- Across all years, charter schools enrolled a considerably higher proportion of Black students than traditional public schools.
- Nearly half of the charter schools exhibited evidence of substantial ethnic separation.
- Arizona’s charter schools are significantly more segregated than the traditional public schools.
- The charter schools that had a majority of ethnic minority students enrolled in them tended to be either vocational secondary schools that do not lead to college of “schools of last resort†for students being expelled from the traditional public schools.
- The degree of ethnic separation in Arizona schools is large enough and consistent enough to warrant concern among education policymakers.
- 55 charters and 57 rural charters were examined. 10 urban and 17 rural charters were located in areas that were so homogeneous that ethnic separation was unlikely to occur, reducing the number of charters that could potentially segregated to 85.
- Basic assumption for the conclusions: charter schools enroll their students from surrounding or nearby neighborhoods.
- The social consequences of choice in education are mediated by the policies under which choice operates.
- The ethnic separation on the part of Arizona’s charter schools, though de facto, is an insidious by-product of unregulated school choice.
- At the very least, charter schools should be required to actively pursue ethnic representation.
- Legislation should mandate that charters delineate and put into practice strategies to attract ethnically diverse students.