Schools Without Diversity: Education Management Organizations, Charter Schools and the Demographic Stratification of the American School System
The study explores the hotly-debated question of whether charter schools increase or decrease school segregation based on four key demographic characteristics: ethnic/minority classification, socioeconomic status, disabling condition and English language facility. It concludes that charter schools are substantially more segregated by race, wealth, disabling condition and language than the local public school districts in which they reside.
Only one-fourth of the charter schools had a composition relatively similar to that of the sending district. Most charter schools were divided into either very segregative high-income or low-income schools. The charter schools studied also consistently enrolled a lower proportion of special education and English Language Learners (ELL) students than those schools in their home district.
The authors recommend that, amid the federal push for charter schools, policymakers consider the economic, social and ethnic segregative effects of charter schools and school choice. The study, which relied on data on 968 charter schools operating across the country in 2006-2007, was produced by the Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU).
