Public Schools Vs Charter Schools

In reviewing the literature surrounding charter school enrollment, it is essential to investigate potential relationships with other school-related variables, such as racial segregation, academic achievement, and academic opportunities. Moreover, the context of charter schools suggests that enrollment in charter schools are correlated with gentrification in some neighborhoods, thereby answering the question: Who exercises school choice? As per Jordan and Gallagher (2015), white upper-income parents are more likely to exercise school choice, since low-income families face several constraints that affect their ability to exercise school choice. Furthermore, Jordan and Gallagher cite various qualitative studies indicating that gentrifiers often …show more content…
In their study of North Carolina charter schools, Ladd and colleagues (2016) discovered that while new students at charter schools tested at lower levels than their peers in traditional public schools, by the end of the academic period, the same charter school students surpassed their public school counterparts on standardized test scores. Nonetheless, they claim that charter schools are no more effective than traditional public schools in raising test scores of new students at public schools, ultimately implying that “the apparent gains in the test scores of charter school students over time have far more to do with selection than with the quality of the programs they offer” (p. 28). Similarly, in their review of literature, Frankenberg and colleagues (2012) posit that conclusions drawn from the literature on student achievement in charter schools are nebulous, largely due to discrepancies in charter laws and achievement tests across states. Furthermore, they echo Ladd and colleagues’ concerns of selection bias, as students who self-select into charter programs are not necessarily a representative sample of all public school students. Looking at student-level data in Chicago from 1993 to 2004, Keels and colleagues (2013) found that neighborhood public schools experience essentially no aggregate benefit from the socioeconomic …show more content…
Buckley and Sattin-Bajaj (2011) used and analyzed data from the New York State School Report Cards and noticed that ELLs were consistently underrepresented in charter school populations across the three years of their study. Interestingly enough, they also claim that students who qualify for reduced-priced lunch are overrepresented. Frankenberg and colleagues (2012) came to s similar conclusion, implying that charter schools are linked with sorting students by socioeconomic status. Additionally, they pointed out that approximately one in four charter schools does not report data on low-income students, and there is a similar lack of information on ELLs. Moreover, the authors state that numerous state charter laws contain no provisions regarding ELLs, and charter schools educate significantly fewer students with disabilities than regular public schools. Frankenberg and colleagues reason that during the charter admissions process, academic counselors employ “counseling” mechanisms to deter students with disabilities to enroll in charter schools. In contrast, Winters (2015) found that “charter schools ‘counseling out’ students with disabilities enrolled in their schools does not appear to be a significant driver of the special education gap. In fact, students with disabilities are as or less likely to