Alan Gottlieb’s post from last Thursday points readers to a study from UCLA’s Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles [11 mb pdf], which analyzed charter schools across the country and found them to be substantially more racially isolated than traditional public schools. The study has received quite a bit of attention as well as pushback from charter school advocates.
Today, CU-Boulder’s own policy center, along with its partner policy center at ASU (collectively, EPIC/EPRU) will release a study that, coincidentally, asks some of the same questions as did the UCLA study. Our study provides a comprehensive examination of enrollment patterns in schools operated by private corporations and finds these schools to be segregated by race, family income, disabilities, and English language learner status.
As compared with their local public school districts, these schools operated by Education Management Organizations, or EMOs, are substantially more segregated, and the strong segregative pattern found in 2001 is virtually unchanged through 2007.
This new study, Schools without Diversity: Education Management Organizations, Charter Schools, and the Demographic Stratification of the American School System, is written by Gary Miron, Jessica Urschel, and Elana Tornquist of Western Michigan University, and William Mathis of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Please find this new report here.
The fact that our conclusions are remarkably similar to the UCLA study is particularly noteworthy. The two studies, conducted independently using different data, different researchers, and different methods, both found extensive segregation in charter schools. This type of independent verification is extraordinarily important as it establishes that the findings are robust – are not just the result of one particular way of looking at the data. Together, these two new studies paint a powerful picture of charters adding to the school segregation caused by the nation’s highly segregated neighborhoods.
The EMO study is particularly important because the Obama administration has placed a great deal of faith in the scaling up of nonprofit EMOs (sometimes called Charter Management Organizations, or CMOs) as part of the administration’s turnaround strategy. The findings of this new study suggest that these policies have the very real potential to be harmful to the nation’s social and educational interests.
Having just read the various responses the UCLA study, allow me to preemptively address those concerns, which may also be raised in response to the EPIC/EPRU study:
- Pointing to the segregation is in no way condemning the schools, teachers, or students at those segregated schools. Individually, these can be great schools. What these studies highlight is a policy shift away from the Brown v. Board understanding and ambition. We’ve moved from “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” back to a version of Plessy’s “separate but equal,” generally stated as something like, “segregation doesn’t matter; what matters is that we hold every school accountable for excellence.”
- While high-quality segregated schools – whether charters or not – deserve praise for their excellent academic outcomes, I am troubled by the abandonment of the diversity goal. Why, in reading the responses to the UCLA study, do I see so many people buying into a false dichotomy between excellence and diversity? We should approach charter schools with the foundational understanding that diversity and high achievement are mutually reinforcing and then structure our charter policies accordingly.
- The reality is that charter schools as a whole do not appear to generate improved test scores. So, looking at these two new studies, it seems that we are getting the harms of segregation without any significant achievement benefits. Yet charters and choice are here to stay, so the questions we should be asking concern how to best structure choice policies to further both goals – diversity and excellence. In his comment below Alan’s post, Alex Ooms offered one suggestion on how this might be done: require charters (and, one might add, non-charters) to roughly reflect the wealth diversity of their surrounding districts or community. The same can be done for English language learners and students with special needs – and issues of race can also be addressed if structured in a non-individualized manner.
- Both the EPIC/EPRU study and the UCLA study show racial stratification in both directions. That is, we’re seeing both “White flight” and “minority flight”. Several comments I’ve seen therefore conclude that we’re attacking Latino and African American students for choosing non-diverse schools. Speaking for myself, I would never condemn a parent for making such a choice. If a parent perceives his or her best schooling option to be a segregated school, I would certainly hope that the segregation isn’t the reason for that conclusion. But ultimately I’m not in a position to question any given parent’s choice. I should note that surveys consistently show that parents of all races state a preference for integrated schools, all else being equal. So what I do question are state policies that fail to create incentives for schools, including charter schools, to have that diversity.
- Finally, please go back and take a look at the bottom of Alan’s post to see the table that the Colorado League of Charter Schools sent him in anticipation of the UCLA report’s release. It presents Colorado state-level data showing the overall charter school enrollment to be very similar to overall Colorado non-charter public school enrollment. But this completely misses the point about school-level segregation. In fact, I imagine a similar table could have been generated for 1960 Alabama, since black students were generally in enrolled some public schools, while white students were enrolled in others. If we average out the enrollments in all-black and all-white schools, we will by definition come up with the same percentages as the schools overall. It’s a good thing that charters in Colorado end up serving a representative swath of the state’s population, but the school-level segregation pointed out in these reports raises a separate and important issue.
