OPINION: BOOK OFFERS LOOK AT HOW CHARTER SCHOOLS DIVIDE COMMUNITIES
Founders and operators of charters mean well, author believes, but charter system leads to further segregation of education
- Mark Weber
It’s a sunny summer day in Hoboken, and everywhere I turn on Washington Street, I see the same thing:
Strollers.
Hoboken has become a mecca for young, affluent families looking to enjoy the trappings of urban living. And yet the city retains a significant population of economically disadvantaged families, many living in public housing separated from the rest of the city.
This interplay between segregation and gentrification is the subject of a fascinatingnew book by Molly Vollman Makris: “Public Housing and School Choice in a Gentrified City: Youth Experiences of Uneven Opportunity.”
Makris, a professor of Urban Studies at CUNY – as well as a Hoboken resident with a preschool daughter – looks carefully at her community to determine how segregation occurs when affluent families move in, and what can be done to ameliorate its effects in the schools and throughout the community.
I met Makris in her city to discuss her findings, which deal with the role of charter schools and intra-district school choice in Hoboken.
The city’s three charters serve a significantly different population than the district schools: fewer students who are Limited English Proficient, fewer students of color, and far fewer students eligible for free lunch, a measure of economic disadvantage. There is also a significant difference in the student demographics of the district’s elementary schools.
Despite this, New Jersey Education Commissioner David Hespe recently ruled that one of the charters could expand because, in his view, that school did not have a segregative effect.
Hespe’s ruling has created a political firestorm in Hoboken, leading to a privately funded appeal on behalf of the local school district, which fears the financial implications of the expansion.
What follows is an edited version of a much longer conversation between Makris and me. I have posted the entire interview on my blog; however, I also encourage everyone to read Makris’s book, a comprehensive, honest, and engaging exploration of how school policies shape our communities.
Weber: One thing that struck me right away is that your book isn’t at all a takedown of charter schools.
Makris: It’s not. It’s a larger analysis of the direction of education policy. The book does take a critical look at school choice and what’s happening in Hoboken, but it’s not about the individual actors. There aren’t heroes or villains per se; it’s about these larger systems of inequality that are happening in many places.
Weber: You take the charter school people at their word when they say they are genuinely interested in the inequality of their student populations and they want to do something about it.
Makris: I do. I think their intention was to create some level of socio-economic and racial diversity. But, given the demographic makeup of the founders, that was going to be a challenge. And part of that is charter school policies. It takes a lot of work to start a charter school. Many of these were stay-at-home parents and parents with flexible careers where they can spend hours and hours starting a charter school. So when you have them at the helm, it’s going to be harder to create a school that represents the entire community. There also are no policies in place that allow charter schools to easily “manipulate” their lotteries to create socio-economic and racial diversity.
Weber: Is it fair to say that starting and sustaining a charter school, by the nature of its structure, is going to attract a different sort of family than a traditional public school?
Makris: Yes; we see that everywhere. We see that in Newark and Harlem and other neighborhoods that don’t look anything like Hoboken. I think your research has shown this, in the difference between free and reduced-price lunch students, this level of creaming.
I call it charter confusion, which is something we found in Hoboken and when I was working with the Newark Schools Research Collaborative. People are just confused about what a charter school is and who can attend a charter school, whether they were in Newark or Hoboken, whether they’re low-income or advantaged.
Weber: So you’re saying there is some global misunderstanding about charter schools.
Makris: I think it’s a bit of a global misunderstanding, but when it comes time to figure it out for your own children, you tap into your own networks. And if your network all goes to the local neighborhood school, and you went to the local neighborhood school, and you don’t really have the resources to do a thorough investigation of all your school options, you’re going to go to the local neighborhood school.
Weber: But if you cleared up that confusion, do you believe public housing residents would see the so-called “advantages” of a charter school trumping what they see as the advantages of their neighborhood school?
Makris: That’s a great question. It’s hard to predict; I do think there are enough families in public housing who would be interested in the opportunity – if they see Opinion: Book Offers Look at How Charter Schools Divide Communities - NJ Spotlight:
