Untold student stories: Examining educational budget cuts within urban school settings

ABSTRACT

School choice, which allows a school district to accept students from other districts, has been enthusiastically touted in the state of Michigan and recently on a national scale. The policy has been criticized by some for redirecting resources from urban school districts to wealthier, more suburban districts. By examining an urban school district in Michigan, this study argues that there is a need for community-based research and community psychology to examine students’ experiences and inform policy within urban contexts. Data collection includes archival records, field notes, focus groups, and participatory research. This case study explores the lived experiences of students within a school encountering educational budget cuts and school choice. Results highlight the various ways in which students were impacted by educational budget cuts at the individual, classroom, and overall-school levels. Student narratives describe the potential long-term negative consequences of such cuts. Implications for policy and research are discussed.

Acknowledgments

The author expresses gratitude to the students and teachers of the participating school for their honesty, spirit, enthusiasm, and passion for educational equity. The author also thanks Dr. Jennifer Watling Neal, Dr. Rebecca Campbell, Dr. Miles McNall, and Zachary Herrnstadt for their invaluable feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. To protect confidentiality, the school, school district, and neighboring school districts throughout this article were given pseudonyms.

2. Specific newspaper articles have been excluded to maintain confidentiality of the district (as per request of the district and Michigan State University Insitutional Review Board).

3. This particular methodological approach was originated by Robert E. Stake. For a detailed review of the methodology, see Stake (1995).

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially funded by the Fairweather Fund providing small research grants to ecological-community psychology students at Michigan State University.

Notes on contributors

Mariah Kornbluh

Mariah Kornbluh is an Assistant Professor at California State University, Chico. She earned a BA in psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a PhD in ecological–community psychology from Michigan State University. She also held a postdoctoral position at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the Department of Civil Society and Community Research. Her research program focuses on engaging in community-based partnerships in order to examine pathways toward increasing access to health care and civic development among children and adolescents. She utilizes a participatory action research paradigm and often employs mixed methods and social network analysis. Her recent work focuses on children’s understandings of inequality, housing insecurity, and the social politicization of underrepresented students through social justice efforts.