Ultimately, I hope those who criticized the UCLA report and who might be tempted to criticize the new EPIC/EPRU report take a step back and consider the long-term benefits to the charter movement if it embraces reforms designed to create greater school-level diversity. Yes, these reports do raise serious concerns about the current situation, but they aren’t calling for charters to be abandoned. They are calling for meaningful reflection and change so that these schools can help move the country toward its ideals.
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Kevin,
A quick question – I have found (in a very small data pool) a wide discrepancy within schools between the diversity of the overall student population, and the diversity of academic achievement. So, for example, a much-lauded and highly-diverse school here in Denver has a 30 point proficiency gap between white students and students of color. Praised for the diversity of the student body, the academic performance of this school’s students is stratified as the city overall.
I wonder if you know of studies that included the academic performance of students while looking at integration. How many of those diverse schools produce academic excellence in equal proportion? If an “integrated” school is producing 30% proficiency among its students of color, and a “segregated” school is producing 70% in the same demographic group, it’s hard to me to imagine faulting the latter.
Lastly, if the “segregated” schools are feeding more college-ready minority students to universities, thus helping significantly with diversity within higher education, is that not an overall benefit to the desire for a more diverse society? Is there not a more significant goal for diversity than merely the front door of public schools?
In light of these two studies, I would be very interested to know how Colorado – and, in particular, Denver charters – are doing with respect to mirroring the communities of the schools around them. I know that each state regulates it’s own laws regarding the establishment of charter schools, so that there would be expected differences from state to state.
As Principal and CEO of Southwest Early College, I look at our demographics each year. I believe that we reflect the demographic attributes of Kennedy, Lincoln and Sheridan high schools – our nearest neighborhood high schools. It would be nice if an independent study confirmed or disbuted that belief. I would hope that this is true since our mission is to bring in students who come from families that have been traditionally underserved at the college level.
As a special education advocate, with my JD, I strongly believe, from my advocacy experience, that we may be repeating Plessy’s “separate but equal” back-shift with charter schools and sped students. Finally a report supporting this belief : “…Department of Education study reported having advised parents of disabled children
that the school was not a good fit for their child” in reference to charter administrators’ statements to parents. I have heard several parents report this same language back to me when they sought out a charter school for their child with disabilities. Children with special needs are still fighting societal prejudices. We have come a long way, but we have a long way to go.
Allow me to try to address these three comments, from Alexander, Scott and Stephanie.
1. Alexander: The within-school disparities (tracking) issue is huge. The DPS school you’re referring to is, in fact, trying to address it. But it’s a long haul.
Regarding studies of the effects of integration, please see this National Academy of Education report that I co-edited with Bob Linn: http://www.naeducation.org/Meredith_Report.pdf
In a nutshell, there are no guarantees of better outcomes with integrated schools, but on average they have improved outcomes in a variety of areas, including academic achievement.
This gets to your last point as well. Of course an segregated, high-quality school is generally preferable to an integrated low-quality school (on whatever measure of quality a given person finds important). But this is the “false dichotomy” I refer to in #2 of my main post. Diverse, high-quality choice schools should be our goal.
2. Scott: I simply do not know the answer. I was at DSST last Friday, and I do know that they have an admissions policy that strives for socio-economic diversity. And I’m aware of some stratified high-ses charters in the Boulder area. But beyond these anecdotes I am not familiar with the overall charter landscape here in CO.
3. Stephanie: A decade ago, I looked into this issue of the “counseling out” or “steering away” of special education students. The evidence at the time was not systemically gathered (i.e., anecdotal) but clearly demonstrated that the problem was occurring on a fairly regular basis. As you know, federal law prohibits the denial of a unique educational opportunity to a student with special needs (on the basis of the special need, at least). But it happened and, as you note, it still happens. The policy challenge is to secure those opportunities for students with special needs without (in the case of high-cost special needs) bankrupting the charter.
