Compete or Close explores how neighborhood public schools are being forced to compete with charter schools for students and resources, often under the threat of school closure. Through a compelling ethnographic study of one Philadelphia high school, the book poses two questions: What strategies do schools deploy to minimize market risk and signal their value to stakeholders--district administrators, funders, parents, and students? And how do these strategies conflict with the schools' mission to serve all children? An astute and compassionate observer, Julia A. McWilliams paints a devastating portrait of a neighborhood public school under siege, in which educators are panicked by the threat of closure and determined to survive at all costs. McWilliams's book is a powerful indictment of the role of competition in American education today and offers empirical evidence and a theoretical understanding of the mechanisms through which market forces may conflict with the preservation of education as a public good. "With richly textured, compassionate, and unflinching prose, McWilliams exposes the dire consequences of market-oriented reforms for black and brown students. In its riveting story of one Philadelphia neighborhood high school's fight to survive, Compete or Close reveals the complex interactions of scarcity, competition, and institutional racism at the human, school, state, and national levels." --Jolley Bruce Christman , founder, Research for Action "In Compete or Close , McWilliams takes a nuanced and empathetic look at the challenges and trade-offs public schools face in an increasingly competitive environment. Through an in-depth portrayal of one school community's experience of school choice and competition, she illuminates how market-driven reforms can reproduce and even exacerbate structural inequities when schools compete on an uneven playing field.

Given the likely continuation of, and perhaps escalation of, school choice policies, this book provides a necessary counternarrative to the dominant views about markets in education." --Huriya Jabbar , assistant professor, Education Policy and Planning, University of Texas at Austin Julia A. McWilliams is an educational anthropologist and faculty member in the Critical Writing Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Maia Cucchiara is an associate professor of urban education at Temple University.