Dear colleagues and friends,
You are cordially invited to join the upcoming webinar/seminar on the Marketization and Privatization in Education seminar series. The next session, with Dr. Kristen Buras (bio below), is on Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space Where the Market Meets Grassroots Resistance (abstract below).
This seminar will take place at 1pm (PDT)/ 3pm (CDT) on April 7th (Tue), 2015. There are three possible methods of joining the seminar.
(1) If you would like to attend in person in Vancouver, please come to Scarfe 308A, UBC (Vancouver campus). Map at: http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index_detail.php?show=y,n,n,n,n,y&bldg2Search=n&locat1=240-1
(2) If you are attending in person in Urbana-Champaign, please come to #22 in College of Education, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
(3) If you are joining the webinar, please go to http://bluejeans.com/ and click “Join meeting” as a participant and enter Meeting ID: 305154344 Please join us 10 minutes prior to the meeting time so that we can ensure everyone’s audio and video work properly.
For webinar participants, please (1) mute your microphone, (2) turn off your video feed, and (3) do not share screen. If you would like to ask questions or need technical assistance, please use the 'CHAT' typing function.
**To give us a better idea of how many attendees/participants we may have, please RSVP by filling out the form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1EIbEi3bA5HuAkVhMLdVAZQ5qOn7EWSP9RjKM3-ZfY8g/viewform?c=0&w=1&usp=mail_form_link
For questions or other assistance, please send a message to Ee-Seul Yoon (eeseul@gmail.com) or Dwayne Cover (dcover@alumni.ubc.ca).
Hope you can join us.
Regards,
Ee-Seul Yoon and Christopher Lubienski at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Dwayne Cover at the University of British Columbia
Abstract
Charter schools have been promoted as an equitable and innovative solution to the problems plaguing urban schools. Advocates claim that charter schools benefit working-class students of color by offering them access to a “portfolio” of school choices. In Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space, Kristen Buras presents a very different account. Her case study of New Orleans—where veteran teachers were fired en masse and the nation’s first all-charter school district was developed—shows that such reform is less about the needs of racially oppressed communities and more about the production of an urban space economy in which white entrepreneurs capitalize on black children and neighborhoods. In this revealing book, Buras draws on critical theories of race, political economy, and space, as well as a decade of research on the ground to expose the criminal dispossession of black teachers and students who have contributed to New Orleans’ culture and history. Mapping federal, state, and local policy networks, she shows the city’s landscape has been reshaped by a strategic venture to privatize public education. She likewise chronicles grassroots efforts to defend historic schools and neighborhoods against this assault, revealing a commitment to equity and place and articulating a vision of change that is sure to inspire heated debate among communities nationwide.
* If you are interested in buying her book, please see the attached discount book flier.
