Abstract
Background:
Although the extant critical literature suggests that no-excuses charter schools and charter management organizations (CMOs) embody neoliberal and racist logics, recent staffing data suggests that they have diversified their teaching force considerably over the last decade. Indeed, national staffing data indicates that charters and CMOs now employ more Black teachers than traditional public schools. This study aims to understand this tension between the critical literature and the school staffing literature.
Purpose:
Grounded in neoliberal multiculturalism theory, this study seeks to explore the experience of Black teachers in a space that embodies neoliberalism and, simultaneously, ostensibly becomes more multicultural. Specifically, this qualitative case study of the Black teacher experience in a no-excuses CMO asks: What are the primary reasons Black teachers joined their CMO-based school, and how do Black teachers describe their experience at their CMO-based school?
Research Design:
This study used a case study design with the CMO as the primary unit of analysis. The lead researcher collected data though in-depth semistructured interviews with Black teachers from two representative schools within the same CMO. Through analytic memos and inductive coding, the research team analyzed the data thematically.
Conclusions:
We find that Black teachers joined their school believing that the CMO valued their identity as an asset in educating Black and Brown students. Instead, in line with neoliberal multiculturalism theory, they learned that their Black identity, and that of their students, is both commodified and rejected in their CMO.
Keywords
Securing bipartisan support and billions in federal and private funding (Golann, 2021; U.S. Department of Education, 2025), charter management organizations (CMOs) have expanded considerably over the last three decades (Miron et al., 2021), establishing themselves as “prominent institutional actors” (Hernández, 2022a, p. 798). Although classifications vary, we define charter schools as “public schools of choice that are operated autonomously, outside the direct control of local school districts” (Furgeson et al., 2012, p. xxi), and we define CMOs as nonprofit entities operating multiple charters under common structures and logics (Furgeson et al., 2012). Miron et al. (2021) reported that almost 50% of U.S. charters have come under management, with CMOs serving over 70% of students in managed schools—predominately Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) students (Raymond et al., 2023) situated in urban centers (Golann, 2021).
Despite such demographics (Raymond et al., 2023), recent research suggests a nuanced tension is occurring at CMOs. One body of literature suggests that CMOs, and no-excuses 1 CMOs in particular, are “white spaces,” that is, contexts “where White individuals, whether culturally or physically, are overrepresented” (Ross, 2013, p. 143). A second body of literature suggests that CMOs are becoming more multicultural as they increasingly employ BIPOC teachers (Gershenson, 2019; McCluskey, 2025; National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2023a). This paper seeks to explore this tension in the literature through a case of Black teachers at one no-excuses CMO.
Indeed, despite charters (NCES, 2023b) and CMOs specifically (Raymond et al., 2023) enrolling predominately BIPOC students, the critical literature suggests they operate as what Ross (2013) and Milner (2020) call “white spaces.” We specifically draw on Milner’s (2020) conceptualization of white spaces as places where “the overall ethos of the environment is inundated with whiteness in order to maintain the status quo” (p. 400). The critical literature often situates CMOs within neoliberal reform discourses in which market logics are used to justify educating students of Color without critically reforming the structural racism of schooling, thereby maintaining the status quo (Hernández, 2022b). By positioning such market-based reforms as apolitical, deficit views of students of Color persist, and white savior logics are implicitly and explicitly used to justify paternalistic educative practices (Golann, 2021; Narayanan & McCluskey, 2025b; Sondel et al., 2022). For teachers in white spaces, “controlling” structures propel a white agenda and construct racist conditions for Black educators (Milner, 2020, p. 400). By “controlling,” Milner means that “White people in these mostly White spaces may attempt to control decisions, mind-sets, and actions of Black [educators] based on what they, as the White majority, find to be relevant and useful” (p. 400).
This literature on CMOs is in tension with teacher demographic shifts at charters and CMOs specifically. Early literature revealed charter faculty to be predominantly young, white, and female (Cannata & Peñaloza, 2012) and misaligned with student of Color enrollment (White, 2018). Yet, recent research suggests that charters (NCES, 2023a) and CMOs (McCluskey, 2025) are increasingly hiring Black teachers. For instance, according to the NCES (2023a) 2020–2021 National Teacher and Principal Survey, Black teachers comprise 10.2% of faculty at public charters but only 5.7% of faculty at traditional public schools. In a study of North Carolina public schools between 2006 and 2013, Gershenson (2019) found that charters employ 35% more Black teachers, and Black students are nearly 50% more likely to have a Black teacher in charters. Although this research offers descriptive statistics for charters generally, 50% of charters have come under management (Miron et al., 2021); thus, this data is inclusive of CMOs. McCluskey (2025), for instance, found that a CMO’s principals worked to reduce labor market uncertainty by diversifying hiring and partnering with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
Grounded in neoliberal multiculturalism theory, this study seeks to explore the experience of Black teachers in a space that embodies neoliberalism and, simultaneously, ostensibly becomes more multicultural. Ultimately, in this qualitative case study of the Black teacher experience in one no-excuses CMO, we ask:
We find that Black teachers joined their school believing that the CMO valued their identity as a relationally demographic asset in educating Black students. Instead, they learned that their Black identity, and that of their students, was both commodified and rejected in their CMO.
This paper will begin with a brief overview of CMOs. Then, it will review the literature on Black teachers’ motivations and experiences broadly and within CMOs.
Literature Review
Charter Management Organizations (CMOs)
Researchers have explored CMOs’ use of singular instructional and curricular approaches (Scott & DiMartino, 2010). Often dubbed “no-excuses” practices, many CMOs employ common practices that contribute to organizational consistency and efficiency: longer school days/years, intense expectations for teachers/students, frequent use of observation, and intolerant disciplinary expectations (Fryer, 2014; Sondel et al., 2022). Some have celebrated such practices as worthy of replication (Fryer, 2014), so much so that the practices of one influential CMO can be found in policy artifacts of traditional public districts, state education agencies, and universities across all 50 states (McCluskey & Narayanan, 2025b; McCluskey et al., 2026). Proponents of the “no-excuses” model have attempted to link its logics to the notion of warm demanders, popularized by culturally responsive scholar Lisa Delpit (2006), and so-called “no-nonsense” parenting that some African American parents adopt (American Psychological Association, 2008; Brody & Flor, 1998; Mathews, 2009).
