct-x- c-dusable-landmark-20100611-story.html

Karp, S. (2014). CPS reverses decision to close Dyett High School. The Chicago Reporter. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagoreporter.com/cps-reverses-decision-close-dyett-high- school/

Keith, M., & Pile, S. (1993). Introduction Part 1: The Politics of Place. In Place and the Politics of Identity (Eds) Keith, M., & Pile, S. London: Routledge.

Keith, M., & Pile, S. (Eds.). (1993). Place and the Politics of Identity. London: Routledge.

Kevil, S. (2013, August 8). Crispus Attucks Public School, Chicago. [Photograph]. Retrieved from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crispus_Attucks_Public_School,_Chicago.jpg

Kobayashi, Audrey, & Peake, Linda. (2000). Racism out of place: Thoughts on whiteness and an antiracist geography in the New Millennium. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 90(2), 392–403.

Kotok, S., Frankenberg, E., Schafft, K. A., Mann, B. A., & Fuller, E. J. (2017). School choice, racial segregation, and poverty concentration: Evidence from Pennsylvania charter school transfers. Educational Policy, 31(4), 415-447.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Conceptual metaphor in everyday language. The journal of Philosophy, 77(8), 453-486.

Lees, L., Slater, T., & Wyly, E. (2013). Gentrification. New York: Routledge.

Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Inc.

Leow, P. (2014, May 19) One Year On. South Side Weekly Online. Retrieved from: https://southsideweekly.com/one-year-on/

Lipman, P. (2004). High stakes education: Inequality, globalization, and urban school reform. New York: Routledge.

Lipman, P. (2009). The cultural politics of mixed‐income schools and housing: A racialized discourse of displacement, exclusion, and control. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 40(3), 215-236.

Lipman, P. (2011). The new political economy of urban education: Neoliberalism, race, and the right to the city. New York: Taylor & Francis

Lipman, P., & Haines, N. (2007). From accountability to privatization and African American exclusion: Chicago's “Renaissance 2010”. Educational policy, 21(3), 471-502.

Lipman, P., & Hursh, D. (2007). Renaissance 2010: The reassertion of ruling-class power through neoliberal policies in Chicago. Policy futures in education, 5(2), 160-178.

Lipman, P., Person, A. S. & Kenwood Oakland Community Organisation (2007). Students as collateral damage? A preliminary study of Renaissance 2010 school closings in the midsouth. Chicago: Kenwood Oakland Community Organisation. Retrieved from: https://ceje.uic.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/collateral-damage-midsouth-report-1-31- 07.pdf

Lipsitz, G. (2007). The racialization of space and the spatialization of race theorizing the hidden architecture of landscape. Landscape Journal, 26(1), 10-23.

Lutton, L., Vevea, B., Karp, S., Cardona-Maguigad, A., McGee, K. (2018, December 3). A Generation of School Closings. WBEZ Chicago. Retrieved from: https://interactive.wbez.org/generation-school-closings/

Lutz, E. (2020, May 24) Chicago: black people are 30% of its population but 60% of its Covid- 19 deaths. The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/24/chicago-black-coronavirus-fatalities-us

Marachi, R. (2015, August 22). Hunger Strike: The #FightForDyett High School in Chicago. EduResearcher. Retrieved from: https://eduresearcher.com/2015/08/22/hunger-strike-the- fight-for-dyett-high-school-in-chicago/

Maqbool, A. (2020, April 11) Coronavirus: Why has the virus hit African Americans so hard? BBC News. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52245690

Massey, D. S., & Denton, N. A. (1993). American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Masterson, M. (2016, September 1) Dyett High School Reopening 1 Year After Activist Hunger Strike. WTTW. Retrieved from: https://news.wttw.com/2016/09/01/dyett-high-school- reopening-1-year-after-activist-hunger-strike

Miller, B. J. (2008). The struggle over redevelopment at Cabrini-Green, 1989-2004. Journal of Urban History, 34(6), 944-960.

