This article contributes to scholarship on school reform by portraying a local struggle to reimagine a longstanding neighborhood urban school in the context of an expanding marketplace of school choices. Guided by an asset-based community school development framework, the authors conducted this historical case study as participants of a local design team comprised of university and school partners charged with re-envisioning a struggling neighborhood middle school as a K-12 university-assisted community school. Findings are visualized in a timeline that captures the school’s reform history, changing demographics, and community context across three periods of school reform. The authors interpret this history by focusing on three tensions: reform means versus ends, public versus private goods, and critical hope versus despair. By grappling with these democratic tensions, urban communities can counter the dominant policy discourse of failing and turnaround schools to reimagine the promise of neighborhood schools as anchor democratic institutions in urban communities.

Suggested Citation

Quartz, K.H., Geller, R.C., & McQueen, S.S. (2020). A beautiful struggle: Reimagining neighborhood schools in urban communities. Teachers College Record.