Districts' Responses to Demographic Change

36 Pages·2014·0.18 MB·English

AmericanEducationalResearchJournal
February2015,Vol.52,No.1,pp.4–39
DOI:10.3102/0002831214561469
(cid:2)2014AERA.http://aerj.aera.net
Districts’ Responses to Demographic Change:
Making Sense of Race, Class, and Immigration
in Political and Organizational Context
Erica O. Turner
University of Wisconsin-Madison
ManyU.S.publicschoolsystemsnowfacethreelargedemographicshifts:ris-
ing poverty, the growing number of students from immigrant families, and
increasingpopulationsofstudentsofcolor.Yet,weknowlittleabouthowdis-
trictpolicymakersreacttotheseimportantchangesorindeedthefactorsthat
consistently shape their policymaking. Drawing on interpretative policy
analysis, the politics of education, and in-depth interviews with 37 school
board members, superintendents, and district administrators across two
school districts, I arguethat racial meaning emerged as central in both dis-
tricts’policymakingprocessesaspoliticalandorganizationalcontextsinter-
acted to shape district leaders’ meaning-making and policy responses. Yet,
leaders’meaning-makingandpolicyresponsesobscuredsystematicinequal-
ities in students’ lives, including those stemming from race, immigration,
andpoverty.Iconcludewithimplicationsofthisanalysisforunderstanding
school district policymaking and how to improve schooling for students of
color, students in poverty, and immigrant students.
KEYWORDS: demographicchange,educationpolicy,interpretivepolicyanal-
ysis, race, school district leadership
American society and schools are more diverse and more unequal than
ever. Over half of U.S. cities are now majority non-White, and Asian,
Black, and Latino populations have migrated to parts of the United States
where they have not traditionally lived (Frey, 2011; Singer, 2004).
Immigrants, primarily those from Latin America and Asia, are contributing
to an increasingly multiethnic and multiracial nation (Frey, 2011; Sua´rez-
Orozco & Sua´rez-Orozco, 2002), and children living in immigrant families
ERICAO.TURNERisanassistantprofessorofeducationalpolicystudiesattheUniversity
of Wisconsin-Madison, 227 Education Building, 1000 Bascom Mall, Madison, WI
53706;e-mail: [email protected] researchfocuses on actors’ meaning-making
and on-the-ground policy work as it unfolds in the shifting organizational, social,
political, andeconomic contexts of urbanschool districts.
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Districts’ Responses to Demographic Change
nowconstitutealmostone-quarterofU.S.youthunderage18(Passel,2011).
At the same time, incomes have declined and poverty has increased across
the United States; today, one-third of children live in poverty (Duncan &
Murnane, 2011; Frey, 2011). These significant changes come at a time
when public schools are under attack, grappling with scarce resources,
and experiencing pressure from all directions.
Thewaysschoolsrespondtothesedemographicshiftscansubstantially
alter the schooling of millions of children. For example, research suggests
that how schools manage shifting enrollment affects the availability of
engaging, appropriate, high-quality instruction (Dentler & Hafner, 1997;
Wortham, Murillo, & Hamann, 2002); the nature of home-school relations
(Lowenhaupt, 2014; Posey-Maddox, 2014); and thus the inclusiveness or
exclusiveness of schooling. Nevertheless, like many social organizations,
schools often act in ways that are insufficient for meeting these children’s
needs and building on their potential (Cooper, 2009; Evans, 2007b;
Worthametal.,2002).Whilescholarssuggestthatschooldistrictsareacrucial
lever for improving schooling in systemic and equity-enhancing ways
(Cuban, 1984; Elmore & Burney, 1997; Honig, Copland, Rainey, Lorton, &
Newton, 2010; Marsh et al., 2005; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2003; Rorrer,
Skrla, & Scheurich, 2008), we know little about how district policymakers
reacttotheseimportantdemographicchangesorindeedthefactorsthatcon-
sistently shape district leaders’ policymaking.