Mills, A. (2015, September 4). When Not to Listen to a Columnist: The Dyett Hunger Strikers Must Be Heard. Truthout. Retrieved from: https://truthout.org/wp- content/uploads/legacy/images/images_2015_09/2015_0904ls1.jpg

Milner IV, H. R. (2007). Race, culture, and researcher positionality: Working through dangers seen, unseen, and unforeseen. Educational researcher, 36(7), 388-400.

Mitchell, D. (1995). The end of public space? People's Park, definitions of the public, and democracy. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 85(1), 108-133.

Mohammad, R. (2001). 'Insiders' and/or' outsiders': positionality, theory and praxis. In Qualitative methodologies for geographers: Issues and debates. 101-117

Morris, E. W., & Perry, B. L. (2016). The punishment gap: School suspension and racial disparities in achievement. Social Problems, 63(1), 68-86

Mullet, D. R. (2018). A general critical discourse analysis framework for educational research. Journal of Advanced Academics, 29(2), 116-142.

Nijman, J. (2000) The paradigmatic city. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90(1), 135-145.

Orfield, G. (1996). “The Growth of Segregation: African Americans, Latinos and Unequal Education” In Dismantling Desegregation. The Quiet Reversal of Brown v. Board of Education. (Eds) Orfield, G., & Eaton, S.E. New York: The New Press.

Orfield, G., & Eaton, S. E. (1996). Dismantling Desegregation. The Quiet Reversal of Brown v. Board of Education. New York: The New Press.

Owens, A. (2017). Racial residential segregation of school-age children and adults: The role of schooling as a segregating force. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 3(2), 63-80.

Peake, L., & Schein, R. H. (2000). Racing geography into the new millennium: Studies of ‘race’ and North American geographies. Social & Cultural Geography, 1(2), 133-142.

Peck, J., & Tickell, A. (2002). Neoliberalizing space. Antipode, 34(3), 380-404.

Peck, J., Theodore, N., & Brenner, N. (2009). Neoliberal urbanism: Models, moments, mutations. SAIS Review of International Affairs, 29(1), 49-66.

Phillippo, K. L., & Griffin, B. (2016). The social geography of choice: Neighborhoods’ role in students’ navigation of school choice policy in Chicago. The Urban Review, 48(5), 668- 695.

Price, P. L. (2010). At the crossroads: Critical race theory and critical geographies of race. Progress in human Geography, 34(2), 147-174.

Ramos, E. and Zamudio, M. I. (2020, April 5) In Chicago, 70% of COVID-19 Deaths Are Black. WBEZ Chicago. Retrieved from: https://www.wbez.org/stories/in-chicago-70-of-covid-19- deaths-are-black/dd3f295f-445e-4e38-b37f-a1503782b507

Ramos, M. (2020, August 17). 5 years later, Dyett High School hunger strikers recall their fight. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved from: https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2020/8/17/21372534/dyett-high-school-hunger- strikers-five-year-anniversary

Ravitch, D. (2016). The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education. New York: Basic Books.

Reich, H. (2012, December 18) DuSable High School a landmark with jazz as catalyst. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-xpm-2012-12- 18-ct-ent-1219-jazz-dusable-20121219-story.html

Reveal (2018, February 24) My town, Chi-Town. Reveal News. Retrieved from: https://revealnews.org/podcast/my-town-chi-town/

Richardson, T., & Jensen, O. B. (2003). Linking discourse and space: Towards a cultural sociology of space in analysing spatial policy discourses. Urban Studies, 40(1), 7-22.

Riel, V., Parcel, T. L., Mickelson, R. A., & Smith, S. S. (2018). Do magnet and charter schools exacerbate or ameliorate inequality?. Sociology Compass, 12(9), e12617.

Robinson, A. (2017, October 10) Opening Closed Schools. South Side Weekly. Retrieved from: https://southsideweekly.com/opening-closed-schools/

Rosenbaum, J. (2018). Educational and criminal justice outcomes 12 years after school suspension. Youth & Society.

Roy, A. (2017). Dis/possessive collectivism: Property and personhood at city’s end. Geoforum, 80, A1-A11.

