Do Charter Schools Increase Segregation?

• Published in: Education next Vol. 19; no. 4
• Main Authors: Monarrez, Tomas, Kisida, Brian, Chingos, Matthew M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Education Next Institute 01.10.2019
• Subjects: Black students; Charter schools; Desegregation Plans; Design; Education; Educational Attainment; Educational Resources; Enrollments; Hispanic Americans; Hispanic students; Minority students; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Outcomes of Education; Public schools; Race; Recruitment; School boards; School Resegregation; School Segregation; United States > US
• ISSN: 1539-9664; 1539-9672

From a political perspective that values equality and diversity, integrated schools are inherently good. Research also supports the notion that exposure to individuals from a diverse set of backgrounds has positive social and political benefits for a pluralistic society, and an expanding body of research attests to the positive consequences of school integration for academic outcomes. Yet schools remain highly segregated by race and class, in part because of the segregation of neighborhoods, which largely determine where students enroll. Public charter schools, which have dramatically expanded their reach since they were first established in 1992, now occupy a central role in the public debate over racial isolation in school, with advocates and critics pitching the schools as either a potential cure for, or a key contributor to, segregation. Charter advocates argue that decoupling school assignment from already intensely segregated residential neighborhoods should lead to more integrated schools. Charter critics, however, allege that these public schools of choice are instead driving resegregation. They worry that if socioeconomically advantaged families take advantage of school-choice opportunities and leave the most disadvantaged students behind in the worst schools, choice could exacerbate segregation. Which of these camps is correct? How do charter schools affect segregation? The current empirical evidence fails to provide a definitive answer. In this study, we attempt to close that gap with the first nationally comprehensive examination of this question. We use detailed annual records on school enrollment by race spanning a period of 17 years, from 1998 to 2015, and a research design that isolates the causal effect of the charter share of enrollment on the segregation of American school systems. We find that, on average, an increase in the percentage of students going to charter schools leads to a small increase in the segregation of black and Hispanic students within the school districts in which charters open. Our analysis suggests that an increase of 1 percentage point in the fraction of students attending charter schools in a district causes segregation in that district to increase by 0.11 percentage points. For the average district nationwide, this implies that eliminating charter schools would lead to a modest 5 percent decrease in the segregation of black and Hispanic students. However, we uncover considerable variation in the size of this effect, particularly depending on how we define a school system. The presence of charter schools slightly increases segregation when it is measured at the level of the town or county, similar to the effect at the school district level. But in metropolitan areas, the net effect is not distinguishable from zero, as the increase in segregation within districts tends to be offset by a decrease in segregation between them. We also find dramatic differences in the charter effect on segregation in different states: in some it is close to zero, and in others it is much larger than the national average. Taken together, we find compelling evidence that the rise of charter schools over the last 20 years has led to slightly higher levels of racial and ethnic segregation, on average. However, these results need to be interpreted in the context of the purpose of charter schools. A large number of charter schools were founded and specifically tailored to serve students from vulnerable backgrounds, out of which a good number have been successful at improving student outcomes. Patterns resulting from black and Hispanic families choosing schools that they feel meet their children’s needs should not be interpreted with the same lens as the government-mandated segregation that was outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education.