Guest Blog: A Researcher’s Take on Claims of Charter Schools and Segregation

Earlier this week, NAPCS published a report on public charter schools meeting the diverse demands of their communities. This question of diversity (particularly, racial and socioeconomic diversity) is important to all public schools, including public charter schools.  Groups such as UCLA’s Civil Rights Project pay close attention to racial segregation in all public schools and continue to find, for example, that “the children in United States schools are much poorer than they were decades ago and more separated in highly unequal schools.”

Unfortunately, many charter school opponents have seized this very real issue and misused it as an opportunity to bash charter schools. Just do a simple Google search on “segregation and charter schools” and you will find numerous hits in which news outlets or websites uncritically repeat the allegations of fervent charter bashers.

These claims reappear every so often and the problems are many. Let me name a few.

1. Shotgun reports. “Analyses” that take this shotgun approach present tables upon tables of data aiming to show (somehow) that charter schools are simultaneously schools of white flight that “cream” only the best students and miserable places in which poor children are trapped each day. Each of these conflicting claims is then backed up with an isolated example or two of a heavily white or heavily minority charter school. Of course, such reports make no mention of the numerous heavily white or heavily minority traditional schools surrounding the charter schools in question.

2. Data-free studies. Some reports make almost no attempt to gather data. These reports often include phrases like, “charter schools are among the most segregated in the district.” For example, the NEA Today website points to a March newspaper article and claims that “Some of the nation’s most segregated schools are charter schools, where students are often isolated by race, income, language and special education status”. While this blanket claim may be true (depending upon how segregation is defined), it is also true that the other segregated schools, indeed most of the segregated schools, are traditional schools. This is often the case in districts that are heavily segregated by neighborhoods where the traditional schools are also segregated. 

3. Compared to perfection. Charter opponents sometimes conduct studies asking whether the racial and economic composition of charter schools is perfectly reflective of the sending traditional school district (see Miron et. al., February 2010). The unsurprising result is, no, most charters do not look exactly like the nearby school districts and the authors then draw conclusions suggesting problematic racial segregation in charters. The obvious flaw here, however, is the comparison between a charter school and a traditional district; if we want to criticize charters for not being perfectly reflective of a broader area, we should also ask the same question of traditional schools.  That is, how well do the traditional school campuses reflect the broader district’s racial composition? When we ask this question, we generally find that neither charters nor traditional schools are reflective of the broader district or community. Check out the graph below showing data for a large southern district; the Y-axis represents the number of schools within the bands represented on the X-axis. For example, two of the schools in the district had minority student percentages between 20.0 percent and 24.9 percent while 13 schools had minority student percentages between 95 percent and 100 percent and so on. The take-away point here is that most of the traditional public schools do not reflect the overall district.  In a district with 78 percent minority students, half of the schools are heavily minority schools (90 percent or more minority students) and one-quarter of the schools are disproportionately white.

 
Consequently, the relevant question is not whether charter schools reflect the broader district; the question is whether charter schools are more or less reflective of the district than the traditional public schools in the broader community.

4. Studies at the state or national level. A perfect example of this type of analysis is a February 2010 study by the aforementioned Civil Rights Project (CRP) titled “Choice without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards.” The key flaw in this oft-referenced study is that the CRP authors focus on the fraction of students in highly segregated minority schools, and compare the figure for all charter schools to that of all traditional public schools. This is clearly an inappropriate analytic strategy because the geographic placement of public charter schools practically ensures that they will enroll higher percentages of minorities than will the average traditional school. As we show in our 2010 Education Next article (with the data attached so that anyone can choose to review or re-analyze it), our more appropriate analytic strategy clearly demonstrates how the CRP authors overstated their findings.

These are simply examples of the numerous ways to unfairly attack charter schools based on the demographic characteristics of the students that they serve. There are many others; indeed, some reports use no data at all but simply make reference to other flawed studies and yet the conclusions drawn by these reports are treated as new by those eager to bash charter schools. See, for example, the recent report called Chartering Equity that was used by charter critics to “show” that segregation is fostered by public charter schools.

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We have worked on this a great deal and have tried to figure out the best way to assess the relative racial integration and segregation at charter schools. It is complicated and requires that the researchers make several decisions (which can be debated) about how to define integration or segregation. Nevertheless, in recent years, some studies have done a good job of attacking this question. See, for example, the thorough analysis by the RAND Corporation in 2009. Good studies such as this generally compare the relative integration or the racial compositions of charter schools to that of nearby traditional public schools.

Thoughtful analyses find that students who move into charter schools mostly choose schools with racial compositions similar to those of the traditional public schools they exited. These results are not uniform; they vary state by state (for example, we find in Florida that charter schools and traditional public schools are similar in their “reflectiveness” of the broader community; in Delaware, however, charters are not as reflective of the community as are traditional public schools.) Results also vary by metropolitan area (in Philadelphia, 65 percent of the students in both charters and traditional schools attend highly segregated schools; in Atlanta, only 25 percent of charter students attend highly segregated schools while 70 percent of traditional public schools students attend such segregated schools).

