The Plantation “All Charter” Model and the Long Durée of Resistance for Black Public High Schools in New Orleans

Abstract

Education research has often overlooked how the long durée of resistance for Black education has shaped current educational policy. We complicate notions of Black public school closures in two case studies from extensive ethnographic research in post-Katrina New Orleans through our reading of the plantation. Findings suggest these institutions have served as linchpins for the transferal of the blues. Data analysis also indicates that traditional public school closures have functioned as a plantation management device. We encourage future inquiries into portfolio governance models, school “choice,” and school closures to consider the plantation complex and to recognize that post-Katrina education reforms were not isolated policy enactments.