Chapter 6: From Their Perspectives: Using Critical Race Theory as a Theoretical Framework and Methodology to Examine the Experiences of Black Middle-Class Parents in Public Secondary Schools

This chapter focuses on parent involvement and engagement¹ and the experiences of Black middle-class parents in public secondary schools. Increasing numbers of Black families find their way to more affluent neighborhoods in search of seemingly successful schools (Ogbu, 2003; Patillo-McCoy, 1999). An analysis of educational outcomes for Black middle-class students, however, reveals that their academic performance remains stagnant. Academic indices highlight the fact that Black students have not reached parity with their peers from different ethnic and racial backgrounds even when socioeconomic status is constant (Artiles & Zamora-Duran, 1997; Jencks & Phillips, 1998; NCES, 2003). Reasons for these disparities remain unclear. One prevailing argument contends that issues of race and racism remain viable explanations in understanding this reality (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). This idea was supported in a Los Angeles Times article in which California’s former Secretary of Education Jack O’Connell explicitly conceded that race supersedes class when examining the disparate academic performance of Black students on California’s standardized tests (Blume & Landsberg, 2007). The performance discrepancy between Black students and their counterparts highlights the achievement gap that is frequently cited as one of the most pressing concerns in education today (Carter, 2005; Conchas, 2006).