%0 Journal Article
%T The Disintegration of Memphis
%A Erica Frankenberg
%A Genevieve Siegel-Hawley
%A Sarah Diem
%J American Educational Research Journal
%@ 1935-1011
%D 2018
%R 10.3102/0002831217748880
%X In this qualitative case study, we explore the political impulses behind suburban secession from the 2013 Memphis-Shelby County merger, the largest school district consolidation in recent history. Decades removed from the Civil Rights Movement, during a period of stark inequality, colorblind law and policymaking, and a diminished understanding of education as a societal benefit, the central suburban rationale for secession, local control, carries new weight. It gives already privileged communities a race-neutral, legally sanctioned, and politically persuasive way to discuss resource accumulation that maps onto existing racial and economic segregation. Memphis-area lessons offer insight into an increasing number of secession struggles and enrich our understanding of how educational advantage is consolidated in the 21st-century metropolis
%K educational policy
%K local control
%K race-neutral
%K racial segregation
%K school district secession
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.3102/0002831217748880