Although CMOs have embraced these positive associations and presented themselves as “woke” (Hernández, 2022a, p. 796), scholars have questioned such positioning (Sondel et al., 2022). Lustick et al. (2024) classified the no-excuses approach as a behaviorist logic. Kershen et al. (2018) describe how no-excuses behaviorism (i.e., rewards, punishment, and compliance to promote quantitative achievement) prioritizes teacher control of students. Proponents have embraced this ideology, even praising it as a “new paternalism” (Whitman, 2008); yet recent scholarship suggests that this behaviorist and paternalistic approach reifies racism and classism. Golann (2021), for instance, found that, under the guise of racial and economic uplift, no-excuses charters reaffirm the racism and classism they profess to disrupt. More recent research found that students (McCluskey & Narayanan, 2024; Narayanan & McCluskey, 2025a) and teachers (McCluskey & Narayanan, 2025a) across prominent CMOs protested against their CMOs in a digital counterpublic, describing experiences rife with racism. In the latter study, the authors note that, given the limitations of social media research, future research would benefit from interviews with Black and Brown teachers of these CMOs. This study answers that call.
Black Teachers’ Motivations and Movements
The extant literature suggests that many Black teachers enter schools with the desire to be a champion for students of Color, which frequently stems from Black teachers’ own experiences as students. Wright (2020) found that Black teachers in urban schools were motivated to provide students of Color with more equitable experiences than they had and to challenge stereotypes and low expectations. Similarly, Dixson and Dingus (2008) found that some Black women teachers entered teaching to remain connected to community and act as cultural brokers as part of a larger spiritual mission. This research offers insight into why Black teachers disproportionately work in schools with higher proportions of BIPOC students (Rogers & White, 2019).
Concurrently, research shows declines in percentages of Black teachers in such schools alongside charter growth. In Michigan, the number of Black teachers dropped by 48% between 2005 and 2015 (Drake & Cowen, 2022), while the number of Black teachers in Harlem has been falling for 20 years as charters have proliferated (Rogers & White, 2019). An influx of charter schools into New Orleans in the 2000s led to mass terminations of Black veteran teachers (Buras, 2014), justified through racialized constructions of Black teachers (Cook & Dixson, 2013).
Perhaps because of these findings, there is a dearth of scholarship on Black teachers in charters and CMOs. Yet, the demographic shifts in charters and CMOs (NCES, 2023a) require investigation, including reasons Black teachers find employment in CMOs. The limited research suggests Black teachers join CMOs because they perceive them to be more resourced, structured, and able to provide autonomy and professional growth (Benson, Salas, Dolet, et al., 2021; White, 2020).
Black Teachers’ Experiences Within Schools
The literature overwhelmingly suggests Black teachers experience racialized constructions that deprofessionalize them, particularly in predominantly white schools. For Black teachers in predominantly white schools, challenges stemming from systemic racism, tokenization, and gaslighting are common (Roberts & Andrews, 2013). Black male teachers in predominantly white schools perceive that white teachers have greater say over the curriculum (Bristol, 2018). Further, Black preservice teachers in a predominantly white teacher preparation program reported feeling othered, silenced, and subjected to extra scrutiny (Crenshaw & Yusuf, 2024).
Black teachers are met with similar challenges in urban contexts where they are more likely to work in schools that lack resources (Achinstein et al., 2010). Urban schools also often have racially hostile environments prone to colorblindness and microaggressions, even when students of Color are the majority (Kohli, 2016). Philadelphia teachers reported dealing with systemic racism perpetuated by leaders, lack of resources, and extra responsibilities as reasons for leaving (Cabral et al., 2022). Similarly, Black male teachers in urban schools reported being disproportionately burdened with student behavior management (Bristol & Mentor, 2018). Black women teachers reported poor administrative support, inadequate salaries, and limited advancement opportunities as reasons for leaving (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond, 2017).
In charters and CMOs, Black teachers may experience the compounding challenges of urban contexts and white spaces. In New Orleans charters, for instance, Thompkins (2015) found ideas of “good” and “bad” teachers to be racialized. White (2020) found Black women CMO teachers experienced limited autonomy and “difficulties enacting inclusive pedagogy in market settings premised on competition and test score production” (p. 364). Similarly, Riley and Mensah (2023) interviewed Black women CMO teachers and found commitments grounded in personal and community backgrounds, though they battled against low expectations, standardized and culturally unresponsive curricula, and oppressive practices. White (2018) found that Black teachers and teachers of Color preferred standalone charters over managed charters because they perceived them to afford more autonomy and inclusivity.
In conclusion, the literature suggests Black teachers enter teaching with commitments to community and equity (Dixson & Dingus, 2008; Wright, 2020), though they face systemic challenges inextricably tied to racism (Bristol, 2018; Cabral et al., 2022). Despite some Black teachers viewing CMOs as offering structure and growth (Benson, Salas, & Siefert, 2021; White, 2020), many ultimately experience marginalization and leave due to oppressive practices (Cook & Dixson, 2013; McCluskey & Narayanan, 2025a; White, 2018). Although the literature suggests that many teachers struggle within the neoliberalism underpinning CMOs (McCluskey, 2024; Sondel et al., 2022; Torres, 2016), the present study aims to intervene in the limited literature on Black teachers specifically in CMOs through neoliberal multiculturalism theory.
Neoliberal Multiculturalism Theory
Neoliberal multiculturalism as a theory describes how diversity is negotiated and commodified under the neoliberal state to advance market logics (Kymlicka, 2013; Melamed, 2006). This means that neoliberal multicultural logics promote the rights of racialized minorities as long as they align with the long-term economic development model of the free market in capitalist economies and as long as existing political and economic authorities are not challenged by the rights of BIPOC (Hale, 2005; Kymlicka, 2013). Recognition and redistribution must be acceptable for the elites of the neoliberal capitalist order (Melamed, 2006). In a neoliberal multicultural society, the state grants rights to minorities but, simultaneously, subjects them to state-endorsed racial subordination. This is often disguised as equal opportunity and market universalism (Hale, 2005). Melamed (2006) argues that the role of BIPOC in the neoliberal state can be best explained by the UPS slogan of “What can Brown do for you?” (p. 14).
Neoliberal multiculturalism envisions a postracist society. It acknowledges racism and white supremacy, yet it views free market principles—competition and individualism—as levers for equal opportunity for all irrespective of race, gender, or class. It assumes merging neoliberal policies with cultural pluralism creates a just society, but it overlooks that colonial racial ideas, capitalist economic disparities, and white supremacy persist (Melamed, 2006).
