Category: web-essay-2015-final

How do magnet schools influence student enrollment? Kevin Welner (2013) introduced “The Dirty Dozen,” ways charter schools influence enrollment:

1. Description and Design: What niche?
2. Location, location, location
3.  Mad Men: The Power of Marketing and Advertising
4. Hooping it Up: Conditions Placed on Applications
5. As Long as You Don’t Get Caught: Illegal and Dicey Practices
6. Send us Your Best: Conditions Placed on Enrollment
7. The Bum Steer
8. Not in Service
9. The Fitness Test: Counseling Out
10. Flunk or Leave: Grade Retention
11. Discipline and Punish
12. Going Mobile (or Not)

Do magnet schools, founded upon different goals, use the same strategies to sway their student body? This essay aims to determine which of these also apply to Hartford magnet schools, how they are used differently, and what additional approaches magnets use.

Background and Methods

Hartford Public Schools is an “all-choice” program, in which families submit lottery applications to their preferred district school, including charter and magnet schools (Dougherty et al., 2014). Charter schools aim to improve academic achievement and educational innovation, reduce racial, ethnic, and economic isolation, and give families a choice of public education programs (Cotto & Feder, 2014). Magnet schools aim to reduce, eliminate, or prevent the racial, ethnic, or economic isolation of public school students, and offer a high-quality curriculum that supports educational improvement (Cotto & Feder, 2014) by providing special curricular themes to attract students from city and suburban districts (Dougherty, 2015). Funds for magnets can be withheld if the student body does not contain between 25% and 75% students of color, as per the Sheff vs. O’Neil standards, while no standards exist for charters (Cotto & Feder, 2014).

To look for instances of the dirty dozen, field notes collected by my classmates were analyzed. Students in the choice seminar attended magnet school open houses or the RSCO fair and recorded observations. The Regional School Choice Office (RSCO) provides information and support to Hartford families who wish to select a school best suited for their child. RSCO coordinates the application and lottery for magnets but not charters.

What Approaches Don’t Magnet Schools Use?

Location

The first approach that magnets do not use is location. Welner argues that charter schools choose their location with the students they intend to serve and the availability of transportation in mind. The Capitol Region Education Center, CREC, coordinates free transportation to magnet schools, even for students out-of-district (CREC Schools, 2015), whereas charters only guarantee transportation to in-district students (Connecticut State Department of Education, 2015).

This theme is evident in the field notes. IF, at an open house, noted that the rep discussed “how they provide transportation regardless of location.” Additionally, a magnet school student SS and JC spoke to at the RSCO fair “volunteered the information that buses are free.” AL and SG, also at the fair, described an area solely for providing information about transportation for families interested in magnets in the Hartford area. Thus, Hartford magnets are not trying to exclude students based on their location as charters may; instead, they are accommodating students from the city and surrounding suburbs. The wider transportation services offered to students attending magnet schools allow them to attract students from different backgrounds in order to uphold the Sheff standards, which charters are not held to.

Although these schools may be trying to accommodate far students, location will always play a role in enrollment. Students may opt out of a free but long commute to a magnet in favor of a quick commute to a neighborhood school. This location approach is not necessarily mal-intentioned, though, as charter schools in Hartford are locating themselves in areas of high need, likely not intentionally excluding certain students.

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In “mad men,” Welner argues that charters shape their school’s demographics using advertising and images. Hartford magnets appear to be emphasizing diversity in their advertising to encourage students of different races to feel comfortable applying, and not simply targeting or deterring students of a certain race. AM noted that the students who represented the magnet school he visited were of different races, and the school played a video featuring “an anecdote about a white girl and a black girl who became good friends through school,” and a teacher explaining, “not one of my students look alike.”

Source: Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy

Additionally, AG and RU observed an elementary magnet distribute brochures in English and Spanish, and EK, at the RSCO fair, noted that school representatives of magnets sometimes spoke in Spanish to families. The RSCO catalog, which provides information about Hartford’s magnet schools, is also available online in English and Spanish.

LS, at the RSCO fair, “noticed that the presenter’s spiel was different based on who came over to the booth.” He observed that when a black, seemingly lower class family came over, transportation was extensively focused on, while when a white family came, the rep skipped the transportation portion of his spiel and instead focused more on curriculum. Magnets do not appear to be targeting specific students only, but tailoring their advertisements to fit the needs of each student, again likely to adhere to the Sheff standards.

Application and Enrollment Requirements 

Magnets also do not readily place conditions on applications, enrollment, or use “illegal or dicey practices,” as charters may.  In Hartford, each charter requires its own application, while RSCO manages a single application for all magnets. Though long, the application only asks for basic information and rankings of open choice or magnet programs. Jumoke Academy, a charter school, requires five student essays on top of similar information, and Explorations Charter School requires two essays. Odyssey Community School, another charter, requires interested students to attend an open house. Requiring essays and attendance at events weeds out unmotivated families with likely lower-achieving kids, and lower-income working parents who cannot attend open houses and help their child write five essays. No such essays or visits, or even auditions, are required to apply to any magnet schools. Hartford magnets clearly do not make as much use of the “hooping it up” strategy as charters.

Magnets also do not use the “illegal and dicey practices” approach, in which some charters ask for Social Security cards or birth certificates, even though these cannot be required by law. Nowhere on the RSCO application was there a request for social security numbers or birth certificates, but there was also no evidence for this in any available charter applications.

Magnets also do not employ the “send us your best” strategy, in which conditions like needing a certain GPA or prerequisites are placed upon enrollment. Although few charter applications could be accessed, Explorations Charter School did employ this tactic, by requiring that students entering the high school not as freshmen already have certain number of credits. Once enrolled, students must pass 80% of their courses and be present 90% of the time. Again, although little data is available, Hartford charters appear use this approach more than magnets.

Steering Away

Magnets also do not seem to employ the “bum steer,” in which charters may steer away less desirable students. Instead of steering students away, magnets emphasize finding the right fit. IF explained that one magnet “offers a program in which a prospective and/or accepted student can shadow a current student because the school only wants students who want to be there.” EK, at the RSCO fair, observed, “several schools also encouraged parents to have their child experience a day at their school and decide for himself/herself if it would be a good fit.” Rather than the school representatives themselves steering away students who may not be the best match, they encourage students to make this “fit” judgment themselves. Thus, the magnets are getting the students who are a good fit for the school without using a manipulative approach.