Of course, schools (charters or traditional) that are the most "segregated" sit in geographic areas with high concentrations of poor and minority students. These families have the fewest choices; when they are dissatisfied with the schooling options they have, charters often open to serve these disadvantaged students. These are issues related to poverty and residential segregation — these are not charter problems!

In short, the claims that charter schools enhance segregation across the board are most certainly false and more than likely a thinly-veiled attempt of charter opponents to slow the charter movement and limit choice options. And, to cast these attacks as a defense of racial integration is simply disingenuous. For example, the majority of students in center cities, in both the public charter sector and in the traditional public sector, attend intensely segregated minority schools. We know this, any casual observer of urban schools knows this, and the critics of charter schools know this.

Thus, anyone truly interested in racial integration for students (and not simply interested in attacking charter schools) is looking in the wrong direction by focusing on the failings of charter schools. Charters serve fewer than three percent of US public school children; the remaining 97 percent are compelled to attend traditional public schools. Anyone genuinely concerned with enhancing racial integration should be channeling their energy toward reducing segregation in the traditional sector.

Finally, when critics use the term segregation to malign charter schools, it might be viewed as disrespectful to those who have suffered from formalized segregation in the past or to those who currently suffer from residential segregation. It does not seem to be the right term to use when referring to the results of active choices made by families of minority students. Segregation connotes a lack of freedom; this situation feels like the opposite. The fact that some poor students are free to flee segregated traditional public schools for similarly segregated charters cannot be viewed as an indictment of charters. Indeed, leaders of charter organizations are quick to state that they are honored to serve minority families who choose the charter schools after a search for attractive schooling options. It is simply wrong to compare these active parental choices to the forced segregation of our nation’s past.

Gary W. Ritter, Professor of Education and Public Policy, University of Arkansas

20 Years of Innovation towards Eliminating the Achievement Gap

During National Charter Schools Week, we celebrate achievements in the school house and the state house. These achievements could not have been possible without the commitment of teachers, leaders, parents and advocates from all parts of the country. We asked some of these individuals to tell us why they are a part of the charter schools movement.

While college and graduate student loan debt and interest rates have made headlines recently (and with good reason), we should not forget that many of the children in this country do not reach college because of the shortcomings of our national public education system. Indeed, the most important civil rights issue challenging our country today is the equal right to and the availability of a high quality k-12 education for all children, regardless of their ethnic background or socio-economic status. 

As we approach the end of the school year and reflect on public education in the United States, this week, we celebrate National Charter Schools Week, and the upcoming 20th anniversary of the first public  charter school (founded in Minnesota in 1992). The development of public charter schools in the early 1990s was rooted in a quest to, provide parents with a variety of public school options, free schools from bureaucracies and bring accountability to a long-ailing system of education. 

In my 14 years at Jumoke Academy, a public K-8 charter school in Hartford, CT, I have seen what can happen when committed teachers and school administrators confront the high needs of a low-income and minority population head on. Jumoke was founded in 1997 by my mother, Thelma Ellis Dickerson, a lifelong advocate for education reform and former president of the Hartford Board of Education, to eliminate the achievement gap for the city of Hartford. It was her fervent belief that, “if we provided a safe, supportive but rigorous learning environment for children, staffed with high-quality teachers who challenged students to learn at the highest levels, we could change the face of public education in the city of Hartford for the absolute better.” My mother passed away this February, however Jumoke continues to represent all that she thought public school education can be for urban children. Our students consistently score on the list of top ten performing urban schools in Connecticut, according to an independent report by ConnCan. Our academic results clearly demonstrate that an urban school with a 100 percent minority population can not only close the achievement gap, it can also equal and often outperform more affluent communities.

Jumoke is just one of the more than 5,000 public charter schools seeking to change the outcomes of the over two million students they serve across the country. In low-income, urban communities, public charter schools are targeting those most in need and working to raise the bar on public education through innovation, choice and parental empowerment. In Detroit, the high school graduation rate for charter schools was 80 percent, compared to 60 percent from traditional public schools. In Los Angeles, charter schools outperformed the Los Angeles Unified School District traditional public schools, on average, across all grade levels on the Academic Performance Index in the 2010-11 school year. In Washington, D.C., charter schools have a 21 percent higher graduation rate than Washington DC Public Schools. Studies out of charter-rich states like Arizona and California show that public charter schools are producing innovations that are being adopted by traditional schools districts. And in some districts, increased student achievement in neighboring traditional public schools suggests charter competition is raising the bar for all schools.