Research on school district organizations highlights district policy as
a product of central office administrators’ interpretive and persuasive pro-
cesses (Coburn, Toure, & Yamashita, 2009; Rorrer, 2006; Spillane, 2000)
andoforganizationalandprofessionalfactorssuchasdistrictcapacity,lead-
ership, structure, specializations, and reform history (Coburn et al., 2009;
Honig, 2009; Marsh, 2002; Spillane, 1998; Supovitz, 2006). This research
examineseffortstoimproveinstructioninurbanschoolsbutpayslittleatten-
tion to race and class. In contrast, scholarship on urban school politics
describes school district policy as resulting largely from the influence of
actorsexternaltodistricts,particularly privilegedgroups that,inthe context
of race and class inequality in U.S. cities, constrain equity-oriented district
policymaking (C. N. Stone, 1998; Henig, Hula, Orr, & Pedescleaux, 1999;
Lipman, 2011; Noguera, 2003; Peterson, 1981; Shipps, 2006; Trujillo, 2013).
This literature, while offering insight into racial and class politics, rarely
examines district policymakers as key actors.
This study links school district policymaking and urban school politics
through an examination of district policymakers’ responses to three large
demographic shifts facing many public schools: rising poverty, the growing
number of students from immigrant families, and increasing populations of
students of color. The study reports on data collected in two Wisconsin
school districts that have contrasting political and economic contexts.
Drawing primarily on in-depth interviews with 37 school board members,
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Turner
superintendents, and central office administrators, I argue that racial mean-
ing emerged as central in both districts’ policymaking processes as political
and organizational contexts interacted to shape district leaders’ meaning-
making and policy responses. In the district with a ‘‘conservative’’ commu-
nitythatwasunacceptingofimmigrantsandpeopleofcolor,districtpolicy-
makers evoked racial prejudice, used cultural deficit frameworks, and insti-
tuted policies that focused on addressing minoritized students’ or teachers’
‘‘culturalproblems.’’Inthemore‘‘liberal’’district,policymakersalsoevoked
racial prejudice and cultural deficit frameworks, as well as models of racial
inequality, to pursue policies that altered management practices and
extended the provision of schooling. In both districts, policymakers’ racial
meaning-making and policy responses obscured the roles of systematic
inequalitiesinstudents’lives,includingthosestemmingfromrace,immigra-
tion, and poverty. Ultimately, these responses were not adequate for ensur-
ing a just and high-quality education for all students. I conclude with impli-
cations of this analysis for understanding school district policymaking and
how to improve schooling for students of color, students in poverty, and
immigrant students.
School Responses to Demographic Change
A small but growing body of literature examines contemporary school
responses to racial/ethnic change and increasing poverty and immigration.
Some of these studies find schools and communities do little to respond
to demographic change (Dentler & Hafner, 1997; Evans, 2007a, 2007b;
Wortham et al., 2002), while others have documented schools and school
districts altering curriculum and instruction, hiring new staff, and providing
professional development to prepare educators to teach a shifting student
population (Cooper, 2009; Dentler & Hafner, 1997; Evans, 2007b; Hamann,
2003; Holme, Diem, & Welton, 2014; Lowenhaupt, 2014).
When schools have focused on altering educational services, they have
frequently done so without addressing the cultural and political challenges
thataccompanyeffortstorespondtonewpopulations.Forexample,intheir
studyofasuburbanTexasschooldistrict,Holmeetal.(2014)foundthatdis-
trictleaders neglected addressing normativeand political challenges related
to demographic change. District messages about cultural inclusion were
inconsistent and sometimes reinforced deficit thinking. At the same time,
middle-class White parents successfully resisted reforms that would have
reduced racial and socioeconomic segregation.
Indeed, parent and educator resistance frequently undermines policies
and programs intended to serve immigrant students (Brunn, 2002;
Hamann, 2002; Jones-Correa, 2008) and students of color (Evans, 2007a,
2007b) in demographically changing locales. Educators’ interpretations of
and commitment to educating ‘‘new’’ students in their districts shape their
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Districts’ Responses to Demographic Change
schools’ responses. Educators often display inclusive or equity-minded
intentions toward new student populations (Cooper, 2009; Jones-Correa,
2008; Marrow,2011), yettheir cultural deficit models, ‘‘colorblind’’ perspec-
tives (Cooper, 2009; Evans, 2007a, 2007b; Welton, Diem, & Holme, 2013),
and tendency to essentialize and racialize groups (Wortham, Mortimer, &
Allard, 2009) undermine these intentions. For example, teachers in areas
that are new destinations for Latino immigrants often view these students’
language and culture as deficits to overcome rather than as resources to
draw from in their schooling or valuable in their own right (Hamann
et al., 2002; Wainer, 2006; Wortham et al., 2009). Educators frequently fail
to interrogate their own preparedness or the adequacy of school practices
(Wainer, 2006; Welton et al., 2013).
