Exploring the role of identitarian politics in the privatization of Newark's public school system

In Expelling Public Schools, John Arena explores the more than two-decade struggle to privatize public schools in Newark, New Jersey--a conflict that is raging in cities across the country--from the vantage point of elites advancing the pro-privatization agenda and their grassroots challengers.

Analyzing the unsuccessful effort of Cory Booker--Newark's leading pro-privatization activist and mayor--to generate popular support for the agenda, and Booker's rival and ultimate successor Ras Baraka's eventual galvanization of the charter movement, Arena argues that Baraka's black radical politics cloaked a revanchist agenda of privatization.

Expelling Public Schools reveals the political rise of Booker and Baraka, their one-time rivalry and subsequent alliance, and what this particular case study illuminates about contemporary post-civil rights Black politics. Ultimately, Expelling Public Schools is a critique of Black urban regime politics and the way in which antiracist messaging obscures real class divisions, interests, and ideological diversity.