Testing Discipline: An Analysis of Chicago City Politics, Education Policy, and the Crisis of Young LatinoMen in Secondary Education

Science Center A154

On Mother’s Day in 2001, fourteen community members from Little Village, a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood, on the Southwest side of Chicago staged a hunger strike in response to the inaction of Chicago Public School (CPS) officials and then-Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley with regards to the construction of a new neighborhood high school. In response, the mayor and CPS board agreed to the establishment of the new school that included Social Justice High School (SOJO). The purpose of this research is to understand the creation and mission of SOJO and explore its role in enhancing the schooling experience and academic achievement of young Latino men in the midst of a changing political economy in Chicago. This study begins by locating the development of SOJO within scholarship by education policy and reform scholars that talk about issues of neoliberal practices and school policies in CPS that affect the educational experience of Latino youth. By examining the implementation and reform efforts of policies that focus on standardized testing and discipline, this research attempts to analyze how the latter practices are influential in schools like SOJO and how they affect the student experience, development, and graduation rate of young Latino men. In essence, this project is aimed to contribute to the existing scholarship on urban public high schools and their influence to young Latino men, specifically through the lens of achievement, resistance, and policy using SOJO as a central case study.