“Decimating Our Schools”: Justice-Centered Leaders’ Perspectives on Market-Based Education Reforms Within Urban Contexts

This study examines justice-centered leaders’ perspectives on neoliberal, market-based education reforms within seven urban U.S. districts. Drawing on interviews with 24 principals, findings reveal that leaders overwhelmingly reject the notion that school choice “lifts all boats,” instead describing how market policies operate through enrollment competition, accountability pressures, and austerity to erode public education, intensify segregation, and concentrate high-needs students in underresourced schools. Additionally, findings reveal how leaders must engage in ongoing and messy negotiation, adaptation, and reframing in relation to the moral contradictions created by the market.