A new study out today from UCLA’s Civil Rights Project finds that charter schools across the nation “continue to stratify students by race, class, and possibly language, and are more racially isolated than traditional public schools in virtually every state and large metropolitan area in the country.”
This study will have the anti-charter camp cackling with glee, and it raises some legitimate areas of concern. But I think it misses the boat in some key respects.
First, a little background. I know CRP co-director Gary Orfield, and respect him a great deal. In fact, when I worked at The Piton Foundation, I hired the Civil Rights Project — then housed at Harvard — to conduct a study of the resegregation of Denver Public Schools after busing. Part I is here, and Part II here.
While the group did excellent research, I found the partnership frustrating in one regard. As regular readers of this blog know, I am an ardent believer in socio-economic school integration. I believe socio-economic integration is a more valid frame for school equity than is racial integration. But despite repeated effort to get CRP researchers to focus on socio-economic integration, the study still ended up heavily weighted toward racial integration. This as caused in part by the nature of available data, but it also reflected Professor Orfield’s abiding commitment to racial integration.
This new study touches on socio-economic issues, and finds that charters
“are associated with heightened economic segregation, which research has often linked to weak schooling opportunity. Some states report charter schools serving disproportionate numbers of relatively affluent students who are not eligible for free or reduced priced lunches (FRL), while others report higher levels of FRL- eligible students (e.g., low-income students) in charters.”
The findings on socio-economic segregation appear to come from a scan of older research rather than any new research conducted by CRP.
My second caveat about this study is that some urban charter schools are demonstrating that integration, of whatever kind, does not have to be a necessary precondition for academic excellence. KIPP, West Denver Prep and other schools of their ilk around the country are proving, so far on a small scale, that low-income kids are not doomed to failure if they attend high-poverty schools. This study ignores that, choosing to focus single-mindedly on integration.
In a perfect world, all schools would be integrated, because integration provides great social value to all involved. But this isn’t a perfect world, and until we achieve nirvana, we need to develop schooling strategies that acknowledge imperfection.
That said, I can buy the argument that in suburban communities, charters make racial segregation even worse than it already is.
The Colorado League of Charter Schools, sent over a table yesterday in anticipation of this report’s release. It shows that the racial composition of Colorado charter schools is virtually identical to the racial composition of non-charter public schools.
Popularity: 44% [?]
I would be interested in the chart if it removed the Denver charters. Suburban charters do not have the same goals as those in Denver where they are trying to use new models to educate. Suburban charters only reinforce segregation, economic and racial.
Agreed…just try to get a student with special needs into a suburban charter school…the answer will be “no, we don’t have the services/funds” everytime. Smells like segregation to me.
D. Shoaf
Johnstown, CO
D. Shoaf, with all due respect, this UCLA Civil Right Project report has nothing to do with special education services…it is about race and minority status. Charter schools do not manage their special ed programs, including levels of services provided – those decisions are made at the district level. Charter schools are subject to all of the same state and federal laws as traditional publicl schools.
I thought I would reproduce the entire DFER comment:
“The UCLA Civil Rights Project seemingly wants to block minority parents from choosing to enroll their children in better schools simply because it feels those schools aren’t white enough. What’s up with that?”
My own view (related) is that we need to prioritize between segregation and quality. Given the choice between a poor-quality integrated school, and a high-quality segregated (majority students of color) model, which would we choose? If you choose quality, schools also tend to become more integrated over time, which is not true is you choose integration.
Lastly, it is not as if there is no solution here. Charter authorizers could easily require a school to have a FRL population that reflects the surrounding neighborhood (DSST and Odyssey already require a FRL enrollment far higher than their geographic neighborhood). If there is a problem here, it’s not a hard one to fix.
I’ve posted a blog about this as well. The problem is that the study focuses on one civil right, that technically is only an extension of the right not to be discriminated against. No one is guaranteed desegregation.
In addition, Alan makes a great point about KIPP. The study is so lost in the averages, that it doesn’t look at the huge successes and suggest that we could learn from those.
It seems clear to me that the study was done by looking through a monocular rather than binoculars.
The study also implies that minority groups if educated in a segregated setting can’t learn well. That is simply not true, and if true would lead us to much more serious conclusions.
Last, the study dwells on past data about segregated education and the ill effects on minority students. We don’t have to live in the past. Again, KIPP seems to have changed history. Why not learn from that and build on it rather than look at the poor examples of educating minorities and those from lower socioeconomic circumstances and replicating those.