While antiracism rhetoric is emphasized in a neoliberal multicultural society, Black and Brown bodies remain exploited. This “new racism” casts white bodies as benevolent providers of opportunity and BIPOC bodies as deprived. In effect, neoliberal multiculturalism masks racism through antiracist rhetoric. It positions the market and the racial capital of all groups as equal for everyone, while not restructuring older racist systems (Melamed, 2006). As Melamed (2006) writes, “as a unifying discourse, neoliberal multiculturalism has disguised the reality that neoliberalism remains a form of racial capitalism” (p. 42).
Neoliberal multiculturalism theory helps us understand how CMOs, which embody and advance the neoliberal project (Hernández, 2022b), use multicultural discourses to attract Black teachers while failing to retain them. It also helps us understand Black teachers’ experience in CMOs as one of commodification, racism, and anti-Blackness, despite CMOs’ antiracist rhetoric. Research has exemplified its power in unearthing similarly nuanced tensions. Cooley and Brantlinger (2024), for instance, used neoliberal multiculturalism to critically examine the racial ideologies presented by the New Teacher Project. They found that antiracism is presented as official discourse within a teacher training curriculum, yet neoliberal logics of individualism and paternalism are reinforced instead. Similarly, Au (2016) used neoliberal multiculturalism to examine tensions within the high-stakes testing of post–No Child Left Behind (NCLB) schooling. He argued that, although “standardized testing serve[s] to further racial inequality in education, it does so under the guise of forms of anti-racism that have been reconstituted as part of a larger neoliberal project for education reform” (p. 39). Using neoliberal multiculturalism in the context of CMOs specifically, Hernández (2022a) finds that CMOs characterized themselves as progressive while neglecting to address the racist capitalism of the market. She argues that, in influencing public perception, “CMOs perpetuate a form of neoliberal multiculturalism that normalizes market reform under the discursive cover of a bounded articulation of equity and racial justice” (p. 796).
In sum, neoliberal multiculturalism provides a theoretical lens to examine CMOs’ reliance on multicultural rhetoric to recruit Black teachers, while simultaneously upholding neoliberal market logics that perpetuate racial inequities.
Methodology
This study marks the final part of a qualitative four-part case study of teacher experience within the pseudonymous Polaris Academies (see McCluskey, 2023, 2024, 2025). Through in-depth interviews with teachers from two representative schools within the same CMO, this study used a case study design with the CMO as the primary unit of analysis (Yin, 2009). This study does not make causal claims; rather, it offers a descriptive analysis of Black teachers’ experiences in a CMO. This case may be classified as a typical case of Black teachers’ experiences within no-excuses CMOs because the two schools selected for data collection are representative of Polaris at large, and Polaris reflects key research patterns and staffing trends of CMOs (Patton, 1990). Yin (2009) explained that case studies are appropriate when the study “investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth; relies on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge in a triangulating fashion, and benefits from prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis” (p. 18). This project meets these criteria.
Case Context: Polaris Academies
This study examines Polaris Academies (pseudonym), a CMO of 55 urban charter schools serving over 21,000 students across six cities in the Northeast at the time of the study (2021–2022). Given its emphasis on high academic and behavioral expectations, its extended school day and year, its aligned curricular and instructional practices, and its emphasis on “the mission,” Polaris can be classified as a “no-excuses” organization (Golann, 2021). As Heilig (2021) wrote for the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), “charter schools don’t particularly like to be studied by academic researchers” (n.p.). The challenges he described in gaining access to CMOs in Texas were true of Polaris. Polaris CMO leadership was unresponsive. Principals at Polaris high schools, however, were more responsive.
Elementary, middle, and high schools operate quite differently, and much of the qualitative scholarship on no-excuses schools focuses on elementary and middle schools (e.g., Golann, 2021; Sondel et al., 2022). Further, there is a relative dearth of research around hiring and retention at the high school level, which are connected to this study in its exploration of teachers’ reasons for employment and departure. For example, of the 71 studies reviewed by Perrone and Meyers (2021) in their systematic review of teacher hiring research from 2001 to 2020, only three studies used data solely from high schools (grades 9–12). Of Polaris’s 10 high schools, two were chosen as part of this multisite case study because they reflect the student/teacher demographics of the CMO at large: Polaris Academy Leadership Charter High School (PAL) and Polaris Academy Charter High School (PACHS).
Founded in 2008, PACHS (at the time of the study) served 634 students across grades 9–12 and employed 64 teachers. Founded more recently in 2017, PAL (at the time of the study) served 503 students in grades 9–12 and employed 42 teachers. Both are urban schools operating in New York City, and more than 90% of students are Black/African American and/or Hispanic, with over 80% qualifying for free or reduced-priced lunch. According to Polaris’s 2021 Charter School Program (CSP) grant, these demographics mirror the CMO: “Nearly all [Polaris] students are Black or Hispanic (94%) and from low-income families (83%)” (Polaris Academies, 2021).
Although Polaris serves almost exclusively Black and Brown students, it employs a large contingent of white faculty (see Figure 1). Aligned with national CMO trends, however, Polaris has diversified its faculty consistently since 2013. Since that time, the percentage of white teachers has dropped from 62% to 39%, while the percentage of Black teachers has increased from 10% to as high as 34% in 2019–2020. See Figure 1 for PAL and PACHS faculty demographic data.
Percentage of PAL/PACHS Teachers by Race/Ethnicity, 2013–2021.
Although each Polaris school is its own institution, schools are ultimately managed by the CMO. Individual principals hold discretion over some quotidian operations, such as hiring (after being funneled through CMO recruitment), teacher assignment, and parent communication. Through network management and policy, however, Polaris controls much of the functioning. For example, Polaris’s curricula, disciplinary practices, instructional methodologies, professional development (PD), and instructional leadership trajectories are all systemized and managed by the CMO. In short, there is little difference across Polaris schools, particularly those of the same grade bands. PAL and PACHS offer representative sites.
Notably, Polaris’s turnover rates are well above national and local averages. See Figure 2 for PAL and PACHS turnover averages compared to national rates and the Brooklyn, New York districts in which PAL and PACHS are located. Over its first four years, PAL held a turnover average of 32%, peaking at 46% between its second and third year. PACHS holds an average turnover of 30%, peaking in 2020–2021 at 37%. These figures may be lower than Polaris at large. In 2023, Polaris leaders posted on the CMO blog: “This year, [Polaris] was faced with a teacher attrition rate ranging from 29% to 59% across our five regions” (Polaris Academies, 2023).
PAL/PACHS Teacher Turnover Averages, 2014–2021.
