Excluded by Choice: Urban Students with Disabilities in the Education Marketplace

by Federico R. Waitoller

Overview

Through powerful narratives of parents of Black and Latinx students with disabilities, this book provides a unique look at the relationship between disability, race, urban space, and market-driven educational policies. Offering significant insights into complex forms of educational exclusion, the text illustrates the actual challenges and paradoxes of school choice faced by today’s parents. Included are explanations for the kinds of injustices students with disabilities face every day, as well as resources that can be helpful for engaging in collective action aimed at improving educational services for all children. This accessible resource offers recommendations to help policymakers, charter school administrators, teachers, and families tackle the challenges of school choice while dealing effectively with the new generation of inclusive schools.

Book Features:

• Presents a first-of-its-kind look at how Black and Latinx parents of students with disabilities experience market-driven approaches to education.
• Identifies the consequences of push-out practices in charter schools and how families experience and resist these practices.
• Situates school choice amid historical and compounding forms of exclusion associated with geographical (neighborhood) and social (disability, race, and class) locations.
• Provides lessons learned and valuable guidance for creating a new generation of inclusive charter schools.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807778623
Publisher:	Teachers College Press
Publication date:	06/12/2020
Series:	Disability, Culture, and Equity Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Federico R. Waitoller is an associate professor in the department of special education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2023 he received the AERA Special and Inclusive Education SIG Distinguished Researcher Award.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Hope Against the Perverse Ripples of Equality Reforms Alfredo J. Artiles ix

Acknowledgments xiii

1 Introduction 1

Excluded by Choice: Entering the Great American Education Debate 5

Is This a Book Against Charter Schools? 11

A Book About Disability, Race, Education, and Urban Space: Outline of the Book 13

2 Choosing Schools? Stories of Desperation 18

Searching for Safety 21

Special Education Services: Austerity Measures and Segregation 34

Academics 42

Perceiving the Disinvestment and Destabilization of Public Schools 45

3 Choosing Schools? Stories of Optimistic Attachments 53

Parents' Perceptions of Safety in Charter Schools 59

Perceptions of Charter Schools as Academically Rigorous 62

The Perception of Charter Schools as Well-Resourced Educational Spaces 64

4 The Cruelty of Optimistic Attachments: Pushout Practices in Charter Schools 69

Discipline and Academic Practices 71

Delay and Deny Special Education Services 78

Lack of Trained Teachers 84

Suggesting to "Choose" Another School: "Think of What Is Best for Your Child" 87

Aren't These Practices a Violation of Federal Law? 91

5 Sustaining Hopes of "Inclusion": Fight or Flee 94

Complaining to the Charter Administration: "Becoming a Pest" 95

The Role of the School District 98

Working with Lawyers 103

6 The Consequences 112

Being Pushed Out 112

Deteriorating Students' Well-Being 116

Impact on Parents' Well-Being 127

7 Fantasies of Inclusion in the Education Market Space: Theoretical Contributions 129

Parental Choice in the Education MarketSpace 129

Fantasies of Inclusion 138

The New Racial Inequities in Special Education 146

8 Toward an Intersectional and Radical Inclusive Education: Recommendations 150

Intersectional Inclusive Education Principles 151

Recommendations for Practice 154

Recommendations for Policy 160

Recommendations for Research 164

Conclusion 166

Appendix: Methods 168

Researcher Positionality 168

Recruitment of Participants 169

Data Collection 170

Data Analysis 172

Limitations of the Study 174

References 176

Index 191

About the Author 202

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Waitoller offers a nuanced portrayal of charter schools grounded in a critique of the school choice movement, and appropriately places charter schools in the neoliberal, market-driven reforms that are spreading around the nation.”
—Alfredo J. Artiles, Ryan C. Harris Professor of Special Education, Arizona State University

“Only now have educators faced the complex struggles and hopes of Black and Latinx families advocating for an education that enables their children with disabilities. Federico Waitoller provides a complete picture of the interaction among school choice, urban histories, and educational stratification within a critical study of ableist racism. Told from the perspective of parents fighting for their children’s educational rights, Excluded by Choice neither asks easy questions nor offers facile answers. The reader walks away with a humanizing story about the critical choices parents make in imperfect conditions they did not, by and large, choose. People satisfied with a complacent explanation for difficult problems should look elsewhere. Those craving a thoughtful analysis of how our school system treats Black and Latinx students with disabilities, look no further.”
—Zeus Leonardo, professor and associate dean of education, University of California, Berkeley

“The school choice debates have been raging for decades. But in that time, few scholars have offered the nuanced insights that Federico Waitoller does in this careful and considered book. Examining the impacts of choice on some of our most vulnerable students, Excluded by Choice represents a major contribution to our collective knowledge on this contentious issue.”
—Christopher Lubienski, professor of education policy, Indiana University

“School choice policies are largely premised on the freedom and power they afford to parents, particularly Black, Latinx, poor parents, and parents of children with disabilities. In this carefully argued and researched book, Waitoller demonstrates that for parents living at the intersection of racism, poverty, and ableism, the reality is that school choice does not live up to its promises. Waitoller challenges policymakers, charter school operators, and advocates to take seriously and to address the lived experiences of parents and students who face intersectional discrimination in traditional public and marketized schools.”
—Janelle Scott, Robert C. and Mary Catherine Birgeneau Distinguished Chair in Educational Disparities, UC Berkeley

Editorial Reviews

Excluded by Choice offers well-researched insights on the need for inclusive education practices through its exploration of the intersection of racism and ableism in Chicago’s charter schools. The book also provides a critical assessment on the role of market mechanisms on school policies.”

—Education Review

“Waitoller highlights the challenges parents and children face when dealing with the intersection of racism and ableism in the process of school choice.”

—Journal of Education Policy

From the Publisher