Despite the success that the charter movement has seen, there is still considerable inequity between charter and traditional public schools when it comes to per student state and federal appropriations. Charters are, on average, receiving less money per-pupil than the corresponding public schools in their areas. Additionally, there are still nine states that lack charter school laws, leaving families in those states without adequate public education alternatives for their children.

Let us seize National Charter School Week as an opportunity to celebrate the efforts of lifelong civil rights and education reform advocates like my mother, reflect on the successes and lessons learned from the charter school movement, expose the still present, still painful, inequalities in our public education system, and continue to strive for something better for America’s children. 



Author: Michael Sharpe is the Chief Executive Officer of Jumoke Academy in Hartford, CT. He is the president of the Connecticut Charter School Association, board member of the National Charter School Leadership Council, and founding member of the Legacy Project and Family Urban Schools of Excellence, (F.U.S.E).

Why I Decided to Become an Advocate for Public Charter Schools

Charter Schools are an Option for Parents that Enhance a Child’s Educational Experience

Achievement and Innovation as Mission Critical: Reflections from a Charter School Founder

During National Charter Schools Week, we celebrate achievements in the school house and the state house. These achievements could not have been possible without the commitment of teachers, leaders, parents and advocates from all parts of the country. We asked some of these individuals to tell us why they are a part of the charter schools movement.

The future is uncertain.  Our world is rapidly changing.  What we do, what we know, and our general way of being is fantastically different today than it was ten years ago, and will be different ten years from now than it is today.  We, as a movement and profession, must operate innovatively to ensure our children can keep pace with our changing world.  With this message, I’ll depart Music City for our nation’s capital and meet with congressional leaders during National Charter Schools Week. 

Innovation has always been a key attribute of the charter school movement; however, now more than ever, we have the responsibility to progressively push education reform forward in ways that both advance the field but also, and more importantly, get results – significant results.  Innovation devoid of achievement is for naught.

As a professional field, we know a great deal about what works in educating children.  For instance, we know direct, systematic, explicit instruction is the most effective practice in teaching basic skills and advancing the learning of struggling readers, students with disabilities, and English Language Learners.  We also know teachers who formatively measure performance are more effective in raising student achievement.  We know investing students in their education is critical.  At STEM Prep, we believe these and related practices are simply best practice.  We’ve implemented every scientifically researched-based practice that aligns to our mission and model.  However, we don’t believe these practices are innovative; we believe they’re responsible and simply what good schools do every day. 

While “innovation” can be defined and operationalized in numerous ways, we believe innovation is the development of more effective practices and processes that not only result in advancing student achievement, but also instill the habits of mind required for our children to access the college and career pathways of the 21st Century.  This is, in fact, our mission and the mindset undergirding the STEM Prep model.

To this end, the principle questions since STEM Prep’s inception have been:  How do we educate children to keep pace with our rapidly changing environment?  What are the requisite habits of mind that must transcend time, discipline, and reform effort in ways that ensure our children can compete?  How do we move beyond mastery of very basic, rudimentary skills to more rigorous modes of thinking and problem solving? 

These are the discussions in which my charter school colleagues are engaged across the country.  As I prepare to meet with congressional leaders next week, I’m energized by the opportunity to dive deeply into these mission critical questions.  Achievement and innovation, after all, are the drivers of this movement and our country.

Kristin McGraner, Ed.D., is the Founder & Executive Director of STEM Preparatory Academy in Nashville, TN. To learn more about STEM Prep Academy, please see their website and video.

Hope Academy Charter School's Drop out Recovery and Prevention Program Surpasses State Graduation Rate

A Teacher’s Dream-Come-True

During National Charter Schools Week, we celebrate achievements in the school house and the state house. These achievements could not have been possible without the commitment of teachers, leaders, parents and advocates from all parts of the country. We asked some of these individuals to tell us why they are a part of the charter schools movement.

My name is Joy Souza, and I’m a Kindergarten Teacher and the Kindergarten Chair at Blackstone Valley Prep Mayoral Academy (BVP) in Cumberland, Rhode Island.  I left my traditional public school teaching position three years ago to become a founding teacher of BVP.  With very little knowledge of what public charter schools were about, and no exposure to a high expectations model, I accepted a teaching position based solely on the fact that my mission as an educator, and the mission of Blackstone Valley Prep were the same: To put 100 percent of our scholars on a path to college. 

