Abstract
In Expelling Public Schools: How Antiracist Politics Enable School Privatization in Newark, John Arena provides a clearly written and highly detailed account of conflict over public education among corporate elites, student and parent activists, elected officials, teachers’ unions, and nonprofit leaders in Newark, New Jersey. The author argues that Black political elites use antiracist politics as a ploy to “derail working-class struggles” and promote a school privatization agenda (p. 8). Expelling Public Schools focuses on Newark under Cory Booker and Ras Baraka, two seemingly opposed Black mayors who coalesced around the same school privatization project.
In the introduction, Arena draws on the work of political scientists Adolph Reed Jr. and Cedric Johnson to claim that antiracist politics are increasingly irrelevant in the post-civil rights era. The main role of Black political movements, Arena asserts, is to conceal class conflict and legitimize the political power of Black elites. His analysis considers both “movements from above,” through which elites push their agenda and pursue hegemony, and “movements from below” that mount popular resistance (p. 17). Arena argues that Newark’s Black political elite used antiracism to appease the movement from below, while continuing to facilitate the school privatization movement from above.
Expelling Public Schools will be of interest to readers who are specifically interested in Newark politics. It will also appeal to those who believe, despite a great deal of evidence to the contrary, that racism is inconsequential in contemporary society. Part One provides a political history of Newark and its public education system. It also includes a critical historical account of Black urban politics. In Part Two, Arena argues that Cory Booker, working with corporate CEOs and nonprofits, transformed education policy in a manner consistent with “neoliberal state restructuring” (p. 95). Part Three focuses on the movements from below by which students, parents, and activist teachers challenged the pro-charter policies promoted by the “Black Professional Managerial Class.” Part Four portrays Ras Baraka as a mayor who sought to win the support of the public while promoting the same Booker-era policies that threatened public education.
The analysis is most effective in Part Four, which lives up to the book’s subtitle: “How Antiracist Politics Enable School Privatization in Newark.” Here, the author explains that Baraka distinguished himself from his political opponent by claiming to be an authentically Black anti-charter school radical candidate. Simultaneously, Baraka assured Newark’s business class that he was their ally. Once in office, Baraka facilitated the charter school movement that many activists opposed. Yet he strengthened his position with movements from below by joining them in advocating for local control for Newark public schools, calling for the dismissal of the governor-appointed superintendent, and emphasizing racism as the primary system of social domination. Baraka placates activists with antiracist messaging while obscuring his endorsement of economic elites and their privatization efforts. The argument is less convincing in Part Two, where the mere co-occurrence of antiracist and pro-charter (or charter-curious) politics among Black political leaders (e.g., pastors) is offered as evidence that the former enables the latter.
Undergirding Arena’s analysis is the claim that antiracist politics are simply a tactic used by Black elites to win material and symbolic advantages. Arena accurately states that there is vast intra-racial inequality in contemporary America. However, he presents this fact as evidence that antiracist politics are now irrelevant. Arena supports these claims by citing Reed and Johnson, who have argued that antiracist politics “inevitably” strengthen the position of political elites. Arena does not critically contend with the plethora of sociological research that reveals racial inequality across social class groups. Nor does he engage with scholarship about Black working-class political movements. It is true that there is growing inequality among Black Americans. However, this does not mean that racism is unimportant, that Black people have no shared interests, or that Black political elites are always aligned with white economic elites. Expelling Public Schools shows that “cynical” antiracist politics can be used to promote a neoliberal agenda. However, the author erroneously extends the case, suggesting that antiracist politics are always cynical and always in service of neoliberalism.
For most of the book Arena does not precisely investigate how and when Black political elites used racial identity politics to promote school privatization or the conditions under which such efforts were successful. Instead, he suggests that Black political, religious, and nonprofit leaders are intrinsically opposed to the interests of working-class people. For example, when he mentions a Black Ivy League educated anti-privatization activist, he writes that her activism came from an “unlikely source” (p. 120). Yet, he does not raise the same suspicions about non-Black activists. By essentializing some Black people as inherently opposed to the working class, the author precludes serious investigation of how and when (Black and non-Black) elites use insincere antiracism to promote neoliberal politics.
The analysis is also hindered by a simplification of public schools and education policy. Arena characterizes traditional public schools as paragons of the welfare state and charter schools as symbols of neoliberalism. Because he does not recognize schools as complex and imperfect organizations, Arena understands any criticism of public schools to be a destructive attack on the welfare state. The author is correct to interpret the charter school movement as a threat to public education. There is no doubt that some economic elites want to eliminate publicly funded education, use philanthropy to control school reform, structure public education as a marketplace, and extract wealth through for-profit schools. However, it is an oversimplification to assume that anyone who critiques public schools and anyone who is associated with charter schools—including teachers and parents—is motivated by a neoliberal agenda.
Teachers and parents are attracted to charter schools for a variety of reasons. Their choices may enable school privatization, but this does not mean that they have a neoliberal agenda. For example, Arena dismisses parents’ and activists’ complaints about racism in public schools as pro-privatization rhetoric. Perplexingly, he does not acknowledge or dispute extensive empirical research about race, class, and gender inequality in schools. I hoped that Expelling Public Schools would provide insight into how pro-privatization elites use antiracist framing to convince some parents, educators, and voters that charter schools are the solution to racial inequality in public education. However, these questions cannot be answered by an inquiry that rejects any criticism of public schools and presumes that no one is genuinely concerned about racism.
We need more research that considers how political and economic (Black and non-Black) elites use racial politics to promote their own agendas and undermine social welfare. We also need to better understand how and when Black elites use “Black unity” to expand their own wealth and power, while undermining the welfare of poor and working-class Black people. As Arena notes, analyses that presume cohesion within racial groups fail to recognize intra-racial class conflict and its consequences. However, a study that only considers social class domination and assumes (but does not show) that racism is irrelevant in contemporary American society is equally deficient.