Purpose: This study examined challenges to gentrifying schools as white spaces, exploring the efforts of administrators and parents to create an equitable school environment during the initial years of the Diversity in Admissions policy. Methods: In qualitative fieldwork conducted over 2 years at City, a Title I public school in New York City, I…

Largely overlooked in the empirical literature on gentrification are the potential effects school closures have in the process. This study begins to fill this gap by integrating longitudinal data on all U.S. metropolitan neighborhoods from the Neighborhood Change Database with data on the universe of school closures from the National Center for…

This case study investigated how three New York City schools responded to gentrification's effects as student demographics shifted. I used the conceptual framework of "urban school leaders as cultural workers" to examine the tensions, successes, and challenges inherent in the school gentrification and integration process. I found that…

In the late-2000s, Washington, DC achieved national notoriety for its embrace of market accountability in public schools and support for a steadily expanding charter sector. At the same time, the DC government pursued a concerted effort to attract new residents and investment to the city, a project that bore fruit in the form of some of the…

Background: As gentrification transforms the physical, cultural, and demographic character of urban landscapes, an expansive body of research has generated insights into the meanings and implications of this process for public schools. How school leaders facilitate or constrain school gentrification is a growing area of inquiry. Research Design:…

An ongoing struggle for affordable housing in Southern California has led many predominately White, middle, and upper middle- class families to seek home ownership in divested urban communities. This phenomenon, known as gentrification, can benefit a community by increasing property values, but often comes at a cost to longstanding, Black and…

This article traces the state takeover and neoliberal reconstruction of a mid-size urban school district in the California Bay Area. Aligning with research on social networks in school reform, it identifies three organizational nodes of power operating within the takeover and post-takeover landscape: venture-philanthropic capital, the Teach for…