Data Collection
The lead author collected data between April and June 2021 through 90-minute semistructured individual interviews with departed teachers and group interviews with new and veteran currently employed teachers. Although earlier publications related to this study explored hiring and turnover across all teachers in the sample (McCluskey, 2023, 2024, 2025), the authors suspected that the experiences specific to Black teachers may have been obscured in thematic analysis of the entire sample. To answer the revised questions, this project thematically analyzed interview data from the 11 Black teachers in the sample. This subsample includes five new, two veteran, and four departed teachers (Table 1). Each interviewee was asked the same base of questions in semistructured interviews regarding their experience in Polaris (i.e., reasons for joining, first and latter year experiences, school climate, reasons for leaving/experiences with turnover, and perceptions about their school’s relationship to the larger CMO) (see Appendix A).
Black Teacher Pseudonym Roster.
Data Analysis
Given that group interview data included a mix of participants, group interview data was excerpted to include only the statements of Black teachers and, where necessary, comments offered prior to their contributions with which they agreed/disagreed. This generated 11 unique transcripts: four complete interview transcripts of departed teachers and seven transcripts of new/veteran teachers excerpted from the larger group interviews.
To engage our thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021; Naeem et al., 2023), we began by revisiting the transcripts and initial analytic memos through an open coding process (Saldaña, 2021). This inductive coding process generated three general codes. To further specify results, we broke general codes into more precise units and deductively recoded with 12 more precise codes (Table 2). At each stage, we established interrater reliability by separately coding three shared transcripts and comparing coding. When interrater reliability reached 95%, we coded remaining transcripts independently. Next, we engaged in theme development, which involved “organizing codes into meaningful groups to identify patterns and relationships, thereby offering insights into the research question[s]” (Naeem et al., 2023, p. 4). This process involved aggregating coded data into more abstract thematic categories with specific attention to our research questions and theoretical lens (Saldaña, 2021). When pulling excerpts from each category for a write-up of the themes, we examined data across the full sample and subgroups, (i.e., departed, new, and veteran teachers). In subgrouping, occasional differences emerged, particularly between departed and currently employed teachers. We note such differences in the findings section.
Codebook.
Limitations
To contextualize implications, we must address this study’s limitations. First, this study is based on a relatively small purposive sample of 11 Black teachers across two high schools within the CMO. Although this study triangulates multiple perspectives of Black teachers’ experiences within a CMO, the sample remains small and occurs within one CMO. Thus, generalizability is limited. Future research could examine larger samples within and across CMOs. Second, data for new and veteran teachers was procured from group interviews that included white faculty and may be limited by their comfort to share openly. Given overall alignment of data and the member checking described below, we are confident that thematic interpretations hold validity.
Researcher Positionality
To acknowledge how our identities may have influenced the research process and findings, we must describe our positionalities. The first author is a white man who, prior to working in higher education, worked for eight years in a CMO as a teacher and a school leader. To establish rapport with participants (Rinke & Mawhinney, 2014), the first author shared this positionality at the start of interviews. Specifically, he disclosed his former status as an educator in a CMO and acknowledged that, although he likely can empathize with some experiences, his experience as a white man within a CMO would certainly be different from those with different positionalities. The second author is a Brown woman from South Asia who studies charter schools from an international comparative lens. Our experiences and differences in racial backgrounds with participants increased the likelihood of biases impacting data interpretation. Given our positionalities, we enhanced validity through self-monitoring, discussion, and member checking (i.e., we shared an early draft of this manuscript with participants). All seven participants who responded offered no additions or critiques; instead, they shared that reading their own experiences alongside that of others was “cathartic.”
Findings
Black teachers shared their reasons for joining and their experiences within a CMO-based school. In doing so, they offered a revealing account of the lived experience within a neoliberal multicultural organization. This section begins by answering RQ1 through exploring reasons Black teachers joined Polaris, before sharing the two themes related to RQ2 and Black teachers’ descriptions of their neoliberal multicultural experience at Polaris.
Theme 1: Progressive Rhetoric and Reasons for Joining
“. . .there for the kiddos.” (Isaac)
Black teachers described various reasons for joining Polaris: cultural and ethnic affinity, the rigorous academic culture, and opportunities of extracurricular experiences. Within these reasons, Black teachers consistently discussed their identity as a Black educator as an asset. They believed that Polaris would allow them to provide a positive educational experience for Black and Brown students, particularly an experience more positive than the one they had themselves.
Black teachers believed Polaris to be a place in which they could share in an identity exchange with students. Leo, a departed teacher, shared, “I was a kid that got into trouble a lot in school,” and “I want to be a part of making school a place where young Black boys, in particular with discipline issues, feel like they belong. I wanted it to be a place where people who look like me can thrive and learn.” He chose Brooklyn because he believed that his identity would match Brooklyn students. Leo aimed to provide students an experience different from the one he had: “I had all these teachers who were primarily white women that were like follow these rules because I said so.” Similarly, Phoebe, a departed teacher, shared that, though she was in the top 5% of her class, her counselor told her to go to community college. She said, “I didn’t want students who look like me to have the same experience I had.” In the words of the departed teacher Isaac, Black faculty were “there for the kiddos” and “in the business of paying it forward.”
All Black teachers reported joining Polaris under the belief that Polaris would allow them to positively enact these commitments. Leo discovered Polaris through research that led him to believe that it was “a community committed to equity and justice and fairness.” He shared that he was explicitly told that “one of the reasons why they were bringing [him] in was because of diversity.” Isaac, too, thought Polaris was the “best choice” because he believed Polaris had “the best interest of the kids” at heart. Phoebe “was looking for a place that would provide development but also focus on students beyond academics, which is what drew [her] to Polaris based on what [she] read and heard.” She described visiting a Polaris school on a “special day,” when “all students were wearing college shirts. . .and students are able to articulate where they want to go and what their goals are.” She was told that “in addition to 100% of students going to college and high SAT scores, we have students doing podcasts and a program with a recording music studio, like all these resources and access for students. . .I was like oh my God, I need to be there. I need to be there.” She later noted that only a fraction of students had access to these “special things.” Isaiah, a departed teacher, shared a similarly positive visit. Barbara, Daniel, Sophie, Henrietta, and Sheila shared that they believed the CMO would allow them to develop students as, in Barbara’s words, “whole people.”
Attracted by its antiracist and progressive rhetoric, Black teachers selected Polaris with the intention of leveraging their shared identities to cultivate a positive educational environment for Black students. Their research and their visits led teachers to believe that Polaris was dedicated to creating an empowering learning environment aligned with their values.