These studies suggest the importance of cultural and political factors as
they intersect with race and social class in shaping district policymakers’
responses to demographic change, but to date, scholars have tended to
focus only on single-factor analyses. There has been little attention to the
interaction between cultural meaning-making and the politics of demo-
graphicchangeatthedistrictlevelortotheroleoftheorganizationalfactors
foundtobeinfluentialinstudiesofpolicymakingintheliteratureonschool
district organizations. This study takes up these issues.
School District Policymaking as Interpretive and Political
This article draws on concepts from interpretive policy analysis and the
politics of education to examine school district responses to rapid demo-
graphic change. This approach helps explain policy decisions and their
implications by linking district leaders’ meaning-making with the organiza-
tional, social, economic, and political contexts of their school systems.
Beginning with the insight that ‘‘we live in a social world characterized
bythepossibilitiesofmultipleinterpretations’’(Yanow,1997,p.5),aninter-
pretiveapproachattendstothemultiplemeaningsofpoliciesandexamines
policy for the values, beliefs, and feelings that policies express as much as
their instrumental rationality. This approach also illuminates policymaking
as a social process characterized by ambiguity about the nature of policy
problemsandappropriate solutions,andthusrepletewithmeaning-making
activity (D. Stone, 2002; Rosen, 2009; Yanow, 1996, 1997).
The use of language and symbolism are central to meaning-making. In
particular, frames—‘‘specific metaphors, symbolic representations, and cog-
nitivecues’’(Zald,1996,p.262)—connectwithpeople’sexistingknowledge,
values,andbeliefsinwaysthatsimplify,condense,andorganizeeventsand
makethemmeaningful.Framesfocusattentiononsomeaspectsofasituation
and direct attention away from others (Benford & Snow, 2000; D. Stone,
2002).
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Aproblemdefinitionisakindofframethatidentifiesasproblematiccer-
tainactorsandaspectsofasituation.Itexpressesthenatureoftheproblem,
identifies its causes, and assigns responsibility, blame, or praise (D. Stone,
2002; Rochefort & Cobb, 1993). Accepting one problem definition over
another privileges certain policy solutions, actors, and social meanings in
policymaking (D. Stone, 2002). Actors interact with each other to frame,
negotiate, and rearticulate policy problems and solutions, thereby gaining
wider support for their position (Benford & Snow, 2000; Snow, Rochford,
Worden, & Benford, 1986).
Withinorganizations,therearelikelytobecontendinginterpretationsof
policy issues that reflect differing interpretive communities or groups that
share cognitive, linguistic, and cultural practices that contribute to shared
meanings (Yanow, 1997). Studies of school districts reveal that organiza-
tionalandprofessionalfactorsshapedistrictpolicymakers’socialinteraction,
andthustheirinterpretive communities, inways thatarehighlyconsequen-
tial for district decision makers’ meaning-making and policy activities
(Binder, 2002; Coburn et al., 2009; Spillane, 1998). Yet, these studies largely
limitconsiderationofpoliticsinpolicyandimplementationtothepoliticsof
districtactors’interpretationsandpersuasivetactics.Scholarshiponthepol-
itics of education situates school district policymaking and policymakers
withinthearrayofexternalgroupsandsocial,political,andeconomicforces
that constitute the full ecology of district policymaking.
Politicsofeducationscholarsemphasizethatgiventhechallengingeco-
nomic circumstances and diverse constituencies in cities, urban school sys-
tems require cooperation and resources from nongovernmental groups in
ordertogovern(C.N.Stone,1993,1998).Schoolleaders’needforresources
typically makes economically advantaged groups (e.g., affluent parents,
business elites) more influential than those that lack such advantages
(C. N. Stone, 1998; Peterson, 1981).
However, local school systems also need diverse constituencies and
respond to popular support (or opposition) to educational efforts (C. N.
Stone, 1998; C. N. Stone, Henig, Jones, & Pierannunzi, 2001; Finnigan &
Lavner, 2012). District-community relationships are essential: Community
members and parents often limit changes—particularly equity-oriented
policies—that stray from their values or group interests (Oakes, Welner,
Yonezawa,&Allen,1998).Superintendentstendtoworkwithinthebounds
of what they perceive to be acceptable norms within the community, and
when policy decisions exceed these limits, community members may retal-
iate against district leaders (Boyd, 1976). Yet, not all community members
aretreatedequally.Thosewithpower(e.g.,money,socialcapital,andlegal
recourse)havebeenconsistentlyfoundtohaveanoutsizedeffectonpolicy
(C. N. Stone, 1998; Finnigan & Lavner, 2012; Noguera, 2003).
