When whiteness creeps back in: an analytic look at whiteness in urban education school reform

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an analysis of how education reform in Denver Public Schools (DPS) fails to reach its targeted goal of closing achievement gaps between white students and Students of Colour based on its investment in Whiteness. Using a theoretical framework grounded in critical whiteness studies, we trace a history in DPS that includes legal intervention on behalf of Students of Colour and analyse how modern day school choice, specialised programme assignments and hiring and promotion tactics reproduce historical inequities by granting privilege to white students and educators through its stated doctrine and policy. This privilege is evident through testing data showing DPS white students not only outperform white state peers, but as district policies targeted at closing racial gaps take hold, white students are actually benefiting the most. This paper asserts that until DPS is willing to examine how Whiteness is entrenched in all parts of the district it is destined to perpetuate racial inequities.

KEYWORDS:

• Whiteness
• achievement
• urban education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.