The National Education Policy Center reviewed a report about the relationship between school choice and equity. Basically, equity is an afterthought, not a goal.
Rhetorically, school choice advocates regularly claim that these policies advance equity. Yet a new research report of school choice policies in five geographically and demographically diverse states found that equity has been little more than an afterthought in the development and implementation of these policies.
The study is based on interviews conducted with 58 state policymakers and experts in Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, and Oregon. The states were selected with an eye to including a diverse set of geographic, demographic, and school choice policy settings.
Authored by NEPC Fellow Katrina Bulkley of Montclair State University in New Jersey, and by Julie A. Marsh and Laura Mulfinger of the University of Southern California, the report, States Can Play a Stronger Role in Promoting Equity and Access in School Choice, was published in December by the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice (REACH) at Tulane University in Louisiana.
The researchers found that, rather than equity, lawmakers in the five states emphasized factors such as local control, innovation, efficiency, and parental freedom when designing school choice policies.
These policies have a predictable impact. “A very large number of the charter schools in Colorado serve and explicitly are designed to serve middle-class or even upper middle-class students,” a staff person with the Colorado School Boards Association told the authors of the report.
There are more than a handful who are, for all practical purposes, college prep programs for high-income families. And out of the way we’ve written our laws and the way they’re structured, there’s no reason for them not to do that.
Although the researchers found that state choice policies were neither created with equity in mind nor consistently made more equitable over time, they did suggest several steps that policymakers throughout the United States can take in order to make school choice more accessible, and perhaps therefore more equitable.
- Accountability: Schools of choice—including charter and voucher schools—should be held accountable for, and incentivized in the direction of, providing high-quality options to historically underserved student populations that too often encounter limited or low-quality school options in or near the neighborhoods where they live.
- Information: The researchers found that information on schools of choice and school choice policies can be difficult to find and understand. This information needs to be widely available and comprehensible.
- Enrollment: Burdensome enrollment processes can shut out students from historically underserved groups. States should step in to ensure that this is not the case. The researchers positively highlight a policy in Oregon that financially incentivizes schools of choice to enroll students from underserved populations.
- Teaching: States should promote teacher quality measures for all schools of choice while also acknowledging the need for teachers who understand culturally relevant pedagogy and other measures designed to serve students from underserved populations.
- Transportation: Families are often required to provide their own transportation to schools of choice. This can effectively shut out lower-income students whose parents lack the means to help them get to and from school.
These recommendations align with some of those offered in the new book, School’s Choice: How Charter Schools Control Access and Shape Enrollment, by Wagma Mommandi and Kevin Welner. Yet addressing accessibility within school choice systems is best thought of necessary but not sufficient for reaching larger education-equity goals, which must be focused on children’s actual experiences in school as well as the health of the overall system of choice schools and neighborhood public schools.NEPC Resources on School Choice ->
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I strongly recommend people read trhe book by Wagma Mommandi and Kevin Welner. There are so many formal and informal ways that many charters control restrict access. In this arena, parental choice is a myth.
“…many charters control restrict access.” The key word is “many,” which means there are some that do NOT restrict access.
We never learn any details on this blog about those families who have felt forced to chose alternatives because they have NOT been served well by public schools.
We never learn anything any details here about those charter schools which are NOT among “the many charters controlling and restricting access.”
Market systems, especially tax-subsidized market systems, are not designed to produce equity. The tax subsidy or voucher is wholly absorbed as the managerial zero-base while the consumer pays increasing premiums for every increment of service above the price of entry.
and it has always boggled the mind to think that those pushing “market solutions” for schools are willing to look past the fact that with free market games, some kids really do get left behind
The nature of the “free market”: winners and losers.
Few winners, many losers.
The way in which we fund public education does not provide equity either. However, in the “DNA” of most public schools there is sense of providing education as fairly as possible with the resources provided. Unless a school is a magnet school, public schools aspire to be inclusionary and available to all community young people. Several studies have shown that when there is so-called choice, the public school population includes more students with special needs and those that are expensive and difficult to educate. Charter schools are known for selecting those that are easier and less expensive to educate. Exclusionary practice is common practice in choice systems. Curated enrollment is the way many private charter schools socially engineer the student body of selective charter schools, and it is the way they exclude students of color, ELLs and special education students.
“However, in the ‘DNA’ of most public schools there is sense of providing education as fairly as possible.” —I agree, but his does not help those students and families whose needs are NOT met, despite good intentions, policies, and–of course–the obligatory “Mission Statements.”
“Curated enrollment is the way many private charter schools socially engineer the student body of selective charter schools” —I agree, but “many” does not mean “all”. I would love to hear more about those stories on this “site to discuss better education for all.”
