Re-branding urban schools: urban revitalization, social status, and marketing public schools to the upper middle class

This article examines an effort to use urban schools to promote the revitalization of a large northeastern city in the United States. In order to attract and retain professional families to a regenerated central city, downtown schools are re-branded and promoted to such families as suitable for their children. The article draws on interviews and observation in a particular downtown elementary school to examine the experiences of different groups of parents in this new educational market. The data reveal how middle- and upper-class parents are treated as sought-after customers who gain and retain positions of influence over the direction of the school once their children are admitted. However, the same processes marginalize low-income and minority parents. The article concludes that while the goals of the policy may be ostensibly worthy, one of its consequences is to reinscribe existing status positions and inequalities.