A Subway Network Analysis for Visualizing Charter School Locations

• In Event: Roundtable Session 38
  In Roundtable Session: Understanding School Choice as a Geographically Relational Phenomenon Across North America: Using Geographic Information Systems Approaches

Abstract

Objectives: The study explores the accessibility of charter school locations to at-risk and special-needs populations and connected high-need public schools. This unique aspect of charter schools has not been fully explored in terms of subway accessibility. The focus on subway network and its importance for charter schools is based upon four assumptions. First, the interconnected subway lines along high-need public schools and the density of charter school locations from the subway stations represent the options or accessibility incentives provided by school choice. Second, the fact that the majority of NYC charter schools tend to cluster, those clustered schools have the potential to penetrate the market for student enrollments or particular types of students. