Reply to Segregation in DC schools - charter lottery doesn't help much

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]"So we wondered: can charter schools, which base admissions entirely on a lottery instead of a student’s address, better mix at-risk students than DCPS and create more egalitarian schools? Our answer is a qualified no."

I'm a little confused here...how is having fewer at risk students in areas where at risk students make up 75% of students actually LESS diverse/egalitarian?  If the question is, do charter schools make the school system as a whole (DCPS AND Charter) less segregated, it seems likely the answer is no (though this data isn't going to answer that question).  But if the question is are charters more diverse than DCPS - I'm not sure a lower percentage of at risk kids necessarily means the answer is now when you're comparing it to schools with majority at risk populations.  Wouldn't greater diversity/less segregation mean more not-at-risk kids in those cases?  I think this is not the comparison to be making with this data.  I think you'd need a whole different set of data.  I'm not sure what the data would have looked like if they'd seen what they wanted to see?[/quote]

Outside of WoTP DCPS schools, charters are concentrating nearly all of the non-"at-risk" kids. Thereby ensuring that the remaining DCPS continue to remain segregated and filled with "at-risk" students. Hence, charters are not helping de-segregation, but rather giving middle and upper-middle SES families a "sanctuary" from the DCPS.[/quote]

As noted, I too suspect that's true - but that's not something that can be supported from this data.  For that, you'd need to know where the kids are coming from, where they would have gone instead, the population that applies to charters, etc.  You could get the exact same data here if all of the Ward 7 and 8 charters pulled 5 or 10% of their kids (not at risk) from other wards.  They'd still be lower at risk percentages than surrounding schools but it wouldn't have anything to do with pulling not at risk kids from surrounding schools (and given that kids travel further to charters, you can't really compare the charter next door to a traditional school to that DCPS school and conclude anything about that DCPS school - kids leaving that DCPS school just as likely went to some other charter).  Now, I'm guessing that's not what's happening (pulling lots of not at risk kids from other wards) in most cases - but my point is this data isn't going to tell you that.  And it's dangerous to go around saying data proves things it doesn't.  The authors are using the data to say charters a no less segregated (and I think quite possibly implying they're more segregated - hard to tell).  They're not saying anything about the impact on DCPS at all (though I think that'd be useful to look at).  From what I can see, charters are slightly less segregated overall compared to DCPS (based on fewer schools on the extremes), but I don't have the breakdowns I'd need to conclude that at all.  [/quote]

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