Expelling Public Schools
How Antiracist Politics Enable School Privatization in Newark
Examining the more than two-decade struggle to privatize public schools in Newark, New Jersey—a conflict that is raging in cities across the country—Expelling Public Schools is a critique of Black urban regime politics and the way in which antiracist messaging obscures real class divisions, interests, and ideological diversity.
Expelling Public Schools offers a fascinating look into the racial politics of corporate school reform in Newark Public Schools. John Arena takes a long view—just over two decades—and examines the reform movements and countermovements in the district from the top down and the bottom up. In assessing corporate school reform efforts under mayors Cory Booker and Ras Baraka, this deeply researched book illuminates the mechanisms that maintain educational inequality.
Rand Quinn, author of Class Action: Desegregation and Diversity in San Francisco Schools
In Expelling Public Schools, John Arena examines the more than two-decade struggle to privatize public schools in Newark, New Jersey—a conflict that is raging in cities across the country—from the vantage point of elites advancing the pro-privatization agenda and their grassroots challengers.
Analyzing the unsuccessful effort of Cory Booker (Newark’s leading pro-privatization activist and mayor) to generate popular support for the agenda, and Booker’s rival and ultimate successor Ras Baraka’s eventual galvanization of the charter movement, Arena argues that Baraka’s Black radical politics cloaked a revanchist agenda of privatization.
Expelling Public Schools reveals the political rise of Booker and Baraka, their one-time rivalry and subsequent alliance, and what this particular case study illuminates about contemporary post–civil rights Black politics. Ultimately, Expelling Public Schools is a critique of Black urban regime politics and the way in which antiracist messaging obscures real class divisions, interests, and ideological diversity.
Expelling Public Schools offers a fascinating look into the racial politics of corporate school reform in Newark Public Schools. John Arena takes a long view—just over two decades—and examines the reform movements and countermovements in the district from the top down and the bottom up. In assessing corporate school reform efforts under mayors Cory Booker and Ras Baraka, this deeply researched book illuminates the mechanisms that maintain educational inequality.
Rand Quinn, author of Class Action: Desegregation and Diversity in San Francisco Schools
It is rare to encounter a work that treats actually existing Black life, an approach best articulated by Cedric Johnson, to critically address contemporary Black urban regimes. Thoughtful, careful, and incisive, Expelling Public Schools does just that. In this moment when antiracism (and surface critiques of antiracism) is rife, John Arena’s work provides a wonderful tonic.
Lester Spence, author of Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-hop and Black Politics
Contents
Abbreviations
Introduction. Whip Them Back into Line: The Class Politics of Antiracism
Part I. Movement Foundations
1. Whose Schools, Whose City? Reading Newark through Social Movements
Part II. The Movement from Above
2. Regime Change: Cory Booker, Philanthrocapitalism, and the New Civil Rights Movement of Our Day, 1996–2006
3. Booker in Power: Reconstructing the State and the Limits of Neoliberal Antiracism, 2006–2012
Part III. The Movement from Below
4. Rebel City? Newark’s Education Movement from Below, 2010–2013
5. The Clash of Disruptors: Who Would Prevail? 2013–2014
Part IV. Containing the Movement
6. Ras Baraka’s Self-Determination Politics: The First Time as Tragedy, Second Time as Farce, Summer–Fall 2014
7. We All Become Mayor? Movement Reinvention and the Ousting of Cami Anderson, Spring–Summer 2015
8. Making Newark Governable Again: Merging Movements through Racial Democracy, 2015–2018
Conclusion: Tell No Lies, Claim No Easy Victories
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Research Methods
Notes
Index