What Approaches Do Magnet Schools Use? 

Not in Service

While magnets do not appear to outwardly steer high-needs students away, they do use the “not in service” approach by simply not readily providing services for a group of higher-needs students. AM, at a magnet open house, explained, “these special arts programs received a lot of airtime when things like special education and ELL programs were skimmed over.” While state law requires schools enrolling more than twenty English language learners (ELL) to offer a school-wide bilingual education program, there is no requirement that choice schools offer such a program if ELL enrollment is under this threshold (Cotto & Feder, 2014). The school’s failure to mention any services for ELL students was possibly an attempt to discourage these students from applying, saving the school from bearing the financial burden of implementing these services. ELL students in Hartford are less likely to attend choice schools than local public schools (Cotto & Feder, 2014), perhaps due to this tactic.  However, magnet schools did make efforts to cater to ELL students by advertising in Spanish.

Discipline 

Magnets also appear to use the “discipline and punish” tactic, involving harsh discipline regimes leading to high expulsion rates. While data was unavailable for expulsion rates by school type, a CT Mirror feature compares disciplinary incidents at a given school to the statewide average. Data for the available Hartford magnet schools was perplexing; many schools reported zero disciplinary incidents in 2012-2013, however, even more reported numbers higher than the state average, most frequently school policy violations. This could either indicate great variation in school policies and disciplinary strategies between Hartford magnets, or some magnets not reporting this information. Many charters with accessible data were also above the state average, again with the majority being for policy violations. While the data does not indicate if these incidents led to expulsions, the high numbers suggest that some of Hartford’s choice schools may employ harsh discipline regimes, perhaps in an attempt to remove disruptive students, as Welner suggested.

Magnet Themes 

Welner explains that charters decide early on what types of students to cater to when determining what niche the school is designed to fill, such as focusing on rigorous academics or special needs students. Magnets expand on this approach with their special curricular themes. Hartford magnet themes include arts and humanities, STEM, college prep, vocational, and character education. These themes, intended to attract students, may actually attract certain students while repelling others.

STEM schools, for instance, may attract more higher-income, well-educated families who understand the importance of such curriculum. LS, observing a STEM magnet booth at the RSCO fair, described how an Asian mother from an affluent suburb had already researched the school, and asked the representative about specific opportunities and “what the school would offer her son.” In contrast, a black mother from Hartford asked more general and “practical questions, including after school care options and transportation.” Although both expressed interest in the school, the socioeconomic difference may explain this difference in questions, and the Hartford mother’s focus on after-school care and transportation suggests that practicality, not special programs, is most important to her family. While the curricular theme may be the selling point for an affluent family, lower-income families may have to settle for a more convenient school. AL and SG, at the RSCO fair, also commented, “despite the fair being particularly minority heavy in attendance, the individuals looking at the specialized schools, whether performing arts or science based, were predominantly white.” Magnet schools serve the lowest percentage of free and reduced lunch eligible students in Hartford (Cotto & Feder, 2014).  Whether or not this holds true for STEM schools, the specialized themes may partly explain why the least low-income students enroll in magnet schools.

Magnets also influence enrollment by not offering particular themes. For instance, there are no Hartford magnets with a dual language theme, which also may explain the lower ELL enrollment in Hartford magnets than local public schools (Cotto & Feder, 2014). Perhaps magnets would attract a wider population if they expanded the breadth of their themes.

Availability of Information 

Another bias in choice schools Welner did not account for is the availability of information about the schools. Information can often be found online, however, not every family in Hartford owns a computer, or knows how to use one, creating a bias against low-income or illiterate parents, also likely biasing against lower achieving children. Valuable information is also gathered from attending open houses and school fairs that some parents cannot easily attend. HH, at the RSCO fair, noted “some parents expressed concern that they may not be able to make it to the specific info sessions offered by some schools due to the fact that those sessions are normally offered during weekdays.”  Working, lower-income parents likely have less flexible hours, or are unable to afford childcare, and cannot attend open houses to get the important information. Although this likely impacts student enrollment, this is probably unintentional, and thus more “accidental” than “dirty” in biasing access to choice schools.

Approaches with Limited Data 

Welner discusses additional approaches, however limited data for these is available. Such strategies include “flunk or leave”, in which school officials threaten to hold the student back a grade if they remain in the school, “the fitness test,” in which parents of less successful students are counseled to consider alternative options, and “going mobile (or not),” in which charters decide whether or not to backfill the students they lose, either during the year or for higher grades. Future research is needed to determine if these apply to Hartford magnets.

Conclusion 

Many of these approaches mentioned in “The Dirty Dozen” that charter schools may use seem to be less readily employed by Hartford magnet schools. Magnets do not appear to use Welner’s tactics of location, advertising, conditions placed on application and enrollment, dicey practices, or the bum steer in the same way as charters. However, magnets do seem to use Welner’s not in service, discipline and punish, and niche approaches, and their own approaches of theme and information available. Magnets seem to be well intentioned and trying to create a diverse student body catering to different types of families and students rather than purposely trying to exclude certain students. However, the attempts do not always accomplish this inclusiveness, and some factors may unintentionally leave some students behind. While magnets may advertise in Spanish, for instance, they still enroll a smaller ELL population than the neighborhood schools. This indicates that magnets do not intend to exclude this population, but other factors play a role. If choice schools wish to prevent these “accidental” factors that make certain students less likely to enroll from occurring, these populations must be identified so that choice schools can better recruit these students.

References

Attend and Apply (2015). Explorations Charter School. Retrieved from http://explorationscs.com/attendapply.html

Charter School Questions and Answers. (2015).Connecticut State Department of Education. Retrieved from http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/pdf/equity/charter/faqs.pdf

Cotto, R. & Feder, K. (2014). Choice Watch: Diversity and Access in Connecticut’s School Choice Programs. CT Voices for Children. Retrieved from http://www.ctvoices.org/sites/default/files/edu14choicewatchfull.pdf

Dougherty, J., Zannoni, D., Block, M., & Spirou, S. (2014). Who Chooses in Hartford? Report 1: Statistical analysis of Regional School Choice Office applicants and non-applicants among Hartford resident HPS students in grades 3-7, Spring 2012. Trinity College Digital Repository. Retrieved from http://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1045&context=cssp_papers

Dougherty, J. (2015). A Vocabulary for Understanding School Choice in Connecticut. Presentation for CSPL 341: Innovation in Education- Choice Seminar.