Rury, J. L. (1999). Race, space, and the politics of Chicago's Public Schools: Benjamin Willis and the tragedy of urban education. History of Education Quarterly, 39(2), 117-142.

Russo, A. (2015, January 30). About That Board Meeting Room!. [Photograph] Retrieved from: https://www.chicagonow.com/district-299-chicago-public-schools-blog/2015/01/about- that-board-meeting-room/

Ryan, H. (2017). Educational Justice: Teaching and Organizing Against the Corporate Juggernaut. New York: NYU Press

Saldaña, J. (2015). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. London: Sage Publications.

Samara, T. R., Sinha, A., & Brady, M. (2013). Putting the “public” back in affordable housing: Place and politics in the era of poverty deconcentration. Cities, (35), 319-326.

Saporito, S. (2003). Private choices, public consequences: Magnet school choice and segregation by race and poverty. Social problems, 50(2), 181-203

Schoolhouse Live (2016, July 21) Dyett High School Hunger Strikers. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvrZbtRQrdc

Shedd, C. (2015). Unequal city: Race, schools, and perceptions of injustice. New York, Russell Sage Foundation.

Slater, T. (2013). Expulsions from public housing: The hidden context of concentrated affluence. Cities, 35, 384-390.

Smith, J. J., & Stovall, D. (2008). ‘Coming home’ to new homes and new schools: critical race theory and the new politics of containment. Journal of Education Policy, 23(2), 135-152.

Smith, N. (1996). The new urban frontier: Gentrification and the revanchist city. London: Routledge.

Smith, N. (2002). New globalism, new urbanism: gentrification as global urban strategy. Antipode, 34(3), 427-450.

Soja, E. W. (1996). Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and-imagined places. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Inc

Solórzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative inquiry, 8(1), 23-44.

Spear, A. H. (1967). Black Chicago: The making of a Negro ghetto, 1890-1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Squires, G. D., Bennett, L., McCourt, K. & nyden, P. (1987). Chicago: Race, Class, and the Response to Urban Decline. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Squires, G. D., & Kubrin, C. E. (2005). Privileged places: Race, uneven development and the geography of opportunity in urban America. Urban Studies, 42(1), 47-68

Steuter, E., & Wills, D. (2008). At war with metaphor: Media, propaganda, and racism in the war on terror. Lanham, MD: Lexington books.

Stovall, D. (2006). Forging community in race and class: Critical race theory and the quest for social justice in education. Race ethnicity and Education, 9(3), 243-259.

Strauss, V. (2014, October 15) Education Department investigating three school civil rights complaints. The Washington Post. Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/15/education- department-investigating-three-school-civil-rights-complaints/

Tate IV, W. F. (1997). Critical race theory and education: History, theory, and implications. Review of research in education, 22(1), 195-247

Taylor, K., Frankenberg, E., & Siegel-Hawley, G. (2019). Racial segregation in the southern schools, school districts, and counties where districts have seceded. AERA Open, 5(3)

The Chicago Reporter (2017, October 3) One year after hunger strike, Dyett High School opens. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gIy-AewCBw

The Real News Network (2015, August 23) Chicago Parents Launch Hunger-Strike for Community Input in School’s Future. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/- AD7qNw-1-4

The School Project (2015, January 22) Chicago Public Schools: Closed (documentary on the 2013 CPS closings). [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t46BvxBHUhE

Tyner, J. A. (2006). “Defend the ghetto”: Space and the urban politics of the Black Panther Party. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 96(1), 105-118.

Vale, L. (2013). Public Housing, Design Politics, & Twice-Cleared Communities. In Purging the Poorest: Public Housing & the Design Politics of Twice-Cleared Communities by Vale, L. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1-38 van Dijk, T. A. (1993a). Principles of critical discourse analysis. Discourse & Society, 4(2), 249- 283. van Dijk, T. A. (1993b). Elite discourse and racism. London: Sage Publications.

Venkatesh, S. A. (2000). American project: The rise and fall of a modern ghetto. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wacquant, L., (2008). Urban outcasts: A comparative sociology of advanced marginality. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Warikoo, N., Sinclair, S., Fei, J., & Jacoby-Senghor, D. (2016). Examining racial bias in education: A new approach. Educational Researcher, 45(9), 508-514.