Over the past three years, I have watched BVP grow into an organization that now consists of three campuses, serving scholars in grades K-2 and 5-6, with the intent of becoming a K-12 organization within the next six years.  Our schools educate children from four Rhode Island communities that provide rich economic and cultural diversity.  This urban-suburban mix of scholars consists of 43 percent of who speak a language other than English at home and 65 percent who qualify for free or reduced lunch.  The same high expectations, however, apply to all. And 100 percent are now college bound.
Our scholars’ levels of achievement have been nothing short of impressive.  Last year, Rhode Island’s Commissioner of Education, Deborah Gist, recognized BVP by stating the following: “All 152 of the kindergarten and first grade students at Blackstone Valley Prep Mayoral Academy who took the Developmental Reading Assessment this year scored proficient or better.  To our knowledge, this is the first time in Rhode Island that every student at a school scored proficient or better on this early-grade assessment!”  Equally as impressive is the fact that in just one year, BVP sixth graders required to take the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP), showed a 25 percent gain in reading and a 41 percent gain in math from the year before, ranking well above the state averages.

Such successes as these do not come easy.  Blackstone Valley Prep scholars attend school for over eight hours a day, 190 days a year.  Teachers work tirelessly by planning and delivering the highest level of instruction.  Our commitment to our scholars and their families means that teachers are on call every night and do home visits that allow us to make valuable family connections.  Our systematic data collection is used informatively and strategically to drive our instruction and identify the individual needs of our scholars.  Our school’s high expectations for all our scholars, and unwillingness to fail at getting them to meet those expectations, are commonalities shared by teachers, staff, and parents at BVP.  Beginning with the first day of kindergarten, our scholars are introduced to our school’s core values of perseverance, respect, integrity, discipline and enthusiasm, PRIDE as we call it, which contributes to a positive school culture that is experienced by scholars, staff and families, alike.

Although my high expectations and desire to see all my scholars go to college certainly keeps me at BVP, I choose to teach there for selfish reasons, too.  I participate and lead weekly professional development. I regularly visit successful schools to learn what others are doing. I am a part of a culture that includes teachers in decisions that are typically reserved only for administrators.  I collaborate daily with a staff of educators in which 100 percent of them share the same values and high expectations that I do, and are aligned to a common mission.  Does it sound like a teacher’s Dream-Come-True?  Well, it absolutely is.  Charter schools not only provide choice for parents wanting something different for their child than what their traditional public school system offers, it also gives choice to teachers, like me, who have unique and innovative ideas about education.



Author: Joy Souza, Kindergarten Teacher and Kindergarten Chair, Blackstone Valley Prep Mayoral Academy (BVP) in Cumberland, Rhode Island.

Public Charter Schools Represent Opportunity

After earning my teaching degree, I spent a year as a substitute teacher.  To say that that was an unrewarding experience would be an understatement.  By the end of that year, after multiple applications to school districts around Rhode Island, I found myself without a single interview.  I expanded my search to include community-based organizations and was soon hired to teach computers to unemployed and underemployed adults.  Eventually, I would be designing employment training programs for adults and teens whose families were struggling to make ends meet.  This position allowed me to hone many of the skills that would later serve me well as a public school teacher.

After four years in this position, I found myself longing to continue my education.  I moved to Southern California to pursue a masters in screenwriting.  This is what I often called a personal enrichment degree.  In addition to teaching, my other passion was independent filmmaking.  While pursuing this degree, I took a job as an administrator in a proprietary school in the Los Angeles area.  While this work seems a long way from teaching in a public school, many of the students enrolling in proprietary schools are those who achieved less success while they were in high school.  Reaching them and ensuring their success motivated me every day.

Family matters brought me back to Rhode Island and a community-based organization.  Within a couple of years, Beacon Charter School opened down the street and I got myself an interview.   I include this employment history as a way to shed light on one of the great things about charters.  While charters serve as a second chance for students to be successful, I feel that the faculty and staff of the schools are no different.  I was certainly never a failure as a public school teacher; I was never given the chance to be one.  That is, of course, until I was hired at Beacon as a social studies teacher.

In eight years at Beacon, I went from teaching all levels of history and civics courses to creating the school's performance-based graduation system (including digital portfolios and an innovative senior film requirement for all students), serving an internship as principal-in-residence and, finally, this past year, being appointed principal and earning my doctorate. 

For me, charter schools will always represent opportunity; an opportunity for adults to make a difference in the lives of students and for students to explore skills and talents they didn't know they had.  Many of our students could be classified as small fish in the big ponds of traditional public schools.  At a charter school, they are in a smaller pond with a better chance for engaging with key aspects of the high school experience.  Many of my teachers have never been given the opportunity to use their talents in traditional public schools.  Their reward for getting hired at a charter school: greater freedoms to implement standards-based instruction. The cost: greater accountability for the teaching and learning at the school.  This is true for charter schools in general: greater freedoms and increased accountability.  None of us would have it any other way.  For more information on Beacon Charter High School for the Arts, please visit www.beaconart.org.

Michael Skeldon, Ed.D. is the Principal of Beacon Charter High School for the Arts in Woonsocket, RI.



Beacon Charter High School for the Arts students in the theater arts program.