I read this book as President Barack Obama handed the reigns of executive power to newly elected President Donald Trump. Since that time, President Trump has offered early signals suggesting that his administration’s approach to education policy would likely emphasize less federal responsibility and more discretion by state and local governments, coupled with active participation by the private sector. Thus, Kenneth J. Meier and Amanda Rutherford could not offer a more timely analysis of the relationship between politics and educational equity for African Americans. In the context of rising inequality and declining socioeconomic mobility in the United States in recent decades, The Politics of African American Education is sure to spark broad-reaching interest, as education is widely regarded as one of the most promising tools for promoting equal opportunity and advancement. For students of political science, education’s significance as a mechanism for combating inequality lies in its capacity to provide citizenship-enhancing knowledge, skills, and resources that are crucial to the promise of equal opportunity.

Building upon a distinguished body of research that has helped to bring into greater focus our understanding of how politics shapes public administration, Meier and Rutherford deliver an insightful analysis of the political and representational structures that influence the effectiveness of educational organizations and, in turn, determine the quality of primary and secondary education provided to African American students. The book helps to advance the literature on education by taking seriously the political factors that shape equitable access to quality education at the local level. In and of itself, the argument that African American education is decidedly partisan—contrary to the received wisdom that casts education as a nonpartisan issue—will make the book interesting to scholars, pundits, and policymakers alike. What is more, the authors’ careful empirical analysis of data drawn from three original surveys covering 1,800 school districts, as well as state-level case studies, makes the work doubly worthy of consideration by anyone interested in the politics of education, institutions, and representation. They make a compelling case that the consideration of local school districts offers unique insight into the politics of education by focusing on the factors that influence the success of African American school-board candidates and the prevalence of African American representation among school administrators and teachers. As they note at the outset, “racial disparities in education reflect, in part, political inequities” (p. 1).

For Meier and Rutherford, effective representation in local legislative bodies is central to whether African American students will enjoy equitable educational opportunities. Their analysis suggests that it is partisanship, rather than electoral structure, that represents the crucial force shaping African American representation on school boards. In building the case, they prompt us to update our understanding of how running in at-large versus single-member districts (SMDs) shapes the viability of African American school-board candidates, arguing that coalitions between African American candidates and their liberal allies in the Democratic Party have transformed the influence of electoral structure on their electoral chances in at-large districts. This, in turn, plays a central role in whether African American legislators will be elected to positions that help them directly or indirectly to promote educational equity for African American students. That is not to say that school-board members are the only relevant actors in this process. The authors make a persuasive case that partisanship also shapes the racial composition of school administrators and teachers. This finding has important implications for the quality of education that African American students receive, as students’ educational achievement is directly and indirectly shaped by the presence of African American administrators and teachers, particularly in Democratic-leaning school districts.

Granted, the authors’ sharp focus on how political party shapes the influence of electoral rules and representation leaves in-depth consideration of other political factors shaping African American education—such as the nuances of school funding, the persistence of racial segregation within schools, and issues related to school choice—for future study. Nonetheless, they are clear in what they set out to do in this book, and are scrupulous about allowing their empirical data to drive their efforts to shed light on erstwhile obscured features of the political and organizational landscape that prove central to the racial dynamics of education. Given its empirical focus, the book’s statistical analysis dominates the manuscript’s 236 pages. However, the authors do provide the occasional historical narrative to contextualize the structural and political trends that they examine (e.g., pp. 16–22; 141–46). Their insightful, though arguably brief, treatment of the historical development of African American education, for example, offers a valuable look into the inequalities that have shaped black children’s access to equal educational opportunity since the Progressive era. Expanding such contextualization represents one avenue by which this already compelling work could be enhanced, as these narratives add a depth to the manuscript that leaves readers wishing for more.

As I see it, the work’s central contribution lies in its timely implications for public policy. The finding that African American representation is especially consequential in Democratic-leaning school districts, while typically exerting minimal influence in Republican-leaning school districts, is illuminating, but the analysis stops short of teasing out the nuances of this distinction. What, specifically, is it about Democratic-leaning school districts that promotes a more favorable educational context for black students? For Republican-controlled districts that fail to provide comparable positive outcomes for African American students, what features of the political context enable the persistence of this trend? Surely the finding that party control yields systematic disadvantages for African American children highlights a case in which democratic responsibility fails to trump political inclinations, all at the expense of a chronically marginalized group of citizens.

Perhaps even more compelling is the evidence confirming and highlighting the central role that African American teachers play in the educational prospects of black students. Meier and Rutherford find that the presence of black teachers is associated with better outcomes for black students in Democratic-leaning school districts. This phenomenon shapes African American students’ assignment to both special-education and gifted-education academic tracks. It also shapes the nature of disciplinary actions taken to govern their behavior, test scores, graduation rates, and college preparedness. Given the significance of African American teachers to the educational well-being of African American students, this work highlights a crucial imperative for contemporary national priorities: significantly increasing recruitment and retention of African American teachers in U.S. primary and secondary schools.

While Meier and Rutherford’s empirical analysis offers a valuable contribution to the literature on race and politics, making a clear connection between institutional representation and educational outcomes and the political forces that mediate it, they have surprisingly little to say about the analogous role that gender might play in determining whether African American students receive equitable education in Democratic- and Republican-leaning districts. In light of the gender dynamics of educational personnel—women represent a full 77% of public elementary and secondary school teachers in the United States, according to the National Center for Education Statistics in 2017—as well as significant gender-driven trends shaping student success, it seems plausible that an increasingly intersectional analysis would yield additional insights. It is also interesting to note that according to the National School Boards Association, women comprise 44% of U.S. school-board representatives. This raises questions as to whether the observed relationship between party control and race changes when we consider the gender of legislators and educators. Along similar lines, recent data on the disproportionate rates at which African American girls are suspended raise important questions as to whether efforts to recruit new teachers should take into account gender and other characteristics to yield a more intersectional approach. Analysis of intersectionality, representation, and student outcomes could represent a valuable next step.

All things considered, I find Meier and Rutherford’s argument for the serious consideration of the role that political party plays in African American education to be a persuasive one. Their analysis significantly improves our understanding of education, race, and organizations, while offering insights that will prove valuable to future research. Equally, if not more importantly, this work offers valuable lessons for lawmakers interested in promoting equal educational opportunity for African American students—an endeavor that is sure to require guidance form our most insightful thinkers in the coming years.