The New Political Economy of Urban Education: Neoliberalism, Race, and the Right to the City

In a sobering and well-documented account of school reform efforts in Chicago, Pauline Lipman's The New Political Economy of Urban Education analyzes how educational policies crystallize the co-constitutive logics of neoliberalism and racial domination in a broader project of dismantling public education and furthering capitalist interests. Informed by interdisciplinary literatures-including Henri Lefebvre on space, David Harvey on neoliberalism, and Jean Anyon and Michael Apple on urban education-her theoretically grounded analysis provides ample evidence demonstrating the strategies used in the fulfillment of neoliberal educational policies. These include the selective dismantling of public schools in poor communities of color, the turning over of schools to private managers, the twin policies of mixed-income education and housing, the incursion of venture philanthropy into educational planning, and the rise of charter schools. A broad call for envisioning alternatives closes the book, leaving readers to anticipate future work specifically exploring current radical practices.