ABSTRACT
The chapter provides a deep and critical conceptual understanding of the limitations and possibilities of educational policies with respect to issues of equity and social justice. Americans must consider the intersection of school reforms and the political economy in an effort to move urban education to a more equitable and socially just framework. Detroit schools have been plagued by economic and racial inequality. This is in part due to deindustrialization, but, like many other major US cities, also persistent, racialized poverty. Without taking into account the storied histories of urban areas like Detroit, scholars and policymakers misunderstand the sociocultural context in which policy is enacted. Paired with government policies “facilitating takeovers of ‘failing’ public schools” and grounded in the principle of individual merit, educational stratification comes by default. In turn, the status quo is maintained. One point of consideration is the relationship between Detroit’s longstanding educational history and the city’s contemporary landscape of school reform.