Critical race theory’s (CRT) concept of interest convergence suggests
that school district policies addressing racial injustice are the result of
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Districts’ Responses to Demographic Change
political arrangements in which policymakers, who are typically White and
members of advantaged social classes, interpret their own interests as
aligned with those of working-class and poor people of color. A guiding
premise of CRT is that race is a historical and contemporary system of
oppression constituted by cultural understandings and institutionalized
structures that reflect and perpetuate racial inequality (Bonilla-Silva, 2003;
Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). Derrick Bell (1980), who developed the con-
cept, argues that this convergence of interests explains policymaking that
advances racial equality—or appears to do so—in a context of racial
oppression.
As in CRT, politics of education approaches conceptualize district poli-
cymaking as taking place within aset of relationships that are characterized
by unequal resources and power relations; actors operating within broad
political, social, and economic contexts; and complex racial interests that
only occasionally converge around increasing equity and justice. Thus, dis-
trict policymaking can be conceptualized as taking place within a ‘‘zone of
mediation’’ (Oakes et al., 1998; Renee, Welner, & Oakes, 2009; Welner,
2001), a contested context around a given issue or reform that establishes
limits on educational policy and practice. School systems, and the actors
within them, mediate these broader social forces (Oakes et al., 1998;
Trujillo,2013;Welner,2001);however,todate,thetheoryhasnotbeenfully
developed to explain the processes by which this occurs.
Inbringing together interpretive policy analysis and the politics of edu-
cation, this article makes three contributions. First, it illuminates the impor-
tanceofracialmeaningtodistrictleaders’policymaking.Second,itprovides
evidence of both political and organizational influences on district policy-
making and interactions between the two. Finally, it highlights school lead-
ers’ meaning-making as mediating the impact of broader social forces on
school district policy.
Research Design and Methodology
Thisstudydrawsondatafromacomparativecasestudyofpolicymaking
across two demographically changing, medium-sized urban school districts
inWisconsin.IbecameinterestedintheWisconsinschoolswhen,forfamily
reasons, I moved to Wisconsin and began reading newspaper accounts of
the demographic changes occurring in school districts across the state. I
began site selection by analyzing U.S. census data and data on the enroll-
ment of students who are classified as ‘‘limited English proficient’’ (LEP) to
identify three medium-sized (15,000–25,000 students) urban school districts
that had sustained increases in their immigrant populations in the 15 years
(1994–2009) leading up to the study. From these I purposively sampled
(Patton, 1990) for variation in local economic context and political orienta-
tion to immigrants and people of color. To determine each city’s economic
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circumstances, I analyzed unemployment rates, average household income,
and poverty rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census
Bureau. To identify attitudes toward immigrant arrival in each city, I
searchedfourlocalandstatenewspapersfor newsarticlesandcommentary
onimmigrants,immigration,anddemographicchangefromJanuary2006to
August 2009. I analyzed these for evidence of public and official sentiment
andactionstowardimmigrantsandpeopleofcolor.Isearchednationallists
of local immigration ordinances (e.g., ‘‘sanctuary’’ cities, English-only ordi-
nances), confirming these through local government websites.
The immigrant populations of the two districts selected for study,
Lakeside and Fairview (all names are pseudonyms), had increased over
the previous decades and primarily included Hmong refugees and
Mexican immigrants. Lakeside District is located in a city with a struggling
economy and a generally unaccepting attitude toward immigrants and peo-
ple of color, whereas Fairview District is in a city with a stronger economy
and more inclusive attitude toward immigrants and people of color. Both
districtshaveseenstrikingincreasesinthepercentageofstudentsidentified
as non-White and as living in poverty.