How to Apply (2015). Odyssey Community School. Retrieved from http://www.odysseyschool.org/about-odyssey/admission-information

Explorations Charter School Application (2015). Retrieved from http://explorationscs.com/images/2015-2016_Application_Long_Form_.pdf

IF, SS, JC, AL, SG, AM, EK, LS, HH, AG, RU (2015). Class Field Notes.

Jumoke Academy Application (2015). Retrieved from http://jumokeacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/JumokeAcademyApplication2015-2016.pdf

RSCO Catalog (English). (2015). The Regional School Office. Retrieved from http://www.choiceeducation.org/javascript/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/RSCOcatalogFINALNov19.pdf

RSCO Catalog (Spanish). (2015). The Regional School Office. Retrieved from http://www.choiceeducation.org/javascript/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/RSCOcatalogSPANISH_web.pdf

RSCO Lottery Application (2015). The Regional School Choice Office. Retrieved from http://www.choiceeducation.org/javascript/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/RSCOlotteryapp201516_FINALDRAFT.pdf

The RSCO Transportation Zone. (2015). The Regional School Choice Office. Retrieved from http://www.choiceeducation.org/javascript/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/rsco_transportationzone.pdf

Transportation. (2015). CREC Schools. Retrieved from http://www.crecschools.org/for-parents/transportation/

Video. (2015). Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy. Retrieved from http://hmtca.hartfordschools.org/

Welner, K. G. (2013). The Dirty Dozen: How Charter Schools Influence Student Enrollment. Teachers College Record. [online], http://www.tcrecord.org

Your School (2015). The CT Mirror. Retrieved from http://projects.ctmirror.org/yourschool/index.php

 

 

 

 

According to the Connecticut State Department of Education, both magnet and charter schools were founded on the basis of creating environments designed to “reduce racial, ethnic, and economic isolation.” However, of the two, only magnet schools are actually required to maintain a racial balance with the legislation passed in the Sheff vs. O’Neill case, whereas it is merely a suggestion for charter schools. In our essay, we look to past school enrollment data to reveal the importance of having this defined standard of reduced isolation, and how the presence of this guideline is more effective at integrating schools when strictly employed as in magnet schools than when simply encouraged as in charters. What is the big deal about having racial, ethnic, and economic integration in school populations anyways? The importance of integrated environments is highlighted by indisputable data regarding the higher academic achievement and increased social awareness of minority students educated in diverse environments. Integration not only leads to a “dramatic decrease in discriminatory attitudes and prejudices,” ¹ but also it is crucial because “children from socioeconomically deprived families do better academically when they are integrated with children of higher socioeconomic status and better-educated families” ². Looking at recent school enrollment data, we have found that a larger number of magnet schools have integrated student bodies than do charters, even with the 2013 revision of the definition of Sheff’s “reduced isolation.” Should charters be held to a similar, strictly defined standard for creating environments of reduced isolation as magnets are held to Sheff, we strongly believe that they too can have more integrated student bodies.

Magnets Versus Charters

Magnet schools are public schools that operate under “a local or regional school district, a regional educational service center, or a cooperative arrangement involving two or more districts” ³. Magnets have two main goals: to reduce racial, ethnic and economic isolation and to offer curricula that encourage and support educational improvement and achievement ⁴. The magnet schools we have chosen to focus on in this essay are those that participate in the Sheff integration settlements and specifically abide by the clearly defined standards for environments of reduced isolation. Because schools were not effectively desegregating and thus perpetuating unequal education opportunities, Elizabeth Horton Sheff and several other families filed a lawsuit in 1989 against the governor at the time, William O’Neill, demanding the end of isolated school environments. The plaintiffs succeeded after a long trial process, leading to a series of legal settlements and remedies aimed at increasing integration ⁵. In 2003, the first Sheff Stipulation and Proposed Order went into effect to rectify the Hartford schools’ violation of the Connecticut Constitutional order to reduce the racial, ethnic and socioeconomic isolation ⁶. Remedies to the Sheff legislation proposed benchmarks to enhance incentives and promote reduced isolation. If magnet schools fail to meet these guidelines, they risk losing grant funding ⁷. In 2008, the order required that magnets enroll between 25% and 75% minority students, defined as non-white students ⁸. In 2013, the range remained the same, but the definition of minority changed to only Black and Hispanic students ⁹. In 2013, Sheff included a section calling for the enrollment of at least 44% Hartford-resident minorities in any school participating in Sheff’s reduced-isolation goals ¹⁰. Most recently, Sheff has increased that requirement to 47.5% ¹¹. Together these two clearly defined and measurable standards function to increase integration, achieving the primary goal of magnet schools.

Charter schools, on the other hand, are public schools “that operate independently of local and regional boards of education” with a goal “to reduce racial, ethnic and economic isolation” ¹². With this idea at the forefront, charters establish their own methods and standards for achieving their goals. Charters abide by the Connecticut State Statute, which is riddled with vague language allowing charters to function with flexible accountability. This raises concerns for the incentives of charters and their goal of fostering diverse environments. When approving a charter, the “State Board of Education shall consider the effect of the proposed charter school on the reduction of racial, ethnic and economic isolation in the region in which it is to be located” ¹³. Merely “considering” something is meaningless – the legislation does not hold charters accountable to any kind of consequence if they do not successfully reduce isolation. Charters can be placed on probation if they fail to “achieve measurable progress in reducing racial, ethnic and economic isolation” ¹⁴. The question here is: what qualifies as measurable progress when there is no quantifiable value provided? Much like “considering,” “measurable progress” provides no substantial meaning because it is a subjective term, whereby charters decide on their own ratio of minority to non-minority students. They are then held only to their own personal standard for reduced isolation. While the State “may deny an application for the renewal of a charter,” they are not required to do so, thus charters will not necessarily be punished for a failure to comply with state regulations ¹⁵. The issue with this type of language is that while the statute does require charters to actively work towards integration, it provides no specific boundaries or definite consequences on which to hold them accountable.

