Transforming the Elite

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle A. Purdy
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Black Students ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Social History ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Private Schools ◽  
Private School ◽  
Mixed Feelings

When traditionally white public schools in the South became sites of massive resistance in the wake of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, numerous white students exited the public system altogether, with parents choosing homeschooling or private segregationist academies. But some historically white elite private schools or independent schools, the most prestigious of private schools, opted to desegregate. The black students that attended these schools courageously navigated institutional and interpersonal racism but ultimately emerged as upwardly mobile leaders. Transforming the Elite tells this story. Focusing on the experiences of the first black students to desegregate Atlanta's well-known The Westminster Schools and national efforts to diversify private schools, Michelle A. Purdy combines social history with policy analysis in a dynamic narrative that expertly re-creates this overlooked history. Through gripping oral histories and rich archival research, this book showcases educational changes for black southerners during the civil rights movement including the political tensions confronted, struggles faced, and school cultures transformed during private school desegregation. This history foreshadows contemporary complexities at the heart of the black community's mixed feelings about charter schools, school choice, and education reform.

Blurring Public and Private: The Pragmatic Desegregation Politics of an Elite Private School in Atlanta

2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-89
Author(s):  
Michelle A. Purdy
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Black Students ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Private Schools ◽  
Private School ◽  
Historically White ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
White Elite

The school desegregation narrative often references historically white public schools as sites of massive resistance and historically white private schools as segregationist academies. Yet some historically white elite private schools or independent schools, such as The Westminster Schools (plural in name only), established in 1951 in Atlanta, Georgia, chose to desegregate. Such elite institutions, which have served as one catalyst for the creation and maintenance of social and cultural capital, became more accessible after Brown v. Board of Education through a combination of private and public decisions galvanized by larger social, political, and federal forces. Westminster's 1965 decision to consider all applicants regardless of race was emblematic of the pragmatic desegregation politics of Atlanta's city leaders during the civil rights movement and a national independent school agenda focused on recruiting black students. Drawing on institutional, local, regional, and national archival records and publications, this article examines the import of schools like Westminster to civic and business leaders, to the politics of race and desegregation occurring in large cities, and to the range of educational opportunities available in metropolitan areas. This examination yields an analysis of the leadership and politics of a southern historically white elite private school that black students desegregated in 1961.

Civil Rights and the Private School Movement in Mississippi, 1964–1971

2002 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. Fuquay
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Private School ◽  
Black Children ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Massive Resistance ◽  
Housing Discrimination ◽  
Civil Rights Act

The signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was heralded as a tremendous victory for the civil rights movement, the fulfillment of a decade-long struggle to enforce the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Along with measures against job and housing discrimination, the Civil Rights Act included provisions specifically designed to overcome the white South's massive resistance campaign and enforce school desegregation. Despite the continued intransigence of segregationists, these measures proved successful and white public schools across the South opened their doors to black children. With segregationists in retreat and the Voting Rights Act on the horizon, this was a time of celebration for civil rights activists. But this was not the end of the story.

The Private School Pivot: The Shrouded Persistence of Massive Resistance in the Black Belt and Beyond

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-486
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Edmonds
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Private School ◽  
Educational Equality ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Massive Resistance ◽  
History Of ◽  
Greene County

In 1969, four years after passage of the Voting Rights Act, African Americans in Greene County, Alabama, reclaimed control of local government, becoming the first community in the South to do so since Reconstruction. A half century later, however, Greene County remains an impoverished and largely segregated area with poor educational outcomes, especially for Black children. This essay explores the history of Greene County from 1954 to the recent past, with a particular focus on Warrior Academy, a segregated private school (“segregation academy”) founded by Whites in 1965. As a case study of “school choice” in the context of the “long civil rights movement,” it complicates scholarly definitions of “massive resistance.” Furthermore, it demonstrates the ways in which an emerging “color-blind” conservatism premised on White concerns about “educational quality” thwarted Black efforts to achieve educational equality, even in places where African Americans achieved significant political victories.

scholarly journals The Aggregate Effect of School Choice: Evidence from a Two-Stage Experiment in India *

2015 ◽  
Vol 130 (3) ◽  
pp. 1011-1066 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karthik Muralidharan ◽  
Venkatesh Sundararaman
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Private Schools ◽  
Private School ◽  
Test Scores ◽  
Omitted Variables ◽  
School Students ◽  
Two Stage ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
The Impact

Abstract We present experimental evidence on the impact of a school choice program in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh that provided students with a voucher to finance attending a private school of their choice. The study design featured a unique two-stage lottery-based allocation of vouchers that created both student-level and market-level experiments, which allows us to study the individual and the aggregate effects of school choice (including spillovers). After two and four years of the program, we find no difference between test scores of lottery winners and losers on Telugu (native language), math, English, and science/social studies, suggesting that the large cross-sectional differences in test scores across public and private schools mostly reflect omitted variables. However, private schools also teach Hindi, which is not taught by the public schools, and lottery winners have much higher test scores in Hindi. Furthermore, the mean cost per student in the private schools in our sample was less than a third of the cost in public schools. Thus, private schools in this setting deliver slightly better test score gains than their public counterparts (better on Hindi and same in other subjects), and do so at a substantially lower cost per student. Finally, we find no evidence of spillovers on public school students who do not apply for the voucher, or on private school students, suggesting that the positive effects on voucher winners did not come at the expense of other students.

