Abstract
For many, the word “apartheid” generally conjures images of the brutal colonialism that Dutch and British settlers imposed on the country of South Africa, and specifically the extreme segregation that still leaves its mark on South African society today. While most readers would not immediately think of public schools in a California suburb, this is the context that Drake explores in his book titled Academic Apartheid: Race and the Criminalization of Failure in an American Suburb. The dissonance that is sparked once the reader opens Academic Apartheid and learns of the setting demonstrates a brilliance in the author’s ability to draw in the reader while challenging popular discourse about American schooling.
While several scholars have asserted that neighborhoods and public schools in our country are just as segregated as before Brown, many Americans cling to the popular discourse that claims our society has entered a post-racial era, one that does not lawfully allow for segregation or blatant discrimination against marginalized students. Drake’s findings from his study of an ethnoracially diverse district that he refers to as Valley View, CA provide ethnographic evidence that our public schooling system is just as adept as ever at maintaining and reproducing segregation, racism, criminalization, and educational inequality.
The research for Academic Apartheid initially began as the author’s dissertation study, and he became interested in Valley View because he wanted to learn more about the experiences of Black and Latinx students in affluent schools. He eventually decided to focus on two schools: one a high-performing comprehensive high school that he calls Pinnacle, and the other a continuation school that he refers to as Crossroads. The schools have a tense relationship, as Crossroads takes in students who Pinnacle has decided are not performing high enough to remain enrolled at the school.
After observing classes and conducting interviews with multiple stakeholders (school leaders, teachers, staff, students, and parents) at both schools over the span of two years, Drake finds that Pinnacle’s “institutional success frame” marginalizes students and pushes them out of the school in an effort to maintain the school’s status as high performing and its reputation for producing students bound for elite colleges. This practice of pushing students out results in between-school segregation, as the students who enroll in Crossroads are majority Black and Latinx, while the students who remain at Pinnacle are majority white and Asian. This is where Drake’s argument of apartheid becomes clear, as students that do not reflect the image that Pinnacle wants to portray are systematically tracked into a school with relatively little resources or ability to prepare students for life after school. Drake states that “just as residential segregation purposefully creates and maintains racially homogenous, hyper-policed neighborhoods where an array of social problems are concentrated and amplified, academic apartheid creates and maintains schools with a concentration of academically underperforming students and a criminalizing environment in which students feel discarded, discredited and punished” (pp. 17-18). The criminalization is evidenced by the presence of a police officer on campus, the metal fence around the school’s perimeter, and the metal detectors that students must pass through each day. These students are subject to practices similarly utilized by detention centers and prisons simply because they do not resemble the type of student that Pinnacle prefers – white or Asian, affluent, academically high performing, and eligible for a four-year college. In addition to the criminalization, enrollment at Crossroads also means students encounter more barriers to academic achievement, as the continuation school offers a scaled-back course catalog that fails to qualify students to attend a 4-year college upon graduating and lacks resources like a library and textbooks. In contrast, the Pinnacle students enjoy a highly resourced campus with competitive sports programs, active parent groups and a course catalog that effectively prepares them to gain acceptance to elite colleges and Ivy League universities. Drake’s framing and comparison of these two schools helps to illuminate the highly unethical but normalized process of maintaining separate schools for different demographics of students within the same district.
After offering a thought-provoking analysis of the policies and practices that produce this segregation, Drake offers some recommendations that he calls “actionable steps.” These recommendations fall into two key categories: “Supporting Youth in a Context of Increasing Diversity,” and “Creating Credit Recovery Programs at Comprehensive High Schools” (pp. 204-207). As this is an ethnographic work focused on one district, some readers may find that the recommendations do not speak directly to their own contexts. However, readers from across the country can still learn from Drake’s findings and consider how the recommendations may apply to the policies and practices within their own districts. For example, Drake ends the book with a final recommendation that teachers “get to know our students” and “summon the courage and ambition to act in their best interest” (p. 208).
Personally, this book is useful for me because it has informed and expanded my understanding of the connection between criminalization and perceived academic failure. My dissertation research focuses on teachers’ perceptions of their Black students and the role this plays in their relationships with students. Drake has encouraged me to consider how students’ academic performance may also be connected to teacher perceptions and relationships, and to explore the idea of academic “failure” more deeply. His recommendation that teachers first get to know their students and then use that knowledge to act in the students’ best interests aligns with what I have been learning about teacher-student relationships. I plan to revisit these recommendations while conducting the analyses of the data I am gathering for my dissertation.
Drake’s argument and resulting recommendations could be strengthened by including more discussion on the true meaning of “getting to know students” and considering their best interests, and clearer recommendations that teachers can follow to implement these approaches. While both practices may seem straightforward to educators, scholars such as Chris Emdin, Bettina Love, Felicia Mensah and Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz have demonstrated that there is a need to intentionally learn about students’ neighborhoods, homes, interests, and needs in order to connect with students and teach them effectively. Drake could explore the following questions to offer the reader greater insight: Which teacher characteristics do students at Pinnacle and Crossroads identify as most important for developing connections and trust in the classroom? Which practices allow the students to feel seen, heard and understood?
Academic Apartheid is necessary reading because it builds on existing scholarship and challenges to criminalization in schools. For years, scholars like Pedro Noguera, Russell J. Skiba and Anne Gregory have critiqued the criminalization of Black and Latinx students in schools. Recently, students themselves have protested police presence and metal detectors on their campuses. Drake expands on this by showing that criminalization does not just occur through these more visible practices but that they are also reproduced through pedagogical practices and academic policies. Additionally, scholars such as John B. Diamond, R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, and Linn Posey-Maddox have called for an increased focus on the intersection of race and suburban schooling, and the experiences of color within these contexts. Drake’s work answers these scholars’ calls by exploring criminalization and segregation within a suburban context, while also acknowledging the complex nature of schooling in the United States – his discussion of Korean families and their ethnic capital, for example, provides insight into the needs of families within the district and their capacity to advocate for their students. His framing of academic apartheid signals that the issues of segregation and tracking in our schools deserve more urgent attention.
This book deserves a place on the reading lists and bookshelves of many readers. It is accessible for multiple audiences as the storytelling hooks the reader while also offering opportunities to reconsider several harmful policies and practices. Many readers will appreciate how Drake centers student voice by offering several moving quotes that alert the reader to the reality of the students’ experiences. The book’s message would be useful for many people involved in education, including sociologists of education and other education researchers, policymakers, district leaders, school leaders, teacher educators, teachers and parents. If we hope to create a schooling system that is truly designed to serve all of its students - not just those who reflect the dominant white culture or fit into a specific frame - all of these actors must gain an understanding of how schools as institutions perpetuate racism and criminalization.