Who We are is Who We were: Policy Moves that Shape a District

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to provide the historical and sociopolitical context of an urban midwestern district, and track how the policy churn over time has been influenced by racism and white supremacy and continues to shape policymaking in the district. We use critical policy analysis to review historical documents, encompassing six decades, to interrogate how the district’s past policy moves inform their need and ability to pursue racial equity. We support our document analysis with semi-structured interviews with district leaders. Our findings demonstrate that a number of strategic moves, including school desegregation and the charter movement, have influenced the district’s racial equity focus. The study has implications for the participating district as well as other districts attempting lasting systemic change.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15700763.2024.2365754

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.