Date of Award
5-2026
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Program
Educational Administration
Department
Educational Leadership, Counseling, and Foundations
Major Professor
Beabout, Brian
Second Advisor
Broadhurst, Christopher
Third Advisor
Compton, D'Lane
Abstract
Following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans public schools were reorganized into the nation’s first universal choice system through the rapid expansion of charter schools. While prior research has examined segregation in pre-Katrina New Orleans, far less is known about how segregation operates within this restructured system. This study investigates the relationship between charter school location and contemporary patterns of segregation using a conceptual framework that integrates Plantation Complex Theory and Porter’s Theory of Clusters. Using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and geographic information systems (GIS), this study analyzes the relationship between school enrollment demographics and the racial and socioeconomic characteristics of the surrounding neighborhoods. These methods are used to assess the extent to which charter schools spatially cluster within the city’s educational landscape. Findings indicate that clustering is not uniform across levels of segregation. Instead, significant clustering emerges at specific segregation thresholds, while patterns of dispersion appear at the extremes, suggesting a system characterized by both concentration and controlled distribution. Interpreted through the study’s conceptual framework, these findings suggest that Cluster Theory helps explain the geographic and competitive dynamics shaping charter school growth and maintenance, while Plantation Complex Theory provides a critical lens for understanding how these dynamics reproduce racialized inequality. Together, these findings call attention to how market-based school systems simultaneously organize resources and reinforce historically rooted patterns of segregation.
Recommended Citation
Davis, Alfred B., "The Spatial Politics of American Education: Charter Schools, Segregation, and the Geography of Opportunity" (2026). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 3376.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/3376
Rights
The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.