Weber, R. (2002). Extracting value from the city: neoliberalism and urban redevelopment. Antipode, 34(3), 519-540.

Wilson, B. L. (2020, June 8) I’m your black friend, but I won’t educate you about racism. That’s on you. The Washington Post. Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/08/black-friends-educate-racism/

Wilson, D., & Sternberg, C. (2012). Changing realities: The new racialized redevelopment rhetoric in Chicago. Urban Geography, 33(7), 979-999

Wilson, D., Wouters, J., & Grammenos, D. (2004). Successful protect-community discourse: spatiality and politics in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. Environment and Planning A, 36(7), 1173-1190.

Wilson, W. J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, and public policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Wirth, L., & Bernert, E. H. (1949). Local community fact book of Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Wodak, R. (2001) What CDA is about – a summary of its history, important concepts and its developments. In Wodak, R., & Meyer M. (Eds). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage Publications 1-13

WYNC (2015, September 10) Chicago Parents, Activists 25 Days Into School Hunger Strike. WYNC Studios Takeaway. Retrieved from: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/hunger-strike-chicago-reaches- 24-days

’63 Boycott (2014, March 26). A History of Willis Wagons. Retrieved from: http://63boycott.kartemquin.com/blog/boycotter-stories/a-history-of-willis-wagons/

@soit_goes (2015, September 1). "I aint in this to fight the good fight, i want to win!" Jitu Brown one of the folks hunger striking to #SaveDyett. [Photograph] Twitter. Retrieved from: https://twitter.com/soit_goes/status/638883010465660928/photo/1

Appendix: Data Sources for CDA

Adams, O. (2014, May 20). Filling an Empty School: One man's vision for the future of Bronzeville's Overton Elementary. [News article] South Side Weekly. Retrieved from: https://southsideweekly.com/filling-an-empty-school/

Adams, O. (2015, October 5) Dyett: What’s Next? A new school and a new focus thirty-four days after the Dyett Hunger Strike. [News article] South Side Weekly. Retrieved from: https://southsideweekly.com/dyett-whats-next/

Adams, O. (2016, February 23). How Do You Score a School? [News article] South Side Weekly. Retrieved from: https://southsideweekly.com/how-do-you-score-a-school/

Adams, O. (2016, May 18). The New Dyett. [News article] South Side Weekly Retrieved from: https://southsideweekly.com/the-new-dyett/

Ahmed-Ullah, N. S., Chase, J., & Seeter, B. (2013, May 23). CPS approves largest school closure in Chicago’s history. [News article] Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2013-05-23-chi-chicago-school-closings- 20130522-story.html

Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (2015). Dyett Hunger Strike Ends. Retrieved from: http://www.reclaimourschools.org/updates/dyett-hunger-strike-ends

Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (2021). Chicago Organizers Lead Hunger Strike to Save Dyett High School. [Letter] Retrieved from: http://www.reclaimourschools.org/updates/chicago- organizers-lead-hunger-strike-save-dyett-high-school

American Federation of Teachers HQ (2015, September 10). Stand with Dyett Hunger Strikers. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_45T_4vqCfA

American Federation of Teachers HQ (2015, September 3). Dyett HS Hunger Strikers Call On Duncan. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbqWP4ltlYQ

BBC News (2013, March 21) Chicago to close more than 60 schools in budget cut. [News article] BBC News. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/21890474

Belsha, K. (2018, February 27). 1/ Let me tell you a little more about Irene Robinson, whose story was featured in my recent reporting for @reveal [photo by @chicagoan]. [Tweet] Twitter. Retrieved from: https://twitter.com/kalynbelsha/status/968527859437490177

Belsha, K., & Healy, B. (2018, February 24). When Chicago closed her kids’ school, she decided to fight back. [News article] The Chicago Reporter. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagoreporter.com/when-chicago-closed-her-kids-school-she-decided-to- fight-back/