Theme 2: Experiencing a System Perceived as Unresponsive to Student Identities
“There’s always a humming in the background—there is something sinister about all these white people telling these poor Black kids what to do.” (Leo)
Although Polaris emphasized an antiracist and progressive rhetoric, Black teachers found that Black and Brown students remained exploited with a racist system that is inundated with whiteness to maintain the status quo. Teachers consistently expressed dismay with adherence to “the system” that does not honor the identities students bring to school, does not make sense for the students Polaris serves, and, ultimately, subjugates students to dominant norms. For example, critiquing Polaris’s fixation on sending 100% of students to the most prestigious colleges, Leo complained that:
they’re sending kids to schools that don’t make sense for them, like one student was a whole caretaker for her younger siblings, yet we’re trying to send her across the country but that’s going to lead to her not doing well in college in ways that you guys can’t think of because your whole life you’ve been in middle class white environments where everyone has what they need.
In this critique, Leo acknowledges both the false discourse of racial equality within neoliberal multiculturalism and the commodification of Black bodies, in this case as quantifiable markers of prestige. Indeed, despite Polaris’s multicultural rhetoric, every teacher offered an example of the ways in which they perceived Polaris is, as Isaac described, “culturally irrelevant.” For example, Beverly, Barbara, and Daniel advocated for more extracurriculars to foster student creativity as an antidote to the hyper-testing culture. Marisol, Rebecca, and Sophie argued for less structure to support more independent learners. New teacher Henrietta shared that the history curriculum is “so whitewashed and it’s so Eurocentric,” exemplifying the ways in which the neoliberal multicultural state advances colonial ideas and maintains the status quo.
Though Polaris positioned its no-excuses discipline approach as a way to provide students access to long-term economic opportunity, teachers recognized the implicit racial subordination within that approach. Multiple teachers used the words “prison” and “slavery” in describing the school discipline culture, describing the system as “paternalistic,” “oppressive,” “a revolving door of suspension,” and “racist—plain and simple.” New teacher Henrietta shared a story in which she was forced to “write up” a student who asked for a pencil because “they’re supposed to have their own supplies. . .That’s sort of what I mean by like culturally unresponsive teaching.” In describing this culturally unresponsive discipline, Henrietta critiqued the neoliberal discourse of individualism and readiness—one that improperly assumes equal opportunity for that readiness and places blame on individuals rather than questioning structures of inequality.
While Black teachers perceived the disciplinary arm of the Polaris system to be overtly racist, they found the college preparatory model to be, in the words of Isaac, “low-key racist” in its proselytization of misconstrued middle-class white dominant norms. And, although teachers had varying relationships to white middle-class America, they came to similar conclusions about how Polaris was instructing Black children. Black teachers found that the education provided to students was fundamentally misaligned with its stated values. Isaac, for instance, shared that
ain’t nobody going to factories anymore so I don’t understand why we all got to sit down, raise our hands, and shut up. . .I know we need structure, but if you’re my boss and you need me to do a task, you ain’t going to tell me to raise my hand or wait until I get to you. You are going to expect me to take initiative. Polaris is not teaching kids to take initiative. Initiative is deleted from the Polaris system.
Here, Isaac articulates myriad perceived failures in the Polaris model: a system predicated upon archaic market structures, a failure to promote student initiative, and, presumably in an attempt at promoting professionalism, a culturally unresponsive approach. In articulating these failures, Isaac makes visible the market logics governing Polaris’s approach to education, which only work to reaffirm racist dynamics.
Similarly, Leo believed that Polaris was failing his students, and, in doing so, reifying neoliberal multicultural outcomes. He shared, “I went to school with white kids, and Polaris students just aren’t getting the same type of school. I can pick up on things that someone who was segregated into an Apartheid school would not.” He believed this is why “the people who run Polaris would never send their own children there. This is good for Black people and kids in the hood, but it’s not for our kids.” Teachers currently employed at Polaris shared these beliefs. New teacher Marisol believed that the current model did not promote independent thinkers and believed that serious changes were needed to help alumni “truly go on to be successful on their own, since that is the number one complaint that [Polaris] alumni state is that it did not actually prepare them for the real world.” Veteran teacher Daniel believed that there was “so much hand holding. . .but a lot of times they don’t have to do much.” Across interviews, teachers articulated an organization that views Black students as deprived, white bodies as benevolent providers of access to economic opportunity, and, thus, a perpetuation of racism.
Departed teachers, more than currently employed teachers, recounted ways they resisted the Polaris system in their work with children. Isaac shared, “I never taught like that. I used relationships” and “I’m really in it to win it with the kiddos.” Phoebe explained, “I couldn’t teach taxonomy styles [what she later explained was Teach Like a Champion practices] that I disagreed with.” Leo explained that his strong relationships with students allowed him important access to their worlds and beliefs:
My white colleagues did not get the same messaging from students that I did because of our strong relationships. Students would come and tell me things that they wouldn’t tell their white teachers and they would say, “They don’t care, they’ll never understand.” And the kids kept saying, “These teachers are racist, this is racist, this is racist.”
Yet, as Isaiah shared, “Polaris had a problem with how we built interpersonal relationships,” so teachers found avenues outside the classroom (in addition to resistance within the classroom) to connect with students. Phoebe started a club to “invest our students beyond the classroom.” Leo started “Men of Color,” which was “an after-school mentorship group. . .rooted in West African tradition. . .All the boys who were in the program got less detention, got less suspension, and all went on to the next grade.” This was designed for students who would “talk to me in the hallway and who are so clearly latching on and looking for a sense of belonging but felt very much excluded from the culture of Polaris.” Through such resistance, teachers described authentic cultural connection, rather than the individualism and competition masked by the multicultural rhetoric of Polaris.
Currently employed teachers described more subtle and emerging efforts to resist the system in their work with children. Though new teacher Marisol felt that “there are a lot of things. . .that I have like no say in at all,” she “invested a lot of time into building what I consider to be very strong relationships with students and therefore they invest a lot of time and confide emotionally in me.” Even though she felt like she might “get in trouble for just talking to our kids,” new teacher Sophie tried to “say hi at lunch and just have those interactions not in class.”
Theme 3: Experiencing a System Oppositional to Black Teachers
“I was truly traumatized in my experience at Polaris.” (Leo)
In addition to critiquing the ways that Black and Brown students were subjected to racist practices and ideas within antiracist rhetoric, Black teachers critiqued the ways in which they, too, were subjected to controlling racial subordination as a means to a neoliberal end. Specifically, Black faculty experienced tension within this white space, which manifested in various ways: microaggressions, tokenizing, overwork, undervaluing, and resistance.