The Sheff Standard: Old and New

In an attempt to reduce racially isolated schools, Sheff settlements outline requirements for schools to be considered desegregated. In 2008, Sheff categorized reduced isolation as schools whose minority percentage fell between 25%-75% of total enrollment ¹⁶. Minority was defined as non-white students, including Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, and Pacific Islander. Under this standard, about a third of magnets failed to comply. While it is much more common for schools to fail meeting reduced isolation standards because of an over enrollment of minority students, two of these noncompliant magnet schools faced the opposite issue – their failure to meet compliance stemmed from an overwhelming majority of white students. The frequency of hyper segregated environments of minority students can be attributed to the “niche market approach,” where schools and their administrators target low-income and minority groups to serve populations with the greatest need ¹⁷. By enrolling a larger number of minority students than of white, the schools achieve their goals of reaching more disadvantaged communities. However this approach proves to be far more detrimental to those disadvantaged students; educating them in a racially and economically segregated environment seems to do more harm than good.

In 2013 Sheff amended its reduced isolation standards to refer solely to students identifying as any part Black or Hispanic ¹⁸. Under this new definition of minority, the number of non-compliant magnets in the 2013-2014 school year was cut in half, dropping from 22 schools to 11. Had the definition remained unchanged, 18 magnet schools would have been noncompliant in 2013-2014 (compared to the 11 noncompliant schools under Sheff’s 2013 standard), showing little to no significant change from past years. Furthermore, of those 18 magnets that failed to meet Sheff’s 2008 standards, 8 of them became compliant under Sheff’s revised standards in 2013 without having to alter their student enrollment.

The annual enrollment data shows a consistent increase in compliance; by holding magnets to a measurable standard of reduced isolation, schools are held accountable and given real incentives to foster integrated student bodies. When counting only Black and/or Hispanic students towards reduced isolation, 83% of the magnets (52 out of 63 schools) successfully achieved Sheff compliance, a significant increase from its original 65% of compliant schools (41 out of 63 schools) in the 2011-2012 school year, using the previous definition of minority. Looking at the most recent school enrollment data for magnet schools reveals only 5 out of 45 listed schools out of compliance with Sheff standards, which further increases the percentage to 89% compliant.

It is important to acknowledge, however, that the way the word “minority” is defined has immense power in its ability to influence future demographics and enrollment standards in schools. Simply changing the definition for reduced isolation had a significant impact on whether or not magnet schools remained compliant with the racial standards set by Sheff. Under the original Sheff standard, defining “minority” as non-white, these schools would not have been in compliance. However, the updated definition of minority automatically puts these schools in compliance without any active effort to adjust racial enrollment. Thus, while an increasing number of schools were considered desegregated, the racial distribution for some schools changed minimally or not at all. A possible explanation for this might be that the Sheff settlements were attempting to reach students most in need of reduced isolation environments. By altering the definition, Sheff’s integration policy better served its purpose to increase diversity and created more opportunities for Black and Hispanic students. Regardless, a significant portion of these newly compliant schools did in fact make an active effort to reduce isolation, reinforcing the idea that this imposed standard of compliance encourages magnet schools to diversify and become compliant with Sheff standards.

What If?: Applying Sheff to Charters

In his original proposal for charters, Albert Shanker emphasized the necessity of reduced isolation environments for promoting social cohesion and high achievement. However, as more states adopted charter school legislation, there emerged an unexpected divergence from integration. Charter advocates and administrators chose instead to cater to niche markets and target immigrant populations as a way to “promote intercultural competence” and serve students “who are demonstrably in need of better schools” ¹⁹. Despite veering from Shanker’s original plan, charters still hold integration as one of their main goals. The Sheff reduced isolation standard is currently only exercised by magnets, which is not out of exclusivity within the legislation, but rather because other types of schools have chosen not to participate. In the Sheff legislation, the state agreed to incorporate a variety of programs, some of which include “charter school initiatives, state technical high schools and vocational agriculture programs, and other new and progressive initiatives,” that could, if they chose, be considered a part of the reduced isolation goal ²⁰. Participating in this goal would allow the state to count the school in their total number of integrated schools, as well as make the school eligible for funding. Given that charters were designed to promote diversity, the Sheff standard of integration appears to directly align with their mission. However, charters have yet to act in accordance with the Sheff legislation; instead, they follow their own, more lenient integration guidelines as previously discussed.

Without a concrete and measurable unit for integration, charters can often neglect entirely this goal of diversity within their student enrollment. A lack in standard also creates more difficulty in determining which charters are succeeding or failing to create diverse and integrated environments. In order to test how integrated Connecticut charter schools were, we applied the new Sheff reduced isolation standard to charter schools from the 2013-2014 school year. We found that only 28% (5 out of 18) would be compliant with reduced isolation, compared to the 89% of magnets currently in compliance. While the change in Sheff’s definition of reduced isolation functioned to increase integration in magnets, applying this new standard to charters results in a decrease of compliant schools from 15 to 13. This reverse effect demonstrates that charters are failing to create opportunities for Black and Hispanic students who are in most need of integrated environments. Based on this disparity, we would argue that magnets are far more successful than are charters in creating environments of reduced isolation, a difference that is rooted in the strictly defined integration standard that magnets, but not charters, are held accountable to.

So why, then, do charters not adopt the Sheff standards? When our seminar spoke with the authors of A Smarter Charter, Kahlenberg and Potter explained that such a set standard was not in the nature of charters. Placing specific criteria or regulations on charters goes against Albert Shanker’s initial vision of charters as laboratory schools. For Shanker, charter schools were to function as experiments with varying approaches and curricula to discover what works best for all students ²¹. Charters do not want to hinder or bind themselves by requiring a standard for racial balance and integration because perhaps it is not the best way to educate its students. An education system built on freedom of exploration strives to hold on to that independence and self-governance. But while they exercise their freedom, charters fail to produce the rich and diverse environments Shanker had hoped would come naturally. It is this kind of integrated environment that promotes the highest achievement for students of low-income or minority backgrounds, one that magnets are required to ascribe to and charters are not. If charters were held to a similar standard as are magnets, it would increase their incentive and strengthen their dedication to create more diverse and integrated school environments.

