Ni, Yongmei
Researchers: Yongmei Ni
University Affiliation: University of Utah
Email: yongmei.ni@utah.edu
Research Question:
This article investigates how Michigan's charter school policy influences the composition of students by race and socioeconomic status in urban traditional public schools.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Educational Policy
Journal Entry: Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 1-28
Year: 2010
Findings:
- The likelihood of transfer from traditional public schools (TPS) to charter schools is significantly related to a student’s SES, race, and special education status.
- Low-income students were less likely to transfer to charter schools than non-poverty students, which is consistent with the literature that higher-SES parents are more likely to take advantage of choice.
- Students with special needs were less likely to transfer to charter schools than general education students, which supports previous research that shows in Michigan, many charter schools are unwilling or have no capacity to accommodate students with disabilities.
- Results imply that the influence of SES background on the likelihood of transferring to charter schools is opposite for White students and students of color. Whereas low-income White students were more likely to transfer than non-poverty White students, low-income students of color, including Black, Hispanic, and Asian, were less likely to transfer than non-poverty students from these racial backgrounds. This might suggest that high-SES White families are better able to use other forms of choice so that they are less likely to use charter school options than low-SES White families, whereas low-SES families of color face racial or resource constraints such as transportation and availability of information than high-SES families of color in using the charter school choice.
- Results indicate that that the urban students who transfer to charter schools tend to be non-poverty Black or low-income White students, whereas students of color from low-income families tend to be left behind in their assigned schools.
- Low-income charter students were significantly more likely to transfer back to TPSs than their more affluent schoolmates.
- Students were more likely to transfer back to TPSs if the charter school they attended had low effectiveness and had a small enrollment.