Black, C. (2018, August 16). Chicago school policy is a driver of neighborhood violence, advocates say. [News article] The Chicago Reporter. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagoreporter.com/chicago-school-policy-is-a-driver-of-neighborhood- violence-advocates-say/

Brighton Park Neighborhood Council (2015, September 24). BPNC leaders supporting Dyett High School. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/AAiya3ogZfE

Brown, J. (2017, May 22). School choice is a scam in segregated neighborhoods. [News article] The Chicago Reporter Perspectives. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagoreporter.com/school-choice-is-a-scam-in-segregated-neighborhoods/ busybodyproductions (2015, September 1). WE ARE DYETT – Dyett High School Hunger Strike. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/sUf2Kkysnag

Byrne, J. (2013, April 4). Emanuel fires back at critics who say CPS closings racist. [News article] Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm- 2013-04-04-chi-emanuel-fires-back-at-critics-who-say-cps-closings-racist-20130404- story.html

Byrne, J. (2013, April 5). Emanuel defends Byrd-Bennett on school closings. [News article] Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2013-04- 05-ct-met-emanuel-cps-closings-0405-20130405-story.html

Canter, O. (2015, August 28). The Fight For Dyett Day 1. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/FXCbwVvUjZ8

CBS Chicago (2013, April 5). Emanuel Backs Schools Chief ‘100 Percent’ On School Closings. [News article] CBS Chicago. Retrieved from: https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/04/05/emanuel-backs-schools-chief-100-percent-on- school-closings/

CBS Chicago (2013, March 21). CPS To Close A Total Of 53 Schools, 61 Buildings. [News article] CBS Chicago. Retrieved from: https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/03/21/cps- begins-informing-schools-of-closing-plans/

Chicago Board of Education (2020, March 20) Participation Guidelines. Chicago Public Schools Board of Education. Retrieved from: https://www.cpsboe.org/meetings/participation- guidelines

Chicago Defender (2013, April 2). Chicago Teachers Union plans media, pols tour of ‘destabilised’ school communities. [News article] Chicago Defender. Retrieved from: https://chicagodefender.com/chicago-teachers-union-plans-media-pols-tour-of- destabilized-school-communities/

Chicago Defender (2013, July 24). Budget squeeze in Chicago schools pushes some classes online. [News article] Chicago Defender. Retrieved from: https://chicagodefender.com/budget-squeeze-in-chicago-schools-pushes-some-classes- online/

Chicago Defender (2013, March 22). Chicago to close 54 schools to address $1B deficit. [News article] Chicago Defender. Retrieved from: https://chicagodefender.com/chicago-to-close- 54-schools-to-address-1b-deficit/

Chicago Defender (2013, March 22). Parents, union to fight Chicago school closings. [News article] Chicago Defender. Retrieved from: https://chicagodefender.com/parents-union-to- fight-chicago-school-closings/

Chicago Defender (2013, March 27). Massive teachers union rally set for Wednesday. [News article] Chicago Defender. Retrieved from: https://chicagodefender.com/massive-teachers- union-rally-set-for-wednesday/

Chicago Defender (2015, September 16). It's Not Over: The 'Dyett 15' Still Fighting. [News article] Chicago Defender. Retrieved from: https://chicagodefender.com/its-not-over-the- dyett-15-still-fighting/

Chicago Defender (2017, April 7). 1871 and CPS Announce Entrepreneur 8-Weej Seminar at Dyett High School. [News article]. Chicago Defender. Retrieved from: https://chicagodefender.com/1871-and-cps-announce-entrepreneur-8-week-seminar-at- dyett-high-school/

Chicago Public Schools (2013, March 21) Media briefing. [PowerPoint Presentation] Chicago Public Schools. Retrieved from: https://chicago.cbslocal.com/wp- content/uploads/sites/15116062/2013/03/cps-briefing.pdf

Chicago Public Schools (2013, March 28) A better opportunity. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmdoA_Jw-Is

Chicago Public Schools (2013a, April 3) CPS Board of Education Monthly Meeting April 3, 2013, Part 1. [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sINJ_gwNdvM

