Race and education in the mountain west: Charting new territory in America’s racial frontier

Abstract

In this chapter, I argue there is much to learn about the future of American education from the Mountain West region based on its (a) distinctive racial history, (b) changing demography and politics, and (c) widening opportunity gaps in education. I begin with a discussion of the region’s unique racial and multicultural history and libertarian ethos followed by a description of its demographic transformation and anticipated political rise as “America’s Heartland.” I then present selected Mountain West state-level education enrollment and achievement data and focus on education reform efforts in Nevada, as a state representative of the region. The chapter concludes with a call for a political race project in education—comprised of cross-racial solidarity, strategic linkages between black, white, Latino, Asian, and indigenous communities around racial and social justice issues, and a democratic politics of practice that advances the freedom struggle for equal education in the post-Civil Rights Era.