Frankenberg, Erica, & Siegel-Hawley, Genevieve
Researchers: Erica FrankenbergGenevieve Siegel-Hawley
University Affiliation: University of California-Los Angeles
Email: euf10@psu.edu
Research Question:
Examines diversity and racial isolation within charter schools in 40 states and several dozen metropolitan areas.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: The Education Digest
Journal Entry: Vol. 76, No. 5, pp. 44-47
Year: 2011
Findings:
- While charter schools are increasing in number and size, enrollment presently accounts for only 2.5% of all public school students.
- Charter schools attract a higher percentage of black students than traditional public schools, in part because they tend to be located in urban areas. As a result, charter school enrollment patterns display high levels of minority segregation, particularly for Black students.
- At the national level, 70% of Black charter school students attend intensely segregated minority charter schools (which enroll 90%-100% of students from under-represented minority backgrounds), or twice as many as the share of intensely segregated Black students in traditional public schools.
- Higher percentages of charter school students of every race attend predominantly minority schools (50%-100% minority students) or racially isolated minority schools (90%-100% minority students) than do their same-race peers in traditional public schools.
- Patterns in the West and in a few areas in the South, the two most racially diverse regions of the country, also suggest that charters serve as havens for white flight from public schools.