Often described as their first “red flags,” teachers discussed microaggressive treatment as awakening moments to the white dominant nature of Polaris. Isaac described a moment in his first year in which he was genuinely confused as to why students could not chew gum at lunch in the lunchroom. When he asked the school’s white Dean of Curriculum and Instruction, he felt “dismissed” and “disrespected.” In attempting to challenge this policy, Isaac’s experience captures a key idea of neoliberal multiculturalism (i.e., rights of racialized minorities are promoted as long as existing authorities are not challenged). Leo recalled many microaggressions he experienced from white staff. He remembered that “the first time I got a red flag warning” about the “plain and simple racism” was when his white “grade-level lead told me that I read good.” In discussing this moment, Leo offered an incisive articulation of how neoliberal multiculturalism functions for racialized minorities: “I have learned the sort of nuances of how corporate racism works—the subtle signals of you don’t belong here.” Phoebe’s “light bulb went off” when the principal asked the staff if he looked “militant enough” because he wanted “to scare the life out of students so they don’t do anything crazy.” She walked away thinking about how “these are students who look like me,” and she knew at her “core that something is not right.” Isaiah’s red flag emerged after the third white faculty member asked him for help in connecting with students: “As a Black male, I am not here to continuously convince people about Black culture. That’s not my thing here.” In this recollection, Isaiah is rejecting the commodified role of BIPOC in the neoliberal state.
As Isaiah articulates clearly here, Black teachers felt commodified as the burden of work fell upon them. Black teachers described taking on considerably more work than white teachers interviewed in the full sample. Phoebe described taking on the grueling position of a lead lesson planner in her first year and, subsequently, taking on multiple roles: instructional coach, head of lower school, head of summer academy, and head of an extracurricular. Phoebe then covered for a departed teacher, leaving her with “the most teaching hours in the building.” Isaiah offered a similar story: “I covered her class. I was teaching about all the blocks in the day.” According to Isaiah, “the main thing that made me be like I’m out” was that after “stepping up to help a new teacher to be dope because no one else is coaching her,” a “new teacher comes in and they are like, ‘we want you to coach this teacher to see if you are ready to be an instructional leader.’” Isaiah was flabbergasted: “I have already been doing this and I took over this lady’s class. . .I felt very undervalued.” After describing a perceived unjust firing of a Black teacher, Leo explained that “most of the Black people left. It wasn’t only from a solidarity perspective. When they fired her, they pushed all her work on all of the other Black people. . .so much unpaid labor.”
Such sentiments appeared in current teacher focus groups as well. New teacher Marisol shared, “I don’t really spend a single evening without looking at my computer. . .And that’s also how I spend a significant portion of my weekends.” Although this is likely true of new teachers across school types, she hinted at an emergence of the disproportionate work described by departed teachers: “I had to write a ton of STEM college recommendations for students I had only taught for a matter of weeks. . .I often find myself on the brink of feeling quite burnt out. . .a lot of it for me is the emotional exhaustion [that comes with] very strong relationships with my students.” Despite feeling overworked, Black faculty reported that their perspectives were undervalued. For instance, Phoebe believed that Black leadership was “tokenized” and not actually “included in decisions.” Leo shared, “I was told that one of the reasons why they were bringing us in was because of diversity,” yet when it was “game time. . .they refused to pass me the ball.” Marisol believed she had “no say at all.” Beverly described a meeting in which “we shared solutions” to perceived closed ears.
Leo described “the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.” After a disingenuous response to a summer of racial trauma, Leo spoke up in a full Polaris convening. He directed his criticism to the director in front of the entire CMO:
Lower suspension rates for Black boys. It’s out of control. You have organized rallies and marches to support charter-friendly laws to support you, but is it going to take one of our kids being shot for you to realize that this affects them in ways that are really deep?
The director approached him, saying, “I want to work with you. . .It’s really important that we have all of our teachers represented.” Later, Leo “came with research and quoted from the mission statement”; yet, the director said, “I have seen this research and those schools doing restorative justice are chaos. . .I’ve been doing this for so long and I’m married to a Hispanic woman and, basically, you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.” Leo found it to be “incredibly racist,” and he remembered him saying, “that’s not how we do things here.” Again, though Leo perceived he was brought in for “diversity,” it was clear he could not enact his diverse perspective if it challenged existing authorities or the status quo. Every teacher described at least one incident in which their opinion was ignored, rebuked, or stolen without due credit. As Isaac shared, “what I was saying was not taken seriously,” yet positive changes, albeit limited, “are often my thoughts that I know I won’t get credit for.”
In addition to feeling as though their perspectives were not valued, Black teachers also felt as though Polaris did not afford them a fair ladder for advancement. Isaac, who had aimed to be a principal, shared:
[It] took me five years to be an instructional leader and it took a young white girl that I’m actually cool with three years. . .It made me very uncomfortable to know that this girl got the same position as I got, faster, and I had to do all these extra responsibilities and. . .It just felt tremendously unfair.
Isaiah, similarly, felt no support from his principal in his desire to apply for the principal fellowship. Although Phoebe experienced more success than Isaac and Isaiah in terms of promotion, her experience did not come without challenge. She discussed the “hoops” she had to jump through for a dean role. Rather than having a clear pipeline, Black teachers felt that their employment was in a state of precarity. Overworked, undervalued, tokenized, and underpromoted, Black teachers give life to Melamed’s (2006) use of the slogan “What can Brown do for you?” (p. 14) to articulate the role of BIPOC in the neoliberal state.
Teachers believed that such neoliberal multicultural dynamics at Polaris did not allow them to be their authentic selves and deprived them of their humanity. Isaiah shared, “I had to jump through hoops and change who I was. But somebody who was more submissive. . .to what you needed and what you wanted was able to get an opportunity that I should’ve been had.” Isaac believed that Polaris “didn’t let me be my natural self,” adding, “let’s not get it funky. . .there’s a lot of Black people at Polaris, but they have to do what everybody else is doing.” He believed he had to do that as well:
I had to play a certain role so that required me to keep a certain face and in reality it required me to change my personality a little bit. . .I had to be conscious of my verbiage, and I don’t think white people have to do all of it, I just don’t. Like I really felt like if I said the wrong thing or if I moved the wrong way, the people was not going to think I was on their team no more, and then I’d have to go through this process all over again. No no no.
