This article explores how place matters in public school reform efforts intended to promote more equitable opportunities and outcomes. Qualitative case studies of three California middle schools' eighth grade math reforms and the resulting opportunities for Latino English learners are presented, using the conceptual frameworks of critical human geography to situate math reform processes within local and regional social, political, economic, institutional and spatial dynamics. The cases reveal relationships between local efforts to transform or maintain racially and ethnically segregated housing and school attendance patterns, decision-making about math programmes and resource allocation, and resulting student learning opportunities. Together they suggest that (1) efforts to foster more equitable student outcomes must account for the mutually constitutive nature of schools and their localities; (2) mobilization, and educational leaders' responses to it, matter; and (3) place-sensitive education research demands place-sensitive conceptual frameworks and interdisciplinary, qualitative research methods.