As both charter and interdistrict magnet schools seek to transcend the traditional attendance zones and urban-suburban lines, they unavoidably produce shifts in the types of communities formed within school buildings and within the broader surroundings. Many charter schools have been highly criticized for the lottery, the convoluted application processes and other creaming tactics that recruit and maintain a high-achieving, highly motivated and often hyper-segregated student body (e.g., Welner, 2013). Specifically in the Hartford metropolitan area, a study of parental perception of interdistrict magnet schools detected a prevalent sentiment that choice schools create local community divisions due to the competitive nature of the lottery (Debs, 2015). The present investigation examines how several interdistrict magnet schools and one charter school in the Hartford area portray their school communities and elucidates if and how racial composition is communicated as a valued part of school community.

Since magnet schools by definition unite diverse families from different locations to ensure integrated student bodies, fostering an inclusive and welcoming school community would seem necessary in marketing campaigns. Conversely, many charter schools, which often prioritize closing the achievement gap, are likely to emphasize a school community that appeals to a particular targeted demographic (e.g., low income minority students). The thematic analysis of choice school mission or vision statements and field notes collected by Wesleyan University students in February 2015 from six school choice events reveal that specific types of school communities are emphasized in explicitly and subtle ways. The types of communities described include (1) a community built on diversity or a particular racial or ethnic identity, (2) a strong relationship between school and family, (3) a focus on a particular niche theme, and (4) a partnership between the school and the local surroundings. Each of these types of communities influences how racial or ethnic composition of the school is discussed.

Diversity, Identity & Community

The most intuitive type of school community expressed by school representatives would be based on the student body demographics (i.e., percentage of minority students, students who qualify for free and reduced price meals, students who are English Language Learners (ELL) or have a documented disability). Yet, seldom did the school representatives address this information directly. Observations from the Regional School Choice Office (RSCO) Fair mentioned that school representatives referenced the Sheff v. O’Neill ruling in regard to maintaining a certain racial balance at their interdistrict magnet school (HH, field notes, 2015). Other field notes from the same event reported that during the “entire hour and fifteen minutes there I did not hear the words ‘race,’ ‘Black,’ ‘White,’ ‘Latino,’ or ‘disadvantaged’ (LS, field notes, 2015).” Only the Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy (HMTCA) was reported to have explicitly mentioned its mission to create a diverse student body through a film shown to open house attendees. The field notes reported the following:

The film talks about plurality and shows shots of children of many different races. The central thesis seems to be that Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy was the mechanism through which children from diverse racial, geographical, and socioeconomic backgrounds have been permitted to come together and meet people from other milieus. (IF)

Additionally, the mission statements from the magnet schools described in the field notes of open houses do not directly state that their schools seek to attract and educate a diverse student body (i.e., Breakthrough Magnet School, Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, CREC Academy of Aerospace Engineering Elementary School, HMTCA). These pieces of evidence suggest that, counter to the explicit intention of interdistrict magnet schools to promote racial and socioeconomic diversity, neither school representatives in school choice event settings nor their mission or vision statements were likely to describe their school community using direct language that underscores the diverse students they serve. While the legal language of the Sheff decision may be a standard explanation for school representatives, it may also alienate some parents due to a lack of prior exposure to the topic.

In contrast to a school community composed of a diverse student body, many charters, especially those that follow a “no excuses” model, have been criticized for generating student bodies that are more segregated than traditional district schools in the same jurisdiction (Kahlenberg & Potter, 2014). Data trends from 2011-12 to 2013-14 on racial  integration support this criticism (See Figure 1). 

This data is an update to the Cotto & Feder 2014 Choice Watch Report.

Cultural appeals to low income minority families by school representatives illustrate a strategic way in which charter schools develop racially or ethnically isolated communities. The school representatives at the Achievement First open house appealed to certain demographics through subtle, yet meaningful, gestures and modes of communication. For example, a school representative at the open house in Hartford provided empanadas and spoke Spanish with some Hispanic families. These efforts were described as a way to “establish the cultural/linguistic bond of identification” (CB, EK, AF field notes, 2015). While these efforts did not directly address community building, they created a welcoming community atmosphere specifically for the Hispanic parents. The Achievement First mission statement’s direct emphasis on “closing the achievement gap” and providing educational equity to historically underserved populations provides a clear impetus for directing promotional tactics at specific demographics who would most benefit from the school’s philosophy (“Our Mission and Vision,” 2015). While racial and socioeconomic integration in education has been repeatedly found to boost minority students’ academic outcomes, Achievement First’s model instead employs a rigorous academic approach targeted at a concentrated population to close the achievement gap (Kahlenberg & Potter, 2014).

Building the Bridge Between School and Family 

Instead of touting student diversity or making appeals to certain demographics, some school representatives characterized their school community using a character appeal by underscoring the collaborative and supportive student-staff culture. The Breakthrough magnet school representative at the school’s open house characterized the school community as having a “family feel” and as a “close knit school community” (NT, field notes, 2015). The field notes also reported that the school representative “used many buzzwords such as, ‘thriving,’ ‘joyful,’ ‘character,’ ‘safe,’ ‘risks,’ and ‘leadership.’” Breakthrough magnet school’s emphasis on the character of their students and staff who compose their school community echoes their mission statement’s focus on developing “students as models of outstanding character” (“A Global School for Students of Character,” 2015). What is striking about this school representative’s portrayal of the school community is that the topic of parent involvement in the creation of a collaborative school community was omitted. Conversely, the mission statement dictates that Breakthrough Magnet School seeks to form a partnership between “staff, family and community members.” Although it is unclear whether the topic of parental involvement was intentionally excluded from the school representative’s pitch to families, the omission could indicate a larger problem facing magnet schools: the difficulty of engaging families from disparate communities and backgrounds at the school.

