Charter schools tend to increase segregation among students, according to a study released last week by researchers at ASU and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The study, “Schools Without Diversity: Education Management Organizations, Charter Schools, and the Demographic Stratification of the American School System,” found that charter schools tend to be highly racially segregated for both minority and majority students when compared to neighboring school districts.
The study’s author, Professor Gary Miron of Western Michigan University, said he has observed this pattern in nearly every study he has conducted about charter schools.
“Charter schools facilitate the re-segregation of our society,” Miron said.
The study focused on schools run by Education Management Organizations — 95 percent of which are charter schools — and found that such charter schools integrate or segregate students by four key demographic characteristics: ethnic/minority classification, socioeconomic status, disabling condition and English language facility.
Additionally, most charter schools are divided into either very segregated high-income or low-income schools, and 70 to 73 percent of the schools were in the extreme categories of the scale, according to the study.
The re-segregation begins with parents who choose to pull their children out of public schools and put them into charter school, Miron said, adding that the parents are ‘self-selecting’ the segregated environment.
Charter schools don’t segregate — parents segregate, he said.
“Our public schools are segregated mostly by neighborhood,” he said. “It’s already happening. Charter schools are accelerating that, but they’re not the cause of it.”
When compared with neighboring public schools, charter school populations are comprised of a high concentration of races, creating a phenomenon known as ‘white flight’ and ‘minority flight’ schools.
Currently there are 509 charter schools operating in Arizona, said Stephanie Grisham, spokeswoman for the Arizona Charter Schools Association.
“Charter schools embrace the fact that children learn differently,” Grisham said, adding that they were created to give parents choice.
Regardless of the study’s findings, Grisham said the schools focus on meeting state standards and maintaining the autonomy of the schools in order to teach specialized curriculums.
“At the end of the day, we look at the test scores,” she said.
Professor Gene Glass, a fellow within the Education Policy Research Unit at ASU that co-released the study, said the problems with charter schools stem from a lack of monitoring.
“The whole idea in creating them is that the traditional public schools are crushed under the weight of state regulation, so creativity and entrepreneurship cannot flourish,” he said. “We must remove all of this so great things can happen … well great things haven’t happened.”
Reach the reporter at anatwood@asu.edu
