Charter Schools and Segregation: The Cases of Michigan and North Carolina.

This dissertation brings together three essays around the topic of school choice and its impact on the racial and ethnic distribution of students across schools. The overall research question I address across the chapters of this dissertation is whether charter schools are leading to increased racial segregation in public schools. Chapter II lays out the research base on the relationship between choice and segregation, looking at multiple forms of school choice operating nationwide. The evidence indicates that charter schools are not furthering integration, as is theoretically possible, there is not solid empirical evidence of dramatic segregating effects. However, the evidence on other unrestricted choice plans (such as private school choices) indicates that families tend to choose schools where the student population reflects their own child’s race or ethnicity, suggesting that widespread unrestricted choice likely would lead to increases in school segregation. Chapter III focuses on Michigan’s charter school program, examining the impact that charter schools are having on students remaining in traditional public schools. The results indicate that, even controlling for residential segregation, charter schools are contributing to increases in school segregation in districts where they have a relatively large presence. Finally, Chapter IV, the North Carolina piece, takes a more micro approach, using student-level data to examine the factors that predict a student’s move to a charter school and the effect that move has on the composition of their classrooms. The results indicate that charter schools are more likely to be racially isolated than other nearby schools, and that despite drawing students with higher levels of parental education, students in charter schools have significantly lower levels of achievement in mathematics. The analysis presented here of factors motivating a move to a charter school indicate that classroom racial composition is a significant force for families, as both black and white families are more likely to switch as the classroom share of black students increases. However, black and white families appear to be expressing asymmetric preferences in their choices for charter schools, as the final analyses demonstrate that both black and white families are making self-segregating moves.PhDPublic Policy & SociologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78859/1/keross_1.pd