Other magnet schools and the charter school in the field notes sample did, however, directly mention parental involvement as a core element of their school community. At the CREC Academy of Aerospace Engineering magnet school open house, the representatives specifically addressed how a parent group convenes monthly to plan activities and to fundraise (AG, RU, field notes, 2015). This comment places an emphasis on parental behavioral engagement in the school community, which may be hard for working class parents. The school representatives at the Achievement First open house emphasized a potentially more accessible way in which parents of all backgrounds can contribute to the school community. The field notes from this event reported the following:

The presenters also mentioned several times that they consider parents to be partners in the mission to get the kids to college. They said that there was a lot of communication between parents and teachers… They also had a list of expectations for parents as a slide on the PowerPoint, and this included things like the expectation that the parents get their child ready for school and wearing their uniform each day and that they ensure their child does his or her homework. (CB, EK, AF, field notes, 2015)

This observation indicates an attitudinal and philosophical form of parental engagement that is a key element of bridging the divide between school and family. Instead of asking parents to volunteer regularly at the school or to help fundraise, the school asks that parents be mission-aligned in order for students to be best prepared for the school’s academic and behavioral demands. Additionally, this commentary prioritizes constant and transparent communication between parents and teachers. This suggests that the Achievement First family-school community operates under a reciprocal, goal-oriented and highly communicative system. As a way of further emphasizing the mission-alignment of all stakeholders in the Achievement First community, related quotes from principals and administrators appear on the webpage containing the mission statement.

Niche Communities

School communities formed by the coalescence of mission-aligned groups is also apparent among interdistrict magnet schools, which often develop niche communities based on specialized interests. In order for magnet schools to attract students from a wide range of socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds, they typically have a special curricular focus that a traditional district school would not offer. The magnet schools Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts and CREC Academy of Aerospace Engineering Elementary School provide quintessential examples of specialized school communities. The mission statement of the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts portrays its dedication to developing visual and performing artists as well as providing an “academically rigorous curriculum” (“An Artistic and Academic Immersion,” 2015). The photograph directly under the mission statement visually displays the state-of-the-art facilities to further highlight the emphasis on the arts.

While there is no explicit mention of fostering an integrated student body in the mission statement, it does state that the arts are to be learned as a “mechanism for social justice” which perhaps connotes a social consciousness of the diverse backgrounds of the students. The field notes from this school’s open house corroborate the prioritization of artistic development and the absence of discourse on diversity or the student demographics. Only in describing a promotional pamphlet did the field notes mention the school’s “desire to be a part of a diverse, multi-cultural environment” (CM, field notes, 2015). Additionally, out of approximately 150 families present at the open house, the field notes reported that only one family was African American and only one was Hispanic. This provides potential evidence that either the curricular theme was particularly appealing to a certain demographic, or the timing or location of open house was not easily accessible or welcoming to minority families.

Similarly, the CREC Academy of Aerospace Engineering Elementary School’s mission statement stresses it’s dedication to teaching rigorous and cutting edge science and technology, yet there is no explicit mention of an aim to establish a diverse student body as is legally mandated by the Sheff ruling (“Academy of Aerospace & Engineering Elementary School,” 2015). In contrast to the field notes from the open house at the Arts Academy magnet school, the field notes from this magnet school’s open house did address the issue of integration. Curiously, however, race was discussed though a proxy of geographic locations in the Hartford area, which aligns with the stipulations of Sheff. The school representative was reported stating that, “50% of the students are from Hartford and 50% are from 33 other towns” (AG, RU, field notes, 2015). The families present at the open house were also described as being more diverse and thus representative of the Hartford region. While interdistrict magnet schools are designed to establish and maintain integrated school communities, niche community-type magnet schools based are not likely to explicitly express this goal in their mission statements nor in the pitches given by school representatives at open house events.

Community Partnerships

While the magnet schools previously mentioned portray school communities that can seem insular due to their focus on a specific theme, other choice schools establish school communities that extend into the local community. The Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy’s vision statement places a major emphasis on incentivizing community engagement, working to improve the community, and collaborating with community contributors (“Vision Statement,” 2015). The field notes from this magnet school’s open house align with this emphasis on community partnership. While the school representatives did focus on the student-teacher relationships, they also highlighted the school’s main partnership with Trinity College, located across the street (AM; IF, field notes, 2015). Photographs on the vision statement’s webpage illustrate students’ engagement with the college. Yet, when the school representative discussed extracurricular activities, the representative mainly focused on the arts and failed to explicitly mention any type of community engagement (IF, field notes, 2015). Additionally, discussion of community relations or of the school community reflecting the larger community based on identity were not acknowledged.

The mission statement and the presentation by school representatives at Achievement First also underscore a school community that extends into the larger community. However, a dichotomy between a collaborative spirit and a competitive tone emerged regarding this topic. The Achievement First mission statement highlights its goal of sharing best practices with district schools and other charter schools in order to bring about greater education reform and to close the achievement gap (“Our Mission and Vision,” 2015). In contrast to criticism of some charters for their push to replace district schools (Kahlenberg & Potter, 2014), this message emphasizes collaboration. The field notes from the Achievement Frist open house indicate that the school representatives also mentioned other district schools in the Hartford region and in the state of Connecticut. A data-driven approach was taken in which schools were compared by test scores and presented as bar charts on a PowerPoint (CB, EK, AF, field notes, 2015). This message has a competitive charge and does not acknowledge any sort of collaboration between Achievement First schools and non-Achievement First Schools. Thus, school community in this case can be conceptualized as the “in-group,” or schools and educators aligned with the Achievement First mission, juxtaposed against the “out-group,” or those who do not share practices or a common philosophy with the charter network.

The array of school communities delineated by school mission statements and by the rhetoric of school representatives shows how discussion of racial composition of choice schools can be highlighted, merely hinted at or largely avoided. When magnet school communities were described based on their student body composition, the demographics were often explained using Sheff jargon. Conversely, the Achievement First representatives targeted minority populations, reflecting their student body, through cultural appeals. When school community was characterized based on the school-family bond, a distinction emerged between behavioral and attitudinal parental involvement, the latter of which is likely more inclusive and accessible to working class, minority families. The niche communities of some magnet schools were found to emphasize their special interest in ways that overshadowed the racial composition of the school. Finally, schools that that underscored local partnerships as a focal part of their community omitted any sort of identity-based identification between the students and the local community. Instead, partnerships based on ideological alignment seem to be prioritized. Additionally, little evidence points to the communities formed on the classroom level that may reflect the larger school community. A closer examination of internal school programs (i.e., tracking, ELL or special education programs) would elucidate whether students receive a classroom experience that truly reflects the school’s marketed community.