Chicago Public Schools (2015, August 28). Chicago Board of Education Monthly Meeting August 26, 2015. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBqm5PpSKuo

Chicago Sun-Times (2015, August 27). Calls for action to end hunger striker. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZBkP49Vjdk

Chicago Sun-Times (2015, August 27). CPS, Emanuel hint new school may not be needed at Dyett site. [News article] Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved from: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2015/8/27/18538852/cps-emanuel-hint-new-school-may-not- be-needed-at-dyett-site

Chicago Sun-Times (2015, August 27). Mayor Emanuel on Dyett High School. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u6mqH0p4Y0

Chicago Sun-Times (2015, August 28). Hunger strikers at City Hall. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/AQJvPofpwoc

Chicago Sun-Times (2015, September 1). Mayor Emanuel on Dyett Hunger Strike. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U9EluNUlnM

Chicago Teachers Union (2015, August 26). Dyett Hunger Strike - Day 10 /AFT President Randi Weingarten V.1 of 3. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/dHo2mXxrdYk

Chicago Teachers Union (2015, August 26). Dyett Hunger Strike - Day 10 /AFT President Randi Weingarten V.2 of 3. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/mJLrPd-BjEY

Chicago Teachers Union (2015, August 26). Dyett Hunger Strike - Day 10 /AFT President Randi Weingarten V.3 of 3. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/UGalHD0KTJc

Chicago Teachers Union (2015, August 31). Clergy press conference for Dyett 12 at City Hall. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOAfyeWLIFk

Chicago Teachers Union (2015, September 2). Mic check: City of Chicago Budget Hearing, August 31. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/KOQwC0eZcUw

Chicago Teachers Union (2015, September 2). Rahm to meet with Dyett 12 hunger strikers, August 31. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/-9wdFdgcVWc

Chicago Tribune (2012, November 1). CPS says half of schools ‘underutilized’. [News article] Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2012-11- 01-chi-cps-half-of-schools-underutilized-20121031-story.html

CNN (2013, May 22). Chicago board votes to close 50 schools. [News article] CNN. Retrieved from: https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/22/us/illinois-chicago-school-closures/index.html

Coalition for Community Schools (2015, September 10). Dyett Hunger Strike Press Conference – Sept. 2, 2015 – Martin Blank Speech. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH9FKx7ziOw

Cohen, B. (2014, January 28). Grass Roots: A community mobilizes to keep a Bronzeville high school open. [News article] South Side Weekly. Retrieved from: https://southsideweekly.com/grass-roots/

Democracy Now! (2015, September 4). Chicago Hunger Strikers Enter Day 19 Challenging Rahmn Emanuel. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/g_nGzpLPDmk

Emanuel, R. (2019, February 5). I Used to Preach the Gospel of Education Reform. Then I Became the Mayor. [Opinion] The Atlantic. Retrieved from: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/policymakers-need-new-path- education-reform/581995/ empathyeducates (2014, June 26). To Save Dyett High School Part I - Community Occupied Chicago City Hall Intersection. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/F7p08mhtF4Q empathyeducates (2015, August 18). Little Village HS Hunger Strikers Caro and Andrea. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/MBF_Mkg_lUc empathyeducates (2015, August 26). Jeanette Taylor Ramaan Dyett Hunger Striker. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIfzg5fD5XE empathyeducates (2015, August 29). Anna Jones and Irene Robinson Dyett Hunger Strikers. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSoDVTOxff8 empathyeducates (2015, September 2). Reverend Robert Jones and Cathy Dale Dyett Hunger Strikers. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/e2WO7jLomWw empathyeducates (2015, September 22). Dyett Hunger Strike Post Strike Press Conference. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZSpKy-RWc0

Family Matters (2017, July 11). Dyett Discussion. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/vRNS9KfCbfo

FitzPatrick, L. (2014, December 19). Despite community pleas, CPS puts Dyett HS out for proposals. [News article] Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved from: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2014/12/19/18557065/despite-community-pleas-cps-puts- dyett-hs-out-for-proposals