Mark, I do not believe that public money should be used to subsidize private and religious schools, certainly public money should not underwrite for-profit schools.
I see no reason to search for charter or religious schools that are doing a good job. Throughout our history, until 1991, those schools understood it was their responsibility to pay for themselves.
We will never have “better schools for all” by diverting funding from the public schools that enroll the vast majority of students. In fact, privatization reduces the quality and funding of public schools.
Diane, Should parents in states like FL simply accept things like censored curriculum, book banning, school prayer, bullying, lack of qualified teachers, endless test prep, school boards packed with public ed disrupters, belligerent right-wingnut parents, out-of-state billionaires funding all this, etc ad nauseum?
When is it acceptable for a parent to say “enough, my school has been destroyed, and I’ll continue to fight, but meanwhile, my child needs a functional school, and I should be able to usse some of me stolen tax dollars to fund it!” ?
Parents should absolutely oppose censored curriculum, book banning, school prayer and everything else that DeSantis and the legislature are pushing. Looking for a voucher to attend a religious school (which indoctrinates openly in its own religious views) does not stop any of those things. It facilitates them. The charter schools are subject to the same laws as the public schools. Opposition means opposition, not running away and asking the government to pay for your escape.
When one does not understand the goals of education.
I think for the middle class parents who love their independent charter schools, charters are a way of creating a middle class zone. I just looked up the poverty rate at one of these innovative charters near me and found that only 24 percent of their students are Low-income. 75 percent of students are high poverty at the public High School near me, so there is quite a difference in terms of economics between some independent charters and public schools.
Selective charter schools are often tools of gentrification in urban areas. Developers often work with city officials to displace poor families from prime areas centrally located near transportation. The upscale replacement housing that is built includes a new selective charter school that will ensure families that the charter school will enroll a mostly white middle class student body.
You are right. Many charter schools are havens for white middle-class families fleeing integrated schools.
I agree, but “many” is not all. Please include occasional reports about–
1) Charter schools which are truly attempting to improve education WITHOUT discrimination.
2) Students and families whose needs were NOT being addressed by their public school, and felt they had no option but to look elsewhere.
What gets me is this almost the MO as redlining which is illegal, but this exclusionary system marches on unnoticed.
“Choice” was never meant to solve the “equity” problem, except tangentially. Choice–I was there when it started, (early ’70’s) as “alternative schools,” by Al Shanker and other reformers, and in Columbus Ohio, where we (through the CEA and collective bargaining) created different kinds of “alternative schools” to give parents and kids a choice between the traditional “3 R’s” kind of school, to one emphasizing the arts, or a language–such as French emersion–or some other factor. We even had a “Traditional School,” though that was largely redundant. These were all PUBLIC schools, with bus transportation. Parents and students elected, or not to apply. They were to be racially balanced, and so help deal with the segregation we suffered in Columbus as elsewhere. Charter schools were mostly a reaction to deseg, to unions, to liberalization, etc., and also for creating profit. Also, for retaining the old ideas of schools as places of inculcation, not so-much “liberal” education. Rote memory, religion, preparation for jobs or elite colleges. The Charter movement is mostly bogus in terms of real “education.” I’d say it’s been working mostly as really intended. I’ll stop.
I agree with you. The original schools of choice within the public school district, academically and financially transparent, was meant to strengthen public schools. Charter schools drain resources and the students they want away from the public schools.
“Charter schools were mostly a reaction to deseg… not so-much ‘liberal’ education. …The Charter movement is mostly bogus in terms of real ‘education.’ ”
I agree, and thought at the time it was a good and long-overdue improvement. But here we are 50 years later, and I’d like to learn more about those charter schools today that are NOT in the “mostly” category.
Secondly, the choice/magnet model is–
1) Unavailable to small districts with a single elementary, middle, or high school.
2) Non-functional in some schools where it is claimed to exist. In 1990,I taught for a year as a sub in such a district, and made a point to rotate among and examine all 8 elementary schools, because I was hoping to be hired full time the following year. I saw nothing beyond bulletin boards to indicate I was in a “magnet school.” In fairness, this was in the Rust Belt, achievement was low, and remediation and raising test scores was the priority. Subsequently, I worked at one of those schools full time for 6 years. I can’t even recall what our magnet theme was, but I remember colleagues regretting that they had to omit special classroom activities to spend more time on test prep.
It is a fair point that the “magnet” schools model doesn’t work in a single-h.s. district, i.e. smaller town or district. My personal experience was in Columbus, Ohio with 150 schools. Another way such an idea might work would be in a county-wide plan, as most counties have more than one district and at least several secondary schools. But I have no personal experience with that. Also, diversity of program can be created within a school, but any kind of such planning requires creativity on openness.