References

A Global School for Students of Character. (2015, May 2). Retrieved from http://www.breakthroughmagnetschool.org

Academy of Aerospace & Engineering Elementary School. (2015, May 2). Retrieved from http://www.crecschools.org/our-schools/academy-of-aerospace-engineering-elementary-school/

An Artistic and Academic Immersion. (2015, May 2). Retrieved from http://www.crecschools.org/our-schools/greater-hartford-academy-of-the-arts/

Cotto, R. & Feder, K. (2014). Choice Watch: Diversity and Access in Connecticut’s School Choice Programs. Connecticut Voices for Children. New Haven, CT.

Debs, M. (2015). Untouchable Carrots: Marketing School Choice and Realities in Hartford’s Inter-district Magnet Program. Unpublished Manuscript, Yale University, New Haven, CT.

AG, RU; AM; CB, EK, AF; CB; IF; NT. Field Notes. (2015, February).

Kahlenberg, R. D., & Potter, H. (2014). A Smarter Charter: Finding What Works for Charter Schools and Public Education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Our Mission and Vision. (2015, May 2). Retrieved from http://www.achievementfirst.org/our-approach/achievement-gap-and-mission/

Vision Statement. (2015, May 2). Retrieved from http://hmtca.hartfordschools.org/vision.html

Welner, K. (2013). The Dirty Dozen: How Charter Schools Influence Student Enrollment. Teachers College Record. Retrieved from http://www.tcrecord.org.

School choice—a resounding success! Or is it?
Across the nation the popular rhetoric used to describe school choice is glowing. Describing Connecticut’s choice system, newspaper headlines proclaim, “[Choice programs are] a major contributor to closing the achievement gap” ¹ and “Students [in school choice programs] are improving each year!” ². The much talked about full-length documentary, Waiting for Superman, holds charter schools and parent choice up as the last hope for our urban students to succeed ³. But in reality, many of these assertions are made based on a faulty comparison. The current rhetoric used in the public sphere about choice schools and student performance is not accounting for the fallacy of selection bias.

Measuring the achievement impact of choice schools compared to traditional public schools on students is very difficult. The only true comparison would be to take advantage of a parallel universe in which one could compare students who attended a choice school in one universe with the very same students who simultaneously attended a public school. If this technique was possible, many researchers would be out of a job.

This article points out the flaws in many evaluations of choice schools, and highlights several ways to mitigate and improve school choice analysis. Additionally, using a robust data set, I provide original analysis that accounts for some these issues and situate the findings in a broader context.

Selection bias—the problem that plagues all school choice studies
To investigate the effect that school choice has on student outcomes, researchers leverage statistical tools to try to make the most accurate comparison. The issue we are most concerned about when trying to make this comparison is selection bias. Selection bias occurs when the population of students you are looking at is not random but is self selected. In the school choice debate, we worry about selection bias when the families who chose to apply and attend a charter school are even slightly different that the families who just end up keeping their kids in traditional public schools. The problem arises when we try to compare these two groups. It may be that the difference we observe in test scores is really due to the dissimilarity in the family characteristics rather than in the effectiveness of choice or traditional public schools. Herein lies the challenge: How do we make a true comparison of student outcomes between choice schools and traditional public schools?

Virtual twin method—one way to minimize the impact of selection bias
The CREDO team at Stanford University came up with a method called “virtual twin” to try to make better comparisons. The CREDO reports uses measurable student characteristics and prior achievement to match students in charter schools with students who attend public school in their same school district. For example, CREDO compares two students with similar prior test scores both coming from low income and high parental education families, but one student now attends a charter school and the other attends a traditional public school. They do this with many pairs of students or “twins” to curb selection bias and make a better comparison between the two school types. Using this methodology in 2009, the CREDO team found that only 17% of charter schools outperformed traditional public schools, while 46% did worse, and 37% had no statistical difference. ⁴ They repeated this study on a slightly larger sample of students in 2013 and found that charter schools on average performed slightly better than in the 2009 study ⁵, but that at the end of the day, an average charter school is just average.

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The virtual twin methodology is not perfect, because not all factors can be matched. There still may be some unobservable differences between students who attend charter schools compared with their public school peers. For example, a family that takes the time and effort to apply to a charter school, might be more involved in their student’s education than a family that just sends their student to the neighborhood school, and that might be why we see choice school students performing better than the traditional public school students.  In other words, the result may be driven by the unobservable characteristics of the students who attend charter schools, rather than the actual effect of the charter school themselves.

Randomization—another way to address the problem of selection bias
Using another method to mitigate the issue of selection bias, some researchers take advantage of the randomization inherent in a charter school lottery. When charter schools receive more applications than spots available they are required to hold a randomized “lottery” to determine which students receive a spot. In a large study of charter schools, Gleason et al, (2010), compared the achievement of students who won charter lotteries and attended charter schools to students who lost charter lotteries and attended traditional public schools. Since the lotteries are random, we assume on average, there is no difference between the people who won and lost the lottery ⁶.

Click start, and use the arrows to navigate through the graphic.

Randomized trials are the closest one can get to a perfect comparison. The methodology helps mitigate the selection issue present in the CREDO study, since the student population they are comparing, the winners and losers, both have the unobservable characteristics that lead to a family applying to a charter school. The Gleason study finds, on average, that there is no statistically significant impact of charter schools on student achievement. Similar to the CREDO studies, Gleason reports positive outcomes for students with low-SES backgrounds. But even this study with randomized design has it’s limitations. For example, only schools that receive more applications than spots use a lottery, therefore the charter schools analyzed in this study were charter schools that received lots of applications, potentially meaning they were on average better charter schools.

Big Data Analysis—a third method to account for selection bias
I set out to find a different method to add to the current understanding of the effect school choice has on student outcomes, taking into account the main issues involved in investigating student outcomes, including selection bias and the unobserved factors that come with it. Increasingly, researchers are collecting data about students over time, in what are referred to as longitudinal studies. These studies often involve capturing data about large numbers of students via surveys, resulting in large data sets. I decided to use one such data set, from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009.  By using a variety of variables focusing on student achievement, family background, and school characteristics from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) I wanted to see if I could shed light on the school choice debate.

The HSLS data set is comprised of nearly 24,000 9th graders selected randomly from 944 schools. Students, parents, teachers, administrators, and counselors are all surveyed to collect a wide variety of data on both the students and their learning environment. Called multi-level surveying, this data, in concert with students test scores provided a rich data set for analysis. For an extended explanation of these data, click here.