Kevin,
On the “false dichotomy” – I agree that this may be a false choice theoretically, but practically it is not false at all. The UCLA report is already generating chatter about forcing high-quality charter schools with large minority concentrations to change their open-enrollment policies, and the politics here are tangled and often ugly. The goal of integrated high-quality schools should not be used to reduce or constrain high-quality schools with large minority populations, as I fear it will be. Time will tell.
Alexander,
Here, Here. I heartily agree. False dichotomy is a term that’s easy to throw around because it intends to easily disarm an opponent. Simply because a false dichotomy is not necessarily true, does not mean that it isn’t practically true.
The “how to” of Kevin’s proposal is fraught with the possibility of unintended consequences such as ruining the dynamics of existing and potential high quality schools.
Moreover, it still bothers me that if an ethnic minority family chooses to send its child to a school that is primarily of that ethnic group, that choice is somehow invalid or even immoral. I’m not usually dense, but I don’t get it.
Alex, I share your concern and the storm that appears to be brewing worries me too. If this heats up it will do nothing but damage the interests of kids and send adults off sniping and bloviating when they could be much more productively engaged.
I find myself in a position similar to Alan’s – I strongly favor integration but have a hard time arguing with success. I must constantly remind myself not to let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
Reading and writing here also reminds me that there are profound and valid differences of philosophy, opinion, and situation that necessitate a variety of approaches to high quality options for families and their kids.
Doug, I would add to your last point that when a white family wants to send their kids to a school primarily of white kids, that is often portrayed as elitist or even racist. I get it but as I’ve said elsewhere, assumptions grounded in stereotypes generally limit our ability to understand, and therefore to positively affect a situation.
Kevin, Thank you for your response. I disagree that there is a “policy challenge…without bankrupting the charter.” Charters receive, in CO, the same amount of funding from fed, state, and local tax dollars as public schools and need to be held just as accountable. Charters therefore are subject to the same requirements under IDEA, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, NCLB and even the ADA and civil rights laws as their public school counterparts. If I ever have the opportunity to advocate for a sped student in a charter school I will pursue the same requirements for a free appropriate public education / FAPE in the least restrictive environment / LRE as I do for the students for whom I advocate in public schools. In my opinion, charters need to be held to the same standards as I work so hard to hold public schools to. It is a matter of how the money received is disseminated and I believe that responsibilty starts with schools’ administrations misuse of our tax dollars. Just look at schools misuse of sped students’ Medicaid money….
Stephanie, I agree. The system should be structured to require universal access for sped students. My point was only that the system should be fair to small charters while still protecting the rights of those students.
Alexander, to some extent I think we might agree as well. I don’t know if the UCLA CRP folks can control the “chatter”, but I join you in saying that high quality charter schools with large minority populations are an asset. Where we might part company is that I also think that those high-quality charter schools would remain high quality — probably even higher quality — if they were more diverse. And I would like to see charter policies (and other schooling policies) generate a set of incentives that make such diverse, high-quality schools more likely. For me, it’s a shame that we’re in 2010 and still having that discussion.
I would like to see this debate to expand to include all charter schools and not just the ones that appear to be high quality. Most charter schools in Denver are segregated. (As are most non-charter schools.) For whatever reasons, most charter schools in Denver are not achieving the same results as West Denver Prep or KIPP. Are these schools exacerbating the problem of segregation? It would be interesting to find out. If they are doing so without producing exceptional achievement, shouldn’t this be a consideration?
Holly, honestly, is “exceptional achievement” really the right bar? And if so, why do you apply it only to charter schools — should not every public school lacking “exceptional achievement” that is segregated also be on your list ? And maybe the concern might start with all the magnet programs that have miniscule populations of students of color since that is a result of selective admissions policies (instead of charters which have lottery admissions)?
I heard lots of voices during the election season saying the equivalent of “we should focus on District schools first.” Now the problem of segregated schools — most importantly in the inequity of academic achievement — is rampant in urban public education. So why is the cry now “let’s fix the charter schools first?”
The more voices contribute to this discussion, the more I find it odd. Many of the exact same people who claimed that Charter schools were unfairly “skimming” kids are now claiming that these schools are at fault for not enrolling more white, middle class kids — for not skimming enough.
Lost in this whole debate is parent choice. There are parents who may believe in the primacy of a diverse student body, who should be given options to exercise that choice. There are parents who may believe in the primacy of overall academic excellence. There are parents who may believe that a specific curriculum or emphasis — from art, to science, to learning style — is paramount to their child. Why does this debate feel so much like people for whom diversity is somehow the primary goal deciding to invalidate other choices and force their standards on other parents?
