Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

This research is motivated by a finding from our earlier research that North Carolina charter schools are characterized by significant racial isolation. That is, white charter school students tend to enroll in predominantly white charter schools and black or minority (defined as non-white) students end up in predominantly minority schools. The question in this study is the extent to which these outcomes are driven primarily by the desire of different racial groups to enroll their children with others of the same race or by a variety of other considerations. Of ultimate interest is what, if any, types of policy changes might reduce the racial isolation of North Carolina’s charter schools.

To this end, we estimate conditional logit models to determine what characteristics of charter schools different groups of North Carolina households value, as revealed by the charter school choices they have made. We base our analysis on all the North Carolina households who switch a child from a traditional public school to a charter school in a specific year, taking into account all the charter schools in their respective choice sets. We consider five policy relevant characteristics of each charter: the racial mix of its students, average academic performance, policy variables such as whether it provides bus transportation or offers subsidized lunches, its mission, and the distance from the relevant traditional public school. We split the analysis into choices made by three racial groups (black, minority, and white children) and two SES subgroups groups for each racial category: – low income as defined by eligibility for subsidized lunch and more advantaged children.

Our preliminary analysis for elementary school choices suggests that the preferences of white and minority parents over the racial mix of students differ in predictable ways. We find, for example, that low income households of all races value bus service, that white households place greater value on STEM programs than other groups of households, and that parents, especially white parents may value the racial mix of the student body more highly than the academic performance of the school. We also plan to examine middle school and high school choices, and to explore whether the preferences of charter school choosers have changed over time.