We’ve recently discovered that students who leave private schools for public schools are disproportionately likely to choose charters. But the majority of new charter students are coming from other public schools, so it’s also worth looking at what schools they tend to leave behind.
Officials at the state Department of Education recently asked that question for the 50 charter schools that opened in Florida this school year.
According to findings presented recently to state lawmakers, the approximately 10,000 students who enrolled in the state’s new charter schools were less likely to come from schools that receive top ratings on the state’s accountability system.
On the other hand, new charter students were not especially likely to come from the lowest-rated schools.
This doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story about which students enroll in charter schools. A student leaving an A-rated school might be struggling, and a charter school might attract a high-scoring student away from a school with an F rating. Virtual charters can muddy the waters further still.
Adam Miller, the director of the department’s school choice office, broke down the characteristics of charter school students elsewhere in his presentation last week to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Miller also noted that the location of a charter school doesn’t always dictate the makeup of its student body. He cited the Governor’s Charter Academy, in Leon County.
Critics of that school have sometimes pointed out that it’s located on the eastern edge of Tallahassee, near the relatively affluent and A-rated Buck Lake Elementary. But state records from last school year show the charter school enrolled four times the percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced-priced lunches, and more than twice the percentage of minority students, as Buck Lake.
“The demographics of those schools are completely different, because (the charter school is) pulling from all over (the surrounding county), and that happens somewhat regularly,” Miller said. Similarly, enrollment at charters in low-income neighborhoods doesn’t always match the characteristics of students living nearby.
“Location doesn’t always correlate with enrollment,” he said.
That could have implications for at least one area of charter school policy that’s gotten attention in recent years: The effort to draw more high-performing charters into undeserved neighborhoods. Location alone might not determine whether a school is serving students with the greatest needs.
There are schools that take additional measures to attract undeserved students. KIPP Jacksonville gives admissions preference to students living in specific ZIP codes. A charter school in Southwest Florida gives priority to children of migrant workers. These arrangements aren’t necessarily the norm, however. So are there criteria, other than location, that might help steer incentives to charters that go where the needs are greatest?
Jon Hage, the CEO of Charter Schools USA (the company that operates the Governor’s Charter Academy and 47 other schools in the state) floated such a concept to the Senate panel last week, but didn’t get into specifics.
“There needs to be an opportunity to serve more kids of color, and more kids, especially, of poverty,” he said. “The way to do that incent us to do that because the costs are higher.”
The post Where do charter school students come from? appeared first on reimaginED.
