OneApp, Many Considerations: Black Social Capital and School Choice in New Orleans

This article employs critical policy theory to analyze the shift in the New Orleans school application system from a decentralized model to a common enrollment system. As many Black families continue to select historically Black schools rather than newly founded charters, free-market policymakers have portrayed them as irrational consumers who lack the social capital to choose good schools. Through a discourse analysis of research and media coverage, this article argues that the failure of parents to align their choices to free-market metrics is a rational manifestation of the Black social capital that has been disrupted by free-market reforms.