Charter School Effects on School Segregation

Full Link: Charter School Effects on School Segregation

Summary: In the first nationally comprehensive examination of charter school effects on school system segregation, the authors demonstrate that growth in charter school enrollment slightly increases the segregation of black, Hispanic, and white students.

The effects, however, are modest because charter schools make up a small share of total enrollment and have different effects across different kinds of districts. The analysis indicates that eliminating charter schools would only reduce segregation by 5 percent in the average district.

Charter school leaders and policymakers could consider policies like centralizing school choice into common enrollment systems or diverse-by-design charter schools to mitigate the segregative impacts of charter schools.

It is also important to remember, however, that many charter schools were founded and tailored to serve students from vulnerable backgrounds, and many have improved student outcomes. Segregation that takes place in a school choice environment is fundamentally different from the forced segregation common in the pre–Brown v. Board of Education era and should not be interpreted with the same lens.

Submitted September 03, 2019 at 01:13PM by punkthesystem https://ift.tt/32m8Lc8