Here, Isaac captures the exacting emotional labor BIPOC experience within the neoliberal multicultural state, where they are subject to state-endorsed racial subordination and the controlling structures of white majorities. Capturing the sentiments explicitly shared across Black departed teachers and more subtly shared in current teacher focus groups, Leo shared that “I was really traumatized” and “Polaris is a vortex where you get sucked in and your humanity slowly dissipates the longer you are there.”
Even though Black teachers felt this way, they stayed longer because of the students. Isaac shared that, in his five years, “I quit a lot of times in my head,” but “I didn’t want to be another Black male that ran out of kids’ lives because that’s the narrative for Black males.” This commitment appeared across interviews. Though Phoebe wanted to leave after her second year, she made it one more year, which left her feeling guilty because “students get the perception year after year that we don’t care for them. It just constantly reiterates this idea that these people don’t care about me.” In a different articulation of this commitment, Marisol, Sophie, Henrietta, and Rebecca professed a commitment to staying because of the many unqualified and uncertified teachers. As Henrietta shared, “I see a lot of teachers who have never really taken a full semester of history classes. . .put into a history teaching job and not know anything about the subject but [they’re] like oh you’re good because you can just read the lesson plan, but that’s not enough.”
In conclusion, interviewed Black teachers joined Polaris attracted by its progressive discourse and the intention of creating a positive educational environment for Black students. However, they experienced tension within the rigid systems and neoliberal logics of their CMO. In short, Black teachers and, according to interviews, their students experienced pronounced racism at Polaris. Despite the challenges they faced in this white space, Black teachers remained committed to students, even at the cost of their own personal and professional identities.
Discussion
Although no-excuses CMOs serve predominantly Black and Brown students (NCES, 2023b; Raymond et al., 2023) and are employing an increasing number of Black faculty (Gershenson, 2019; McCluskey, 2025), the extant literature and this study suggest that these schools are white spaces (McCluskey & Narayanan, 2024; Milner, 2020; Sondel et al., 2022). In this section, we extend our use of neoliberal multiculturalism to argue that understanding Black teachers’ experiences through this lens reveals that Polaris is not solely a white space but is anti-Black in its simultaneous commodification and rejection of Black teachers’ identities.
False “Edvertising” in the Neoliberal Firm
Black teachers in our sample initially saw Polaris as a place to fulfill their relationally demographic commitments but later found this perception false. They aimed to provide rigorous academics, holistic development, and shared cultural experiences to offer students more positive educational experiences than they had, expecting Polaris to support these pedagogical goals. This finding provides nuanced empirical support for the literature on CMO marketing.
Responding to neoliberal market reforms within public education, researchers have investigated how school quality narratives have been manufactured to advance the increasing marketization of the public sector (Harvey, 2009; Hernández, 2022a). Others have analyzed CMOs’ discourse of racial equity alongside their promotion of individualistic empowerment, anti-Black racism, and obfuscation of systematic oppression (Dumas, 2016; Scott, 2013; Sondel et al., 2022). DiMartino and Jessen (2018), for instance, interrogated strategies and infrastructure of “edvertising,” and numerous scholars have examined marketing practices in charters and CMOs (Lubienski et al., 2012; Wilson & Carlsen, 2016). Hernández (2022a) reports how CMOs curbed criticisms and managed perceptions through characterizing their organizations as “woke,” while constructing BIPOC communities “as crisis-laden and [suggesting] that students come to CMO schools with dispositions that require behavioral, cultural, and educational rehabilitation” (Hernández, 2016). Teachers in this study hold Polaris culpable for perceived false marketing.
Teachers in this study indicated that these narrative campaigns, grounded in the antiracist rhetoric of the neoliberal multicultural state, effectively recruited Black teachers to Polaris. None expressed concerns about no-excuses CMOs; instead, they described intentional decisions influenced by positive information about and from Polaris. To be clear, we do not believe these misperceptions implicate Black teachers as uninformed; rather, we argue that this implicates the neoliberal firm for mischaracterizing their institution (Hernández, 2022a). Although at one point CMOs may have embraced a “no-excuses” neoliberal discourse publicly with pride, Hernández (2022a) and this study suggest they have shifted instead to a more multicultural narrative. Indeed, rather than experiencing NCLB-era “high-expectations” claims that low-income BIPOC students were the victims of the “soft bigotry of low expectations” (Anderson, 2016) or the grit-based narratives of early no-excuses advocates (Carter, 2000; Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2003), teachers experienced a multicultural discourse that positioned the CMO as a special place that would develop whole individuals. Whether through “edvertised” narratives or interviews on “special days,” findings suggest that Polaris may be exploiting the humanistic commitments of Black teachers (Achinstein et al., 2010), presenting their schools as a place where Black teachers can remain connected to communities and act as cultural brokers (Dixson & Dingus, 2008). Although the “edvertising” literature speaks predominately to CMOs’ efforts to recruit families in the neoliberal school choice marketplace (Hernández, 2022a; Lubienski et al., 2012; Wilson & Carlsen, 2016), this study’s findings suggest it must be extended to the recruitment of teachers.
Our data suggests that Black teachers’ identities were valued by the CMO only as far as they can serve the neoliberal firm’s social and economic capital (Kymlicka, 2013). Teachers argued, in various ways, that Polaris’s answer to “what can Brown do for you?” (Melamed, 2006, p. 14) might be to fill vacancies or manage external perceptions, and they successfully edvertised a narrative of multiculturalism to sustain these efforts.
The Disposability and Commodification of Blackness
Black teachers were quickly disavowed of their perceptions that Polaris would be a place in which they could bring their authentic selves. They learned that they were expected to enact a “culturally irrelevant curriculum,” participate in a carceral apparatus of discipline and punishment in an “Apartheid school” designed for “Black people and kids in the hood,” and enact a “low-key racist” model of misconstrued middle-class white dominant culture. Further, rather than being afforded opportunities to enact their pedagogies or simply bring their authentic selves, teachers confronted a white space that actively resisted, tokenized, overworked, and undervalued their knowledge. While the extant literature argues that CMOs affirm the racist and classist dynamics they profess to disrupt in their enactment of no-excuses practices (Golann, 2021; Sondel et al., 2022), this study demonstrates the ways Black teachers are commodified in this neoliberal agenda.
