ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 discusses the focus and purpose of the book, what readers will gain from the research presented throughout each chapter, and the implications for policy and practice. This chapter introduces how market-based strategies and color-evasiveness are common roots to educational leadership practice and how the current sociopolitical context exacerbates a color-evasive, market-oriented state that has been in place in the U.S. for the last several decades. We emphasize the importance of moving away from discussions focused solely on color-evasiveness or neoliberalism as market-based policies and practices are color-evasive––they utilize competition and capitalist strategies to address the problems faced by chronically underperforming schools. Just as it would be remiss to discuss capitalism without talking about race or colonialism, it does us a disservice as scholars, practitioners, and policy makers to discuss neoliberalism without talking about race and color-evasiveness. We therefore discuss concepts key to the historical, institutional, structural, and political underpinnings of racism and color-evasiveness in education. Finally, we provide a brief overview of each chapter of the book, which focuses on a single high-profile educational policy or leadership practice analyzed through the color-evasive, market-based lens.