This analysis draws primarily from semi-structured interviews (Patton,
1990) with 37 current and former school district policymakers from the
two districts. As Quinn (2005) notes, ‘‘Interviews can provide a density of
clues to cultural understandings that is virtually unobtainable in any other
way’’ (p. 7). The participants, interviewed between the spring of 2009 and
the spring of 2010, included school board members, superintendents, assis-
tant superintendents, directors of central office divisions (e.g., curriculum,
special education, and student services), and community liaisons. I inter-
viewed a total of 20 school district policymakers in Lakeside and 17 in
Fairview. I did not ask respondents for their racial identity; however, in
thecourseofinterviews,2Fairviewrespondents(12%)identifiedaspersons
ofcolor,5(29%)identifiedasWhite,and10(59%)didnotself-identifywith
a racial/ethnic group. In Lakeside, 40% of district policymakers indicated
they were White and 60% did not offer a racial/ethnic identification. Given
this, and a lack of data on district policymakers’ racial identification as
awhole,discussionofdistrictpolicymakers’racialidentityisonlysuggestive.
Bythenatureoftheiroccupations,theseparticipantscanbeconsideredmid-
dle-class or upper-middle-class. Interviews lasted between 35 and 90
minutes, with a mode of 50 minutes. All interviews were audio recorded
and transcribed with the exception of 2, which were not recorded due to
a malfunction with the audio recorder. For these 2 interviews, I relied on
handwritten notes I took during the interviews and typed up later that
day. To provide background and data triangulation for this analysis, I also
drew on over 279 documents, including meeting agendas, school board
minutes, newspaper articles, programmatic guides and district reports, and
interviews of approximately 50 minutes each with 9 community leaders
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Districts’ Responses to Demographic Change
and11districtstaffinLakesideand8communityleadersand7districtstaffin
Fairview.
Data analysis took place concurrently with data collection and contin-
ued after data collection was complete. I wrote analytic memos to capture
insights and questions and to develop concepts and higher level analysis
whilestickingclosetothedata(Corbin&Strauss,2008).Idevelopedacode-
book (MacQueen, McLellan, Kay, & Milstein, 1998) from my conceptual
framework and the existing literature and added inductively developed
codes through my subsequent analysis using Corbin and Strauss’s (2008)
method of constant comparison. Then I systematically coded interview
and observational data using NVivo 8 qualitative data analysis software. To
analyze how participants related demographic change, problems, and poli-
cies to each other, I constructed data displays (Miles & Huberman, 1994) of
participants’ framing of demographic change, problems, and policy
responses. Unless otherwiseindicated,Iidentified framingsascharacteristic
of a given district if roughly a quarter or more respondents in each district
evoked the framing, but I also paid attention to less frequent responses. I
reexamined my matrices to discover patterns in the data, compare within
and across districts, and detect missing or disconfirming evidence.
Aswithallresearchers,myidentityandpositionalityshapedtheresearch
processes and findings described here. I self-identify as Black and Asian,
though my racial identity is often ambiguous to people I meet. The fact
thatIamapersonofcolorlikelyinfluencedparticipants’responsesininter-
views, possibly making them more likely to believe I was interested in race
when I asked about demographic change. White participants may have
respondedtomyquestionsinwaystheyfeltshowedtheywereenlightened
about race or ethnicity. In talking to an outside researcher interested in
responses to demographic change, district leaders also had a stake in con-
structing themselves as ‘‘responding’’ in a coherent way to demographic
changes and constructing others as responsible for inadequate district
responses. Black, Hmong, and Latino participants may have felt more com-
fortable divulging their views to me than to a White interviewer, given the
continued control of the districts by Whites, and they may have responded
in ways they felt would generate solidarity with me as the interviewer.
In drawing on district leaders’ interviews, this study speaks to the pre-
dominantly White and middle-class district policymakers’ perspectives on
how they were responding to demographic changes. The study is limited
by what participants were willing to reveal, which in turn was affected by
my own identity as a researcher of color from outside the state who was
introduced to them as studying their district’s and community’s responses
to immigration or demographic change. Nonetheless, in shedding light on
how these district leaders made sense of the changes occurring in their
school districts, these particular cases embrace a degree of universality
(Erickson, 1986).
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Table1
DistrictDemographicChange,1998–2009(%)
Lakeside Fairview
1998 2009 1998 2009
AmericanIndian 5 5 1 1
Asian 9 8 9 10
Black 2 7 17 24
Hispanic 5 19 5 15
White 79 61 68 50
Freeandreduced-pricelunch 33a 52 27a 47
Englishlanguagelearners 10 20 8 17
Hmong-speakingEnglishlearners 5 5 2 2
Spanish-speakingEnglishlearners 4 14 3 11
Other 1 1 3 4
Note.Figureshavebeenroundedoralteredslightlytomaintainanonymity.
aThestatestudentdatasystemdidnotprovidepovertydatafortheyearsinquestion.Data
fromthe2000–2001schoolyearareincludedinlieuofdatafor1998.