There is a robust literature base detailing the power of teacher–student racial/ethnic matching (e.g., Harbatkin, 2021; Mabokela & Madsen, 2007; Redding, 2019). Instead of embracing the potential afforded through higher proportions of Black teachers, Polaris positions teachers as what theorists have described of educators and others of the neoliberal working class, a “precariat” (i.e., a class of workers perpetually in a state of vulnerability and precarity; Chinnery, 2015; Standing, 2016). Black teachers at Polaris believed in various ways that their identity was a commodity, only perceived valuable to the CMO in filling positions, sustaining growth, and helping its narrative of being “woke,” while enacting its oppressive outcomes. Leo was told directly that “one of the reasons why they were bringing [him] in was because of diversity.” Simply, teachers perceived themselves as means to a neoliberal end, not ends in and of themselves (Kymlicka, 2013; Melamed, 2006). Further, through their testimony, teachers affirm the key idea within neoliberal multiculturalism theory that, although antiracism rhetoric is a prominent feature in the neoliberal state, Black and Brown bodies are still exploited in the new neoliberal market (Melamed, 2006).
The racism that teachers recount experiencing is not new knowledge (e.g., Bristol & Mentor, 2018; Mabokela & Madsen, 2007; Pizarro & Kohli, 2018). Examining our findings through neoliberal multiculturalism intervenes in this well-established knowledge base by demonstrating ways in which Polaris and the larger neoliberal project recruit Black teachers only to capitalize upon them as means to an anti-Black end. This is the essence of neoliberal multiculturalism: antiracist rhetoric perpetuating firmly entrenched inequalities (Melamed, 2006). Beyond reaffirming racist structures through its no-excuses educative practices of Black and Brown students (Golann, 2021; Sondel et al., 2022) and beyond existing as hostile racial climates for teachers (Kohli, 2016), Polaris used deceptive marketing practices to exploit the commitments of its teachers. Once in, teachers could more fully see this “new racism” play out, as their Blackness was simultaneously a commodity and threat to the neoliberal firm (Melamed, 2006). However, teachers did not accept this rejection of currency passively, and findings contribute to the literature on Black pedagogical resistance in the neoliberal order.
Resisting “the System”
Teachers in this study offer a nuanced window into the ways that teachers negotiate the ethical challenges presented by neoliberal multiculturalism through subtle and more overt acts of resistance. Neoliberalism prioritizes self-interest and individualism over collectivism (Ball, 2012; Francis, 2006; Giroux, 2011), disrupting our moral and social solidarity (Whitehead & Crawshaw, 2014). Bloom (2017) argues that neoliberalism renders individuals personally and individually responsible for resolving the moral failings of the free market. In CMOs, this is accomplished through the power and resources CMOs wield to restructure urban educational landscapes (Buras, 2014) and authoritarian cultures that deprofessionalize and disappear teaching (Biesta, 2012; Golann, 2021; Ingersoll, 2009). Despite commodified positions within this system of neoliberal multiculturalism, teachers assert their power to enact resistive pedagogies.
The extant literature provides a robust picture of how Black educators develop and enact resistive pedagogies (Duncan, 2018; McCluskey & Narayanan, 2025a; Stovall & Mosely, 2022). In this study, teachers emphasized relationships as a key form of resistance because teachers perceived they would “get in trouble” for simply talking to students as people. Dumas and Ross (2016) contend that Blackness exists in tension with the neoliberal imagination, and teachers position human connection as the antidote to the neoliberal commodification of multiculturalism. Through this important relational resistance, teachers took advantage of extracurricular spaces to connect with students. Teachers also resisted systems within the relative safety of their own classroom. For instance, teachers discussed rejecting their CMO’s teaching practices, referring to the Teach Like a Champion codified teaching common across CMOs (McCluskey et al., 2026).
Teachers in the study also perceived departure and retention to be acts of resistance. Whether because of high turnover rates or buildings full of unqualified and uncertified teachers, Black teachers made a conscious choice to stay even at the cost of their own humanity. Staying was an act of resistance because children’s humanity would receive some acknowledgement. Yet, resistance also included departure, as evidenced by Polaris’s turnover rates of Black teachers. Barbara, for instance, left only months after arguing that Polaris must throw out the system. In such an oppressive and constrained space, resistance may require quieter forms.
Conclusion
Although there has been important research on the experiences of Black teachers in K–12 education in recent years, this study advocates for explicit focus on Black teachers’ experiences with neoliberal reform (e.g., CMOs). As this study reveals, doing so unearths important tensions. CMOs, in some ways, are enacting what the research points to as cornerstones for teacher retention and positive schooling. They employ a more diverse faculty (Gershenson, 2019; McCluskey, 2025; NCES, 2023a) to better match their student demographics (NCES, 2023b), which should tap into the positive outcomes of cultural match between educators and students (Harbatkin, 2021). They are better resourced, and provide structure and attention to detail, which the extant literature suggests Black teachers desire (Benson, Salas, Dolet and Jones, 2021; White, 2020). Furthermore, they promote missions of equity and justice (Hernández, 2022a). According to much of the scholarship, CMOs should be retaining Black teachers—yet turnover rates defy this logic.
This study shows that hiring, cultural match, and messaging alone are insufficient; schools must authentically prioritize equity and cultural responsiveness. Black teachers joined CMO-based schools to connect with and provide positive educational experiences for Black and Brown students. School leaders must reject neoliberal multicultural logics (Kymlicka, 2013; Melamed, 2006) and create environments that promote empowerment and belonging for both students and teachers. As Sondel et al. (2022) write, we must “address the culture of White supremacy and rampant individualism within schools to retain teachers of color, particularly those with commitments to challenging injustice” (p. 1644). Although “anti-CRT” and “anti-DEI” educational policies are on the rise (O’Neal & Bridgeforth, 2025), policymakers and leaders must advocate for and implement culturally responsive training, such as preservice and in-service training for traditionally licensed and alternatively certified teachers in humanizing student–teacher relationships (Legette et al., 2022), particularly across racial differences (Bennett et al., 2019; Goldenberg, 2014) and training for school leaders in culturally responsive school leadership (Khalifa, 2020). In addition to developing white teachers and leaders, such training may support preservice and in-service teachers of Color in mentoring and emotional support (Achinstein et al., 2010) and advocacy (Kohli & Pizarro, 2016). Further, we should invest in more community-based accountability systems (Heilig et al., 2014) that prioritize local community voice (Dixon et al., 2019), particularly for charter schools and CMOs that have evaded the accountability side of the autonomy–accountability exchange (Reed & Rose, 2018; Vergari, 2001). These efforts are good steps in our continued efforts for a more inclusive and empowering educational environment for BIPOC teachers and students (Dixon et al., 2019).
Footnotes
Appendix A
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
