Diversity, Achievement, and Choice in Minneapolis’ West Metro Educational Program

• In Event: Investigating the Potential of Regional Interdistrict Collaboration to Address Inequality and Isolation in Education

Abstract

Objectives:
This final single-site paper examines outcomes, in terms of integration and achievement, of the West Metro Education Program in Minneapolis. WMEP operates the Choice is Yours Program (CIY)—a program which enables low-income students in high-poverty schools in Minneapolis to enroll in nearby suburban school districts. This paper examines the outcomes of the CIY program in terms of student achievement and school segregation patterns in the region. The paper will also examine whether, and to what degree, the state’s free-market inter-district choice policies (inter-district open enrollment and charter schools) are working at cross-purposes to the CIY program.

Theoretical Framework
This paper builds upon literature on inter-district desegregation (Holme & Wells, 2008), as well as school choice and stratification (see Holme & Richards, 2009; Saporito & Lareau, 1999) in its analysis of the degree to which CIY, along with other choice policies, lead to increases in integration. Taken together, this literature suggests that laissez-faire choice programs, such as charters and open enrollment, may undermine integration goals (see Holme & Richards, 2009). Few papers, however, have examined whether or how such programs may work at cross-purposes.
In analyzing achievement outcomes of the CIY program, this paper draws upon literature that indicates that there are positive relationships between integration and student achievement (Mickleson, 2010). This literature does suggest, however, that such relationships depend in part on schooling contexts (Rumberger & Palardy, 2006).

Methods and Data Sources
The project involves both interviews and empirical analysis. To analyze the WMEP programs and CIY, administrators and teachers participating in WMEP programs will be interviewed in the fall of 2011. The empirical analysis of integration and achievement uses multi-year, longitudinal student-level dataset including all students in the region to examine the effects of the Choice is Yours Program. This analysis examines the effects of both the CIY transfers, and the other transfer programs, on student achievement and on segregation patterns in the region’s schools.

Findings and Significance
Preliminary findings related to the question of integration show that inter-district open enrollments and charter school enrollments are increasing rapidly in the Twin Cities metropolitan area—from 18,000 in 2000-01 to 31,000 in 2008-09 for open enrollments and from 8,500 in 2000-01 to 31,000 for charter schools. The findings strongly imply that both choice options have increased school segregation in the region. Open enrollees are disproportionately white and non-poor and they typically move to schools that are whiter and less poor than the schools they left. Charter schools in the region are also more likely than traditional schools to be segregated. These findings are highly relevant to the continuing operation of these programs, especially since charter schools and open enrollment are often defended as tools to integrate schools.
The student achievement portion of the study will occur during Fall 2011. Findings from prior work regarding the CIY program show that positive outcomes documented in the early years of the program (in the early 2000s) have weakened due to increasing poverty and racial segregation in receiving schools in the suburbs.

Authors

• Myron Willard Orfield, University of Minnesota

• Thomas Luce, Institute on Race and Poverty - The University of Minnesota