Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

In the past two decades, school choice—predominantly through charter schools, but also in the form of educational vouchers and intra-district choice— has transformed a number of large urban school districts. In some cities, a majority of students attend schools outside of their neighborhood-assigned school. These changes have important implications for students’ and families’ social and economic opportunities and for their connections to each other, their neighborhoods, and their schools. Cox and Wilco write, “Indeed, if choice programs help to create social capital this may be reason enough to support them” (2008).

Not all social capital is equal, however. Robert Putnam distinguishes “bridging” social capital, which unites diverse groups, from “bonding” social capital, which strengthens links within groups to the detriment of cross-group relations (2001). By allowing families to select schools outside their neighborhoods, school choice may bring together parents with distinct social and economic backgrounds. Yet it can also exacerbate social divisions by enabling families to self-segregate into homogenous communities.

We need to know more about whether, how, and under what conditions school choice provides the base conditions for bridging and bonding social capital. Empirical research on school choice and the distribution of students across schools has been mixed (Bifulco and Ladd 2006; Ritter et al 2014). Preliminary analyses suggest that this fact reflects not only methodological differences among researchers but also real differences in how different communities experience school choice. Both policy features and socio-historical factors affect the extent to which school choice breaks down pre-existing divisions or fosters new ones.

To understand how policy and context shape the civic outcomes of school choice, this paper uses both linear regression and nonparametric methods to analyze charter school market share growth and student enrollment trends in 168 school districts across the country from 1999 to the present. I ask,

What policy features and socio-historical factors influence the relationship between charter market share and the racial and economic distribution of students across schools?

Preliminary findings using city and year fixed effects suggest that not only policy factors but also sector and demographic factors matter. For example, citywide poverty levels and charter sector (e.g. for profit versus not-for-profit) exhibited significant interaction effects with market share growth. Subsequent analyses will incorporate additional measures of state law (e.g. a preference for schools that serve disadvantaged students) and district policy (e.g. provision of school transportation).

By moving beyond questions of whether school choice perpetuates or mitigates segregation to identify the conditions under which it is most likely to foster bridges across groups, the research has implications for scholars and policy practitioners alike. To the extent that schools of choice foster bonding social capital at the expense of bridging social capital, they may increase the isolation of underrepresented communities, thereby reinforcing inequality and social stratification. Conversely, if school choice can create bridges across diverse communities, it may enhance opportunities for parents, students and communities alike.