scholarly journals Sorting Schools: A Computational Analysis of Charter School Identities and Stratification

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-64
Author(s):  
Jaren R. Haber
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Charter School ◽  
Parenting Styles ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Linear Regression Models ◽  
Educational Values ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Methodological Problems

Research shows charter schools are more segregated by race and class than are traditional public schools. I investigate an underexamined mechanism for this segregation: Charter schools project identities corresponding to parents’ race- and class-specific parenting styles and educational values. I use computational text analysis to detect the emphasis on inquiry-based learning in the websites of all charter schools operating in 2015–16. I then estimate mixed linear regression models to test the relationships between ideological emphasis and school- and district-level poverty and ethnicity. I thereby transcend methodological problems in scholarship on charter school identities by collecting contemporary, populationwide data and by blending text analysis with hypothesis testing. Findings suggest charter school identities are both race and class specific, outlining a new mechanism by which school choice may consolidate parents by race and class—and paving the way for behavioral and longitudinal studies. This project contributes to literatures on school choice and educational stratification.

scholarly journals Sorting schools: A computational analysis of charter school identities and stratification

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaren Randell Haber
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Charter School ◽  
Parenting Styles ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Linear Regression Models ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
School Year ◽  
Methodological Problems

Research shows that charter schools are more segregated by race and class than traditional public schools. I investigate an under-examined mechanism for this segregation: Charter schools project identities corresponding to parents’ race- and class-specific parenting styles and educational values. I use computational text analysis to detect the emphasis on inquiry-based learning in the websites of all charter schools operating in the 2015-16 school year. I then estimate mixed linear regression models to test the relationships between ideological emphasis and school- and district-level poverty and ethnicity. I thereby transcend methodological problems in scholarship on charter school identities by collecting contemporary, valid, population-wide data, as well as by blending text analysis with hypothesis testing. Findings suggest that charter school identities are both race- and class-specific, lending weight to arguments for further regulating charter school enrollments. This project contributes to literatures on school choice, educational stratification, and organizational identity.

The Sorting Effect of Charter Schools on Student Composition in Traditional Public Schools

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongmei Ni
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Charter School ◽  
Linear Models ◽  
Disadvantaged Students ◽  
High Concentration ◽  
Traditional Public Schools ◽  
Charter School Policy ◽  
Student Sorting

This article investigates how Michigan’s charter school policy influences the composition of students by race and socioeconomic status in urban traditional public schools. Using 2 years of student-level data in Michigan’s urban elementary and middle schools, the dynamic student transfers between charter schools and TPSs are analyzed through a series of hierarchical generalized linear models. The two-way transfer analysis shows that the student sorting under the charter school program tends to intensify the isolation of disadvantaged students in less effective urban schools serving a high concentration of similarly disadvantaged students. The findings imply that a challenge for the state policy makers is to help disadvantaged students who are left behind in the most disadvantaged schools, without significantly reducing the benefits to students who take advantage of school choice.

Urban Charter Schools

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manya Whitaker
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Standardized Testing ◽  
Charter School ◽  
Low Income ◽  
College Enrollment ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Students ◽  
Urban Charter Schools

Urban charter schools are public schools located in major metropolitan areas with high population densities. The majority of urban charter school students identify as Black or Latinx and often live in under-resourced communities. Urban charter schools are touted as high-quality educational options in the school choice market, yet debates about the merits of charter schools versus traditional public schools yield mixed results that substantiate arguments on both sides of the political aisle. However, even high-performing urban charter schools have a bad reputation as mechanisms of school segregation and cogs in the school-to-prison pipeline. Higher than average test scores and graduation and college enrollment rates do little to mollify those who complain about severe discipline, racial segregation, unqualified teachers, teacher attrition, rigid scheduling, and a narrow curriculum. Urban charter schools’ emphasis on standardized testing and college preparation may overlook the culturally relevant educational experiences that low-income, racially diverse students need to compete with their wealthier, White peers. As such, education reformers have offered a myriad of suggestions to improve urban charter schools. Most prominently is the need to racially and economically desegregate urban charter schools to enhance the social and material resources that supplement students’ learning. This includes increasing teacher diversity, which research demonstrates minimizes the frequency of suspensions and expulsions of racial minority students. Urban charter school teachers should also be knowledgeable about the sociocultural landscape of the community in which their school exists so that they understand how students’ out of school lives affect their learning processes. Finally, curricular revisions are necessary to support students’ post-high school goals beyond college enrollment. Enacting such reforms would facilitate equitable, rather than equal, learning opportunities that may help narrow racial and economic achievement gaps in the United States.

A Look Back: Taking stock of public school choice in Kappan

2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-7
Author(s):  
Teresa Preston
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Alternative Schools ◽  
Private School ◽  
Magnet Schools ◽  
Public School Choice ◽  
Look Back

In this monthly column, Kappan managing editor Teresa Preston explores how the magazine has covered the questions and controversies about school choice. Although many authors across the decades objected to the use of vouchers to pay private school tuition, those same authors lent support to the idea of choice among public schools. Advocates of public school choice have endorsed various models for providing choices, from alternative schools, to magnet schools, to charter schools.