Every traditional school lacking “exceptional achievement” is already on the list.
For some (like me) the trend Alex describes as “fix the charter schools first” results from a perception that fixing charters seems like a more tractable problem. There are fewer of them; they’re less entrenched in their bureaucracies; and they have flexibility at their disposal to move more quickly and decisively than most traditional schools.
The main reason our team decided to form a traditional school in DPS rather than a charter is the availability of the Innovation Schools Act which offers us access to some of the flexibility charters already have. Without that, the Denver Green School would most probably be a charter (unless I win a record breaking Power Ball drawing or otherwise figure out how to fund an independent school so that family income does not affect a child’s opportunity to attend).
For me one of the best arguments for the charter movement was the idea of creating schools that could zero in on high performance faster than traditional schools, which by the time charters came along had already proven themselves very difficult to change for the better.
Why would we need the charter alternative if we could fix traditional schools first?
There’s lots new here since I last checked in. Let me again stress that these studies are not about calling out any parent’s choices as invalid, immoral, racist or elitist. Nor do they argue against charter schools as a policy/approach. The reports’ policy recommendations focus on improving charter policies so that parents’ choice options will more often include diverse schools.
The extraordinarily defensive reaction among charter supporters brings to mind all the accusations I’ve seen on this website/blog aimed at teacher unions as preservers of the status quo. It appears that these things depend on which status quo is under scrutiny. In the case of charters, I don’t think a legitimate claim can be made that perfection has been reached and that no criticisms or change proposals should be considered. The current reality with charters in CO and across the country is that charters — like non-charters — run the gamut from excellent to awful. The most extensive study thus far — the Stanford CREDO study — suggests that charters probably do worse on average than other public schools. That study is not definitive (no study is). But the overall body of charter research tells us that a great deal of improvement is possible.
Again, this is not an attack on the existence of the charter sector. I have — and certainly Gary Orfield has — criticized the policies and practices of non-charter public schools much more often than the policies and practices of charters. That doesn’t mean that I’m attacking idea or existence of public schooling. Yes, evidence of segregation has a history in the U.S. that tends to lead to defensive reactions. But if we shield our eyes from that evidence we are much less likely to innovate, reform, and improve.
Kevin,
Even the CREDO study said the following:
“In our nationally pooled sample, two subgroups fare better in charters than in the traditional system: students in poverty and ELL students. This is no small feat. In these cases, our numbers indicate that charter students who fall into these categories are outperforming their TPS counterparts in both reading and math. These populations, then, have clearly been well served by the introduction of charters into the education landscape.”
It is not that Charters don’t believe there is lots of room for improvement in a variety of ways, but most want to retain the ability to focus their efforts on improving academic outcomes or being more specific in their curricular focus. For too long the inability to prioritize left education improvement efforts in a big muddle as the large public school tried to be all things to all people.
You may respond from an academic’s perspective about false dichotomies, but every practitioner I know faces limited resources and tradeoffs. I see the segregation debate among schools of choice as one that takes time and energy away from focusing on closing the achievement gap. I certainly don’t begrudge those people who want to work on increasing diversity, but I also respect the right of practitioners who believe that closing the achievement gap is critical. If a school wants to prepare more poor and/or students of color for academic success in college, why not allow them to do that by serving more of those kids?
It’s a good dialogue. Thanks for initiating it.
Thank you, Alexander, for the well-stated and reasonable questions. I agree that this is a healthy discussion.
CREDO. The overall finding was that charter school students on average saw a decrease in their academic growth in reading by 0.1 standard deviations and 0.3 standard deviation units for math. It is true that the researchers found that charter schools had slightly better academic growth results for students in poverty and for students who are classified as English Language Learners. But they also found that gains in achievement scores were lower for African American and Hispanic students enrolled in charter schools than for their matched peers in traditional public schools. That is, we see (among other things) an odd situation where the study is suggest, for instance, that charters do worse than other publics with Hispanic students in general but better with ELLs. Keep in mind that charters tend to serve lower numbers of ELLs.