FitzPatrick, L. (2015, January 16). Dyett High School supporters already have a plan, but CPS still shopping around. [News article] Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved from: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2015/1/16/18583892/dyett-high-school-supporters-already- have-a-plan-but-cps-still-shopping-around

FitzPatrick, L. (2016, June 24). Bronzeville resident named new principal of Dyett High School. [News article] Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved from: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2016/6/24/18480201/bronzeville-resident-named-new- principal-of-dyett-high-school

HuffPost (2013, April 4). Barbara Byrd-Bennett Racism Charges: CPS CEO Calls Claims An ‘Affront,’ Defends School Closings. [News Article] HuffPost News. Retrieved from: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/barbara-byrd-bennett-raci_n_3014688

Jacobin (2019, February 22) “I Love Chicago. I’m Gonna Fight to Stay Here.” [Interview] Jacobin Magazine. Retrieved from: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/02/jeanette-taylor- koco-chicago-schools-20th-ward

Karp, S. (2014). CPS reverses decision to close Dyett High School. The Chicago Reporter. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagoreporter.com/cps-reverses-decision-close-dyett-high- school/

Klein, R. (2015, September 19). These Chicago Protestors Have Been Starving Themselves For 34 Days. [News article] HuffPost News. Retrieved from: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chicago-hunger-strike- dyett_n_55fb076ce4b08820d917c965

Layton, L. (2015, August 26). In Chicago, hunger strikers fight for a high school. [News article] The Washington Post. Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/in-chicago-hunger-strikers-fight-for-a- high-school/2015/08/26/100c4832-4c13-11e5-84df-923b3ef1a64b_story.html

Leow, P. (2014, May 19). One Year On. [News article] South Side Weekly. Retrieved from: https://southsideweekly.com/one-year-on/

McCray, R. (2015, September 18). Meet the Chicago Mom Who Starved Herself for Better Schools. [News article] TakePart. Retrieved from: http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/09/18/dyett-high-school-hunger-strike

Mitchell, M. (2015, September 2). Dyett hunger strikers seek to block access. [News article] Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved from: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2015/9/2/18592967/mitchell-dyett-hunger-strikers-seek-to- block-access

Ms. Harris’ Math Class (2015, September 9). Community Sings "I Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Stayed On Dyett" | Fight for Dyett High School. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/FRrmKCm33Hg

Myszkowski, O., & Poulson, L. (2015, March 3). The Aftermath: Getting There. [News article] South Side Weekly. Retrieved from: https://southsideweekly.com/the-aftermath-getting- there/

NBC Chicago (2013, April 4). Chicago Schools Chief "Won't Accept" Claims Closings Are Racist. [News article] NBC Chicago. Retrieved from: https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicago-schools-chief-wont-accept-school- closings-racist/2053712/ peoplestribune (2015, September 1). Hunger Strike for Dyett High School. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuQxV2QukWA

Perdomo, Y. (2015, September 20). Dyett high school hunger strike ends after 34 days. [News article] WBEZ Chicago. Retrieved from: https://www.wbez.org/stories/dyett-high-school- hunger-strike-ends-after-34-days/fcb33f6e-2e76-4d19-adea-ad7887e5a008

Perez, J. (2015, September 20). Dyett High School hunger strike ends. [News article] Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-dyett-high- school-hunger-strike-ends-20150919-story.html

Progress Illinois (2015, August 17). Progress Illinois: Dyett Activists Go On Hunger Strike. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzpSU9wKiO8

Raphael, T. J. (2015, September 11). In Chicago, neighborhood organizers go on hunger strike – to get their school back. [News article] WBEZ Chicago. Retrieved from: https://www.wbez.org/stories/in-chicago-neighborhood-organizers-go-on-hunger-strike-to- get-their-school-back/198a5909-55e3-4ab7-8860-fc1082449f5c

Ramos, M. (2020, August 17). 5 years later, Dyett High School hunger strikers recall their fight. [News article] Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved from: https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2020/8/17/21372534/dyett-high-school-hunger- strikers-five-year-anniversary

Razi, H. (2015, February 24). The Aftermath: Choices. [News article] South Side Weekly. Retrieved from: https://southsideweekly.com/the-aftermath/

