Designed to Fail - by Roseann Liu (Hardcover)

About the Book

"When we think of educational inequalities, money often seems to be an obvious way of fixing them. After all, how else can schools be improved but through an influx of resources, be they aimed at updating old facilities, purchasing computers, or even acquiring new textbooks? But as Roseann Liu argues in "Designed to Fail," even when schools do get desperately needed funding, much is broken about the way that resources are allocated, even when we account for socioeconomic inequality. Liu sets out to show that even when you account for a full range of socioeconomic statuses, white kids are getting more school funding per pupil than Black and Brown kids. Looking to battles over school funding in Pennsylvania, she sets out to show the legal and social reasons why racial inequality in education is so deeply entrenched. Liu shows that in Pennsylvania, as in several other states, one policy, officially referred to as "hold harmless" by politicians and "hold harmful" by antiracist advocates, guarantees that school districts receive at least as much money as they received during a baseline year, regardless of increases or decreases to student enrollment. This means that poor white rural areas that have seen declining student populations are still getting funding for more students than they currently serve, while expanding Black and Brown urban districts are squeezed. But advocates have learned that they can't win if they talk about race. From lawyers to activists to school superintendents, the people with the most power have watched as arguments based on race failed. In light of these failures, Liu calls for a reparations framework of school funding goes beyond redistributive approaches by not only accounting for current inequities of funding, but also reckoning with the compounded effects of intergenerational racism. This call makes for a book that is far more than a local history of school inequality"--

Book Synopsis

A provocative examination of how systemic racism in education funding is sustained.

For people who care about urban school districts like Philadelphia's, addressing the challenges that these schools face often boils down to the need for more money. But why are urban districts that serve Black and Brown students still so perennially underfunded compared to majority-white ones? Why is racial equity in school funding so hard to achieve?

In Designed to Fail, Roseann Liu provides an inside look at the Pennsylvania state legislature and campaigns for fair funding to show how those responsible for the distribution of school funding work to maintain the privileges of majority-white school districts. Liu analyzes how colorblind policies, political structures, and the maintenance of the status quo by people in power perpetuate wide and deepening racial disparities in education funding. Taking a lesson from community organizers fighting for a racially equitable school funding system, Liu's work is a bold call to address structural racism at the root and organize from a place of abundant justice.

Review Quotes

"A welcome and much-needed analysis, Liu lays to rest common assumptions about funding inequity in schools, and provides a powerful, clear, unapologetic racial analysis of school finance, one that draws attention to structural racism behind school funding in Pennsylvania and nationwide, the actors who enable such racism to persist, and those who relentlessly work to challenge it. This is an important read for those who want to understand and address this enduring injustice of school funding in the United States."

--Erica O. Turner, author of "Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality"

"Designed to Fail is a profoundly original, remarkably rigorous, and desperately needed text. Spotlighting the struggles over school funding in Pennsylvania, Roseann Liu demonstrates how U.S. educational apartheid is rooted not only in well-documented funding gaps, but also fundamentally indebted to an under-examined array of racialized institutions, systems, and policies. Through rich ethnographic inquiry, augmented by careful policy analysis, this book destroys the veneer of colorblindness by exposing how race has persistently normalized and intensified school funding inequality. Beyond her brilliant analysis of our present crisis, Liu generously provides a clear and actionable strategy for transforming educational policy from an intractable space of racial harm into a rich site of possibility for racial repair. This is a must-read text for scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and anyone committed to producing educational justice."--Marc Lamont Hill, coauthor of "Seen and Unseen: Technology, Social Media, and the Fight for Racial Justice"

"America has failed to keep two promises to its students--to desegregate their schools and to fund them equitably. Liu digs deeply into the funding inequities that exist in one state, Pennsylvania, that serves as a template for almost every state. This is an important book."--Gloria Ladson-Billings, author of "Justice Matters"

"Readers come away with an in-depth understanding of the way schoolfunding works, the tenuous relationships that develop around policy, and how systemic racism is still driving inequities in education."-- "Choice"

About the Author

Roseann Liu is assistant professor in the College of Education Studies at Wesleyan University and visiting assistant professor in Asian American studies at Swarthmore College. Prior to academia, she was a policy and program evaluation researcher and a public school teacher.