What to make of this? My main conclusion, in reading the CREDO study along with tons of other studies of charter achievement, is that the averages among the sectors are about the same but that the range — the distribution — is more important than the average. This is the “there’s excellence/crap in all sectors” argument. And I think it’s what Holly was getting at as well. To use another of my lovely illustrations, homeschooling can be a wonderful experience, but not if this guy is your dad: http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/08/washington.soldier.charged/
False dichotomies. This isn’t some pointy-headed academic thing. If it were, I would have used Latin (“tertium non datur”).
If charters are currently unlikely to serve diverse populations, that tells us very little about whether policy incentives can be included or changed that make diverse charters more likely. This is akin to dismissive responses to teacher merit pay proposals along the lines, “The practical realities in real schools simply don’t allow for the introduction of those sorts of disruptive policies.” It boils down, I think, to what we each value. Based on the values I hold and the research I’ve read, I think that we as a nation would benefit greatly if we again committed ourselves to diverse schooling. (For the research, I’ll again point to http://www.naeducation.org/Meredith_Report.pdf)
btw, you wrote, “If a school wants to prepare more poor and/or students of color for academic success in college, why not allow them to do that by serving more of those kids?” Changing incentives or offering assistance — which are the sorts of proposals I’ve seen — would not prevent a school for doing exactly that. These approaches would merely increase the likelihood that a parent would find a diverse school as a choice option in his/her community.
Thanks for the conversation.
Alex, I used the term “exceptional achievement” because the charter schools that appear to produce exceptional achievement are often the focus of debate on this blog. You’re right, charters shouldn’t be held to a higher standard. But I’d like to see policy discussion and debate consider the entire range of charter schools.
I focused on charters in my post because that is the topic of debate in this thread. But DPS had segregation and low achievement before charters and the current choice environment. As you so rightly note, many traditional schools are segregated (and low-achieving.) To clarify, my specific question was: How did the introduction of charters and choice affect that situation? That question is important to me because, as Kevin has indicated, research suggests that low-performing schools are more likely to be segregated schools, despite the fact that we can all point out exceptions to this rule. On a pragmatic, day-to-day basis, that’s my main reason for being concerned about segregation.
However, there are also other reasons for supporting integration. After all, as Kevin also indicates, research suggests parents value integration in unto itself. I guess I’d compare it to school safety. Students almost certainly learn more in a safe school. Parents value school safety. But they value safety in unto itself and not just as a means of boosting student achievement. Even after we consider the achievement question, safety, like integration, has its own merits.
None of this is to say we should accept safe, low-achieving schools any more than we should accept integrated, low-achieving schools.
Certainly, many parents in DPS have chosen segregated charters and segregated traditional schools. Although a few of these schools are high-achieving, most are not. Did they make this choice because they value segregation? Or is it because most schools in DPS are segregated and lower-achieving–i.e. the menu of choices is limited? I’m not sure we can answer that question.
For better or for worse, choice and charters are one of the major reforms if not the major reform of our time. Yes, DPS has had problems for decades. I would never say that the status quo was acceptable. However, my question about any reform is: Are the changes improving things, making things worse or maintaining the status quo and in what ways?
If the reform is maintaining the status quo or making things worse, should we not then improve or reconsider the reform?
It’s a good question Holly, what do you think?
And what policy should be made or changed based on your answer?
There’s a great exchange http://www.edexcellence.net/flypaper/index.php/2010/02/gary-orfield-responds-to-his-critics/ between Mike Petrilli and Gary Orfield on some of these questions. Maybe there is some agreement between the old “left” integrationists and the new “left” or “right” high performing charter folks…maybe healthcare is next.
Holly, I think we have to “reconsider the reform,” based on my experience as a sped advocate. As with the healthcare debate, we cannot (unfortunately) expect to resolve any old or new lingering issues in education re charters, etc. until we have tested the waters for awhile. As a sped advocate, and also as a mother of a grown daughter with Autism who went through the public school system during the time when we parents thought our children with disabilities were finally going to be mainstreamed/integrated/included (some 20+ years after IDEA passed) – we, as a society, are still learning how to provide an “appropriate education” to children with disabilities. Reform is necessary, but it also comes at a great price. We do not achieve great policies until we experience, sadly, a generation or two, or more, experiencing the effects of the initial reform movement. But we don’t stop seeking what we know every child deserves – an excellent education that will enable them to become productive, contributing members of society.