ABSTRACT
This study is an analysis of turnaround policy implementation in an urban school district in Waterbury Connecticut under a unique version of mayoral control. The Waterbury, Connecticut, school district consists of more than 85 percent Black and Latinx (e.g., primarily Puerto Rican) students in schools that are struggling to reach state standards on test-scores. Waterbury’s history of political malfeasance, stemming from city hall, exacerbates concerns in urban and minoritized communities related to mayoral-led turnaround and reform strategies in the district. This study highlights a Black elementary school principal, Erik Brown, who was demoted and removed upon implementation of turnaround in his school. This study found that Brown was beloved by parents, many from Waterbury’s urban communities, and by his elementary school students—more than 95 percent Latinx and Black. Contrarily, Brown was demonized by the White mayor, the superintendent, and the mostly White board of education members. This conflict resulted in court battles around racial discrimination. This study highlights how minoritized community perspectives of schooling for their children contrasted drastically with district leadership practices. Furthermore, this study underscores the implications for minoritized student success in school given the prevalent cultural and epistemological contrasts and disconnects found in this study.
This study’s analysis is guided by Culture of Policy discourses argued to be fundamental to educational policy related to pathologized and deficitized urban Latinx and Black communities-culture and students (Stein, 2004). This study found disconnects between the mostly White educational leadership, which included the mayor, the board of education members, the school superintendent, and the minoritized community members, parents, and students in the district. This inquiry is a discursive analysis of the ways that culture influences educational policy and implementation and the implications for minoritized communities and their students, oftentimes, living and acting in the world from contrasting cultural and epistemological values and principles.