Reveal (2018, February 24) My town, Chi-Town. [Podcast] Reveal News. Retrieved from: https://revealnews.org/podcast/my-town-chi-town/

Robinson, A. (2017, October 10) Opening Closed Schools. [News article] South Side Weekly. Retrieved from: https://southsideweekly.com/opening-closed-schools/

Schiffman Tufano, L., & Parker, A. (2013, March 21). CPS School Closings List, Map: 54 To Be Shuttered. [News article] DNA Info. Retrieved from: https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20130321/chicago/cps-school-closings-list/

Schoolhouse Live (2016, July 18). Irene Robinson at the Save Our Schools Rally. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQd8ldgkosI

Schoolhouse Live (2016, July 2012). Dyett High School Hunger Strikers. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvrZbtRQrdc

Schott Foundation (2015, September 3) Dyett High School hunger strike press conference at US Dept. of Education #FightForDyett. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OaLaPnAkuw shoot4education (2018, May 31). Jitu Brown | The Children We Choose Not To Educate. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/NeKFqsj5ddo

Strauss, V. (2015, August 29). Why hunger strikers are risking their health to save a Chicago public high school. [News article] The Washington Post. Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/08/29/why-hunger-strikers- are-risking-their-health-to-save-a-chicago-public-high-school/

Strauss, V. (2015, September 5). Fight in Chicago: The all-too familiar story of school closures in America's cities. [News article] The Washington Post. Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/09/05/fight-in-chicago-the- all-too-familiar-story-of-school-closures-in-americas-cities/

Strauss, V. (2015, September 6). Why hunger strikers are not stopping their action over a Chicago high school. [News Article]. The Washington Post. Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/09/06/why-hunger-strikers- are-not-stopping-their-action-over-a-chicago-high-school/

Sweet, L. (2013, November 19). Chicago groups at Education Department today protesting school closings. [News article] Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved from: https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2013/11/19/18586165/chicago-groups-at-education- department-today-protesting-school-closings

Teachers for Social Justice (2015, September 16). Solidarity Statements for Dyett Hunger Strikers! TSJ Chicago. Retrieved from: http://www.teachersforjustice.org/p/global- solidarity-support-for-dyett.html

TeleSUR English (2015, October 22). The Global African – grace Lee Bogs & Dyett HS Hunger Strike. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yxisKjSC_4

The Chicago Reporter (2017, October 3). One year after hunger strike, Dyett High School opens. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gIy-AewCBw

The New York Times (2015, September 14). A Hunger Strike in Chicago. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy6r-ie1puA

The Real News Network (2015, August 23) Chicago Parents Launch Hunger-Strike for Community Input in School’s Future. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/- AD7qNw-1-4

The Real News Network (2015, September 6). How One Chicago High School Became Ground Zero For School Privatization. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/ckBqzgwXSdw

The School Project (2015, January 22) Chicago Public Schools: Closed (documentary on the 2013 CPS closings). [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t46BvxBHUhE

WBEZ Chicago (2015, September 14). “We are prepared to die.” – Dyett hunger strike enters fifth week. [Radio recording] WBEZ Chicago. Retrieved from: https://www.wbez.org/stories/we-are-prepared-to-die-dyett-hunger-strike-enters-fifth- week/32f01221-70e7-44b2-ad0a-52f485a241f5

WBEZ Chicago (2015, September 17). One month into hunger strike, Dyett High School activists continue the fight. [Radio recording] WBEZ Chicago. Retrieved from: https://www.wbez.org/stories/one-month-into-hunger-strike-dyett-high-school-activists- continue-the-fight/d17587d0-3fd5-4ccd-ac47-8f9870c8c2e8

Yaccino, St., & Rich, M. (2013, March 21). Chicago Says It Will Close 54 Public Schools. [News Article] The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/education/chicago-says-it-will-close-54-public- schools.html

Younge, G. (2013, April 8). Chicago schools fight closure as drive for charter schools continues. [News article] The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/08/chicago-schools-closure-program-charter