The School Districts in Context
Lakeside and Fairview school districts are similar to others throughout
the United States in terms of their changing demographics in the midst of
the multiple pressures facing urban public schools. Approximately 8%
of the population in each of these medium-sized cities (approximately
100,000totalresidentsinLakesideand225,000inFairviewin2009)wasfor-
eign born in 2009, representing an increase of 15% from 2000 to 2009 in
Lakeside and 10% between 2000 and 2009 in Fairview (U.S. Census
Bureau,2000,2009).TheincreaseinstudentsdesignatedasLEPineachdis-
trict, the majority of whom were Hmong or Spanish speakers, suggest the
changes that were taking place: They represented 10% of Lakeside students
and 8% of Fairview students in 1998, versus 20% and 17%, respectively, in
2009. As indicated in Table 1, during that same period, students identifying
as American Indian, Asian, Black, or Hispanic grew from 21% to 39% in
Lakeside and from 33% to almost 50% in Fairview. In both districts, these
changesprimarilyreflectedanincreaseinLatinostudents,althoughtheper-
centage of Black students was also growing, and Blacks were the largest
non-White group in Fairview. There also was an increase in each city in
the percentage of students living in poverty from 2000 to 2009—from an
already high 33% to 52% in Lakeside and from 27% to 47% in Fairview.
Thepolicycontextofthesedistrictsincludedtwostatelawsofparticular
relevance to this study: a bilingual education law and an open enrollment
law. In 1976, when only a few communities in the state had a sizable
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Districts’ Responses to Demographic Change
population of Spanish-speaking families, the Wisconsin state legislature
passed a bilingual education act that required districts to establish an
English language program that used ‘‘the native language of the limited-
Englishproficientpupil,instructioninsubjectsnecessarytopermitthepupil
to progress effectively through the educational system’’ if a school reached
certain thresholds of English learners with a shared native language
(Wisconsin Stats. ch. 115 § 95(3)). By 2001, both Lakeside and Fairview
hadestablishedtransitionalbilingualeducationprogramsforSpanishspeak-
ers and English as a second language (ESL) services for English learners
(ELs).
The state open enrollment law, which took effect in 1997, allowed stu-
dentsinanyWisconsinschool districttotransfertoanyotherschooldistrict
in the state, regardless of their place of residence. Under this law, districts
thatloststudentsalsoloststateaid,andthosethatreceivedtransferstudents
received additional state aid (Bezruki, Varana, Gustafson, Lathrup, &
Sommerfeld, 2002). In the 2008–2009 school year, Lakeside had a net loss
of approximately 450 students through the open enrollment system, which
cost the district approximately $2.4 million in revenue, while Fairview had
anetlossofapproximately280studentsatacostofapproximately$1.5mil-
lion. Both districts were also experiencing increased pressure to meet
requirements of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act even as state aid to dis-
tricts was declining by millions each year and had not kept up with costs.
Whilethetwocitieshadsimilardemographicchanges,statepolicycontexts,
and budget pressures, their political and economic contexts differed.
Lakeside
Lakeside was characterized by a conservative political culture and
a struggling local economy, and it was an increasingly unwelcoming place
forpeopleofcolorandimmigrants.Forexample,inthe2000s,localgovern-
ment enacted a county ordinance making English the official language and
an ordinance barring businesses licensed by the city from hiring undocu-
mented workers. Both ordinances sparked local protest but remained law.
Ina2007newspaperarticle,thecitycouncilpresidentwasquotedassaying
aboutthelatterordinance:‘‘It’samessagetotheillegalaliencommunitythat
says you are not welcome. Don’t come here.’’1 District leaders and commu-
nity members pointed to those laws, the near total lack of people of color
holding elected office or positions in the police and fire departments, and
the maintenance of a nativity scene on government property as evidence
of the city’s bigoted and conservative culture.
At the time of the study, Lakeside was experiencing the effects of the
consolidationandglobalizationoflocalmanufacturingandfoodprocessing.
The estimated median household income from 2005 to 2009 was approxi-
mately $43,000 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2009), and the housing crisis and
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