Betsy DeVos’s Education Reform Agenda: What Principals—and Their Publics—Need to Know

2018 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie S. Kaplan ◽  
William A. Owings
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Charter School ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
American Education ◽  
Reform Agenda ◽  
Track Record ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Education Leaders

Betsy DeVos, the new U.S. Secretary of Education, has a reform agenda to advance school choice. Her track record includes enabling charter school growth in Michigan at taxpayers’ expense with little oversight or accountability. Although an effective advocate, DeVos represents a broader policy movement to privatize American education, much of it happening beneath public awareness. Understanding Ms. DeVos’s policy goals, how the President and Congress are supporting these, and how privatization is occurring in states can help principals and education leaders recognize the stakes, learn what to watch for, and take appropriate actions to preserve and strengthen America’s public schools.

scholarly journals Choice without Inclusion?: Comparing the Intensity of Racial Segregation in Charters and Public Schools at the Local, State and National Levels

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasquez Heilig ◽  
Brewer ◽  
Williams
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Common Core ◽  
Local State ◽  
Middle Level ◽  
Racial Isolation ◽  
Primary Level ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Segregated Schools ◽  
The City

We conduct descriptive and inferential analyses of publicly available Common Core of Data (CCD) to examine segregation at the local, state, and national levels. Nationally, we find that higher percentages of charter students of every race attend intensely segregated schools. The highest levels of racial isolation are at the primary level for public and middle level for charters. We find that double segregation by race and class is higher in charter schools. Charters are more likely to be segregated, even when controlling for local ethnoracial demographics. A majority of states have at least half of Blacks and a third of Latinx in intensely segregated charters. At the city level, we find that higher percentages of urban charter students were attending intensely segregated schools.

Creaming Versus Cropping: Charter School Enrollment Practices in Response to Market Incentives

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Lacireno-Paquet ◽  
Thomas T. Holyoke ◽  
Michele Moser ◽  
Jeffrey R. Henig
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
School Enrollment ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Public School Systems ◽  
Special Education Needs ◽  
Cream Skimming ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Student Composition

Proponents of school choice present market-based competition as a means of leveling disparities between race, class and performance in public school systems. Opponents see school choice as threatening to exacerbate this problem because competition for students will pressure individual schools into targeting students with the highest performance and the least encumbered with personal and social disadvantages. We suggest that some charter schools, by background and affiliation, are likely to be more market-oriented in their behavior than others, and test the proposition that market-oriented charter schools engage in cream-skimming while others disproportionately serve highly disadvantaged students. Comparing student composition in market-oriented charter schools, nonmarket-oriented charter schools, and traditional public schools in Washington, DC, we find little evidence that market-oriented charters are focusing on an elite clientele, but they are less likely than the other two types of schools to serve some high need populations. Rather than skimming the cream off the top of the potential student population, market-oriented charter schools may be “cropping off” service to students whose language or special education needs make them more costly to educate.

Fiscal Impacts of Charter Schools: Lessons from New York

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Bifulco ◽  
Randall Reback
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Charter School ◽  
Financing Policies ◽  
Traditional Public Schools ◽  
Excess Costs ◽  
Fiscal Impacts ◽  
School Financing

This brief argues that charter school programs can have direct fiscal impacts on school districts for two reasons. First, operating two systems of public schools under separate governance arrangements can create excess costs. Second, charter school financing policies can distribute resources to or away from districts. Using the city school districts of Albany and Buffalo in New York, we demonstrate how fiscal impacts on local school districts can be estimated. We find that charter schools have had fiscal impacts on these two school districts. Finally, we argue that charter schools policies should seek to minimize any avoidable excess costs created by charter schools and ensure that the burden of any unavoidable excess costs is equitably distributed across traditional public schools, charter schools, and the state. We offer concrete policy recommendations that may help to achieve these objectives.

scholarly journals Charter School Authorization: A Gateway to Excellence and Equity

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-26
Author(s):  
Karen Stansberry Beard ◽  
Omotayo Adeeko
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Charter School ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Educational Inequality ◽  
School Governance ◽  
Quality Education ◽  
Communities Of Color ◽  
Traditional Public Schools ◽  
Governance Models

The lack of quality education many charter schools offer disproportionately and adversely impacts communities of color. This article considered two models of charter school governance in use by California and Ohio. The first model posits that a fundamental tenet of charter schools is freedom from the burdensome bureaucracy traditional public schools bear. Based on the argument that deregulation enables charter schools to employ more innovative instructional and management practices, it assumes higher achievement scores would follow. The second model proposes to address educational inequality by increasing accountability on charter school authorizers by increasing regulatory practices. These models example the variety of governance models extant. In addition, arguments supporting each model are presented. The authors conclude with a discussion that supports the position that while autonomy is essential to maintaining the original objectives of charter schools, states must hold authorizers accountable for student achievement.

scholarly journals Exploring school choice and the consequences for student racial segregation within Pennsylvania’s charter school transfers

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erica Frankenberg ◽  
Stephen Kotok ◽  
Kai Schafft ◽  
Bryan Mann
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Charter School ◽  
White Students ◽  
Latino Students ◽  
Educational Equity ◽  
Racially Diverse ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Educational Environments ◽  
Level Student

Using individual-level student data from Pennsylvania, this study explores the extent to which charter school racial composition may be an important factor in students’ self-segregative school choices. Findings indicate that, holding distance and enrollment constant, Black and Latino students are strongly averse to moving to charter schools with higher percentages of White students. Conversely, White students are more likely to enroll in such charter schools. As the percentage and number of students transferring into charter schools increases, self-segregative school choices raise critical questions regarding educational equity, and the effects of educational reform and school choice policies on the fostering of racially diverse educational environments.

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