Contending with Change and Challenges

2018 ◽  
pp. 56-81
Author(s):  
Michelle A. Purdy
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Private School ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Black Families ◽  
Student Body ◽  
Local Schools ◽  
Tax Exempt ◽  
The Face

This chapter captures the development of Westminster in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By the late 1950s, Westminster’s student body had quadrupled, and the school was housed on the current West Paces Ferry Road campus. School leaders prepared for the possible closing of Atlanta Public Schools as black Atlantans called for desegregation in the face of oppositional state policies. As the civil rights movement increased in momentum, Westminster and other local schools, including Lovett and Trinity, received inquiries into their admissions policies from interracial organizations such as the Greater Atlanta Council on Human Relations and leading civil rights activists including the Kings, Abernathys, and Youngs, and black families such as the Rosses. Private school leaders worked to find a balance among multiple contexts and influences, including the enlarged federal presence in education and increased questions about federal tax-exempt status for private schools. Concurrently, a school culture at Westminster developed in ways that continued to reflect the “Old South” and included racist traditions while some white students earnestly debated and discussed the issues of the day.

scholarly journals Markets & Myths: Autonomy in Public & Private Schools

1997 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Rubin Glass
Keyword(s):  
Student Achievement ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
High Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Secondary Schools ◽  
Private Schools ◽  
Private School ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Principal Autonomy

School choice is the most controversial education policy issue of the 1990s. John Chubb and Terry Moe's Politics, Markets and America's Schools stimulated this investigation. They concluded that teacher and administrator autonomy was the most important influence on student achievement. They assumed that the organization of private schools offered greater autonomy resulting in higher student achievement and that the bureaucracy of public schools stifles autonomy limiting student achievement. The research undertaken here elaborates, elucidates, and fills in the framework of teacher and principal autonomy in public and private secondary schools. Interviews of more than thirty teachers and administrators in six high schools, observations, field notes, and analysis of documents collected in the field form the empirical base of this work. The sites included three private, independent, nondenominational secondary schools which are college preparatory and three public secondary schools noted for high graduation rates and offering numerous advanced placement courses.The feelings expressed by both public and private school participants in this study testify to equally high degrees of autonomy. Issues that emerged from data analysis in this study which mitigate and shape autonomy include the following: conflicting and contradictory demands, shared beliefs, layers of protection, a system of laws, funding constraints and matters of size of the institution. These issues challenge oversimplified assertions that differences of any importance exist between the autonomy experienced by professionals in public and private high schools. This study reveals the complexity of the concept of autonomy and challenges the myth that teachers and principals in private schools enjoy autonomy and freedom from democratic bureaucracy that their public school counterparts do not.

scholarly journals Multiple choice: How public school leaders in New Orleans's saturated market view private school competitors

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huriya Jabbar ◽  
Dongmei Li
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Private Schools ◽  
Private School ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
School Competition ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Public School Choice ◽  
The Impact

School choice policies, such as charter schools and vouchers, are in part designed to induce competition between schools. While several studies have examined the impact of private school competition on public schools, few studies have explored school leaders’ perceptions of private school competitors. This study examines the extent to which public school leaders in New Orleans, which already has a robust public school choice system, perceived competition with private schools, and the characteristics that predicted competition between the two types of schools. We find that while over half of principals reported competing with private schools for students, there was a wide range of the number and percentage of possible competitors reported. Furthermore, the results suggest that school voucher policies did not play a major role in influencing why schools competed with private schools. In addition, public school leaders who did lose students to private schools through the voucher program reported that they often recouped those losses, when parents returned to public schools unsatisfied or facing additional unexpected costs. 

scholarly journals Private Schools and Residential Choices: Accessibility, Mobility, and Welfare

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric A Hanushek ◽  
Sinan Sarpça ◽  
Kuzey Yilmaz
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Private Schools ◽  
Private School ◽  
School Quality ◽  
Location Decisions ◽  
School Vouchers ◽  
Locational Choice ◽  
Residential Location Decisions ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Private schools free households from a strict link between residential location decisions and the tax-school quality bundles they consume. In order to study the impact of private schools on educational outcomes, we develop a general equilibrium model that simultaneously incorporates locational choice built on access and locational choice built on tax-school quality attributes of jurisdictions. We conclude that private school choice enhances the welfare of all households—both those attending private schools and those attending public schools—while also working to reduce the amount of housing and school segregation in equilibrium. Investigation of alternative school policies indicates that greater choice, including using targeted school vouchers, can improve welfare and achievement. Finally, we demonstrate how the fiscal burden arising from some households paying less taxes than they consume in public services varies significantly with the structure of school choice options.

The puzzle of parental partiality

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin M. Macleod
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Private Schools ◽  
Private School ◽  
Parental Partiality ◽  
Fair Chance

In this article, I offer a response to Adam Swift’s book, How Not to be A Hypocrite: School Choice for the Morally Perplexed Parent, by developing some reflections on the nature, value and limits of parental partiality. I address two main issues. First, I consider the issue of how we should interpret the character and value of parental partiality. I argue that treating parental partiality as a kind of disposition helps to illuminate its distinctive value and also explains why we tend to judge some illegitimate expressions of partiality more harshly than others. Second, I examine one of the justifications Swift views as valid for sending children to private school. I criticize Swift’s contention that parents can be justified in sending children to private schools in order to secure for them a ‘fair chance in life’.

Pakistan’s Education Reform Test

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (825) ◽  
pp. 133-139
Author(s):  
Faisal Bari
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
National Curriculum ◽  
Compulsory Education ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
The Government ◽  
Provincial Autonomy

The Pakistani Constitution promises “free and compulsory” education for all, but 20 million children are not in school. Many who are enrolled receive poor-quality education: surveys show Pakistani students ranking among the lowest achievers in the world. This has led families in all but the lowest income groups to seek private alternatives for their children, weakening the constituency for improved public schools. Under Prime Minister Imran Khan, the government has pushed for a Single National Curriculum. Critics contend that it will not address lack of access or the poor quality of education, but that it could lead to restrictions on school choice, provincial autonomy, and linguistic diversity, while imposing a narrow vision of national identity.

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