One of the main issues with using survey data is that it is impossible to account for every potential factor that determines student achievement. In order to isolate the true effect of participating in a school choice program, it’s necessary to hold constant every other potential difference between students. This is obviously an impossible task, especially considering the many unobserved and unmeasurable factors that are present, such as differences in student motivation or innate ability. However, there are analytical and statistical strategies to help control for these difference and isolate the true relationship between school choice and student achievement. I used a variety of these student, parent, teacher, and school controls to try to measure the underlying components that affect a student’s test score.

Assumptions
I set out, assuming that five factors are most important in determining student achievement.They are: 1) whether or not a student attends a choice school, 2) students’ demographic characteristics, 3) students’ motivation, 4) a student’s parental characteristics, and 5) a students teacher characteristics. If we had the data and could measure all of these underlying factors, we could make a convincing case for the accuracy of our estimates to truly measure the effect of choice on student achievement.

Unfortunately, many of these underlying constructs are unobservable, not measured, or have layers of complexity. To mitigate this issue, I used factors I could measure that get at the underlying construct and are highly correlated with these unmeasured factors. For example, when looking at student motivation, I controlled for whether students think getting good grades is important and whether students think they will graduate from college. The hope is that high student motivation, an unobservable characteristic, will overlap sufficiently with students who think getting good grades is important and expect to graduate from college to serve as a proxy. For results to be reliable, these relationships need to be highly correlated but not necessarily perfectly correlated. This is because when working with a very large number of students, as I was, one can begin to see that on average these factors will account for motivation. The rest of our proxies are displayed in table 2. Click on each underlying construct for a deeper examination of the variables used to measure them. Click here for a full breakdown of the model used in estimation.

Click to read more on how each construct is represented: true achievement, school choice, family background, student motivation, parent characteristics, or teacher characteristics.

The Tricky Bit—How to Account for Selection Bias
In the context of these data and techniques, how did I compare students in choice schools to students in traditional public school knowing that that difference in decision might be because of some unobservable characteristic obscuring the true comparison between choice students and traditional public school students?

My hypotheses going in to this study is that when first looking at choice schools on student achievement I would see a positive effect because of selection bias; I expected that the students in choice schools would be systematically different from those in traditional public school due to parental factors that affected their selection of a choice program. However, after explicitly controlling for parental characteristics, and making a much more valid comparison between students in both types of schools, I expect the initial positive result will not persist.

To control for this confounding factor, I used a variety of controls to account for a wide variety of parent involvement. I considered whether or not a parent attends any meeting at the school, a parent teacher organization meeting, or a parent teacher conference. I took into account whether a parent volunteers at their child’s school or helps fundraise for the school. I also considered parents’ expectations of how far they think their student will get in school, and whether or not they help their student with their homework. My assumption was that together all of these variables account for and overlap sufficiently with the unobservable characteristics that choice school families have that would affect student achievement. Although these factors do not directly account for the underlying construct I argue that these characteristics would signal and proxy for the unobserved ones.

The strength of this approach is that it addresses the issue that comes in to play with the Virtual Twin methodology—selection bias, and it gets around some of the main issues of randomization including only looking at over-subscribed schools. The weakness of the method I used is needing to rely on my proxy strengths without being able to actually tell if they sufficiently account for selection bias. I argue that the above variables account for enough of the underlying factors of student achievement for our results to be unbiased.

Click here for the descriptive statistics of all the variables used in estimation.

Findings
Using data from the High School Longitudinal study of 2009 (HSLS 09) and the above methodology, I indeed found that when initially looking at the relationship of participation in a school choice program and student learning, there exists a positive effect for students of low socioeconomic status. This result explains some of the promise and glamour that the idea of school choice receives. However, after using more robust methods and explicitly controlling for the difference in students and families that chose to attend choice programs, the once promising result, disappears.

To arrive at this conclusion I first compared the achievement of students who went to choice schools to that of students who went to traditional public schools while accounting for their race, socioeconomic status and intrinsic motivation. I found that attending a choice school had a positive impact on students from low socioeconomic background. Results based on simple comparisons like this are constantly held in the media as evidence of the positive impact of school choice. To account for the issue of selection bias and the potentially unobserved parent characteristics as the possible reason choice students appear to perform better in my first comparison, I next also accounted for the parent-related variables. Using these controls, I found that, on average, students in choice school perform no better than students in traditional public schools. This result confirms my hypothesis and corroborates other literature indicating that after accounting for selection bias, on the whole choice schools do not outperform traditional public schools. Lastly, when accounting for teacher quality, the results remain the same. Click here to see the full table of regression results.

In summary, looking at the simple relationship between choice schools and student achievement, I found a positive effect of choice schools, consistent with popular claims made in the headlines. However, when accounting for the observed and unobservable differences in data, these once promising results do not persist.

The Limitations
There are limitations to this study. Without random assignment there is no way to be sure that we fully accounted for selection bias. I can make an argument, and I hope that I have, that my methodology accounts for selection bias, but we will never know for sure. One indicator that this study may sufficiently account for selection bias is that its results are consistent with randomized studies on schools choice that also find no relationship between choice and student outcomes ^{7 8}.

Additionally, it is worth noting that this study looks at choice schools on average. This does not mean that no choice schools are outperforming traditional public schools. Rather, it means that as a whole the choice school reform movement is not outperforming the status quo of traditional public schools. Further, this paper also does not distinguish between types of school choice. Because of data limitations charter schools, magnet schools, and voucher programs were clumped together.

Click for more technical limitations and solutions such as, missing values, attrition, and other data issues.

The Implications
With school choice becoming increasingly popular among reforms it is crucial to investigate its actual effect on students. Although there is a large body of existing research, it is important to keep looking for pieces in the solution to bring better educational opportunities to students as policies shift and school systems progress. A single assessment of the choice system alone will not provide enough evidence on it’s own, but using an abundance of data and a range of techniques, we can continue to fill in more and more of the picture.

Next time reading about a school choice success, don’t accept the result outright. Make sure to consider the comparison they are making, and ask: Are these two groups are equivalent? Has the study sufficiently accounted for the unobservable differences between students in choice schools and students in traditional public school?