Aug 28, 2014 2 min read

Despite the optimistic prognostications by some supporters that shiny, new charter schools would serve as nimble, bottom-line-minded alternatives to sclerotic old public schools, charters turned out to be something less than the salvation of American education. They’ve been plagued by high teacher turnover, low academic achievement, a lack of transparency and a noteworthy number of school officials being hauled into courtrooms on corruption charges.

And a report released this week by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania found another reason to look at charters with a wary eye: they are promoting de facto patterns of school segregation.

Among the reasons charter schools are becoming racially and ethnically homogenous, according to the study, are not only the choices of parents on whether to send children to them, but also the availability of transportation and subsidized lunches.

Erica Frankenburg, a researcher at Penn State University, told Pittsburgh radio station WESA-FM “in the residential market, we know that there are a number of different factors beyond just preference that in fact stratify who’s living where, and actually we see some of these similar mechanisms when we look at the pattern of school choice.”

The report also noted charter schools siphon scarce dollars from the budgets of public school districts because they are mandated to pay tuition to a charter if a student who hails from their district enrolls, and “the available data suggest that students moving from a traditional public school district to a charter generally move to a school with lower academic performance than the original district.”

That being the case, it mystifies us why charter schools continue to draw such vehement support from across the political spectrum. A better path to strengthening our educational system would be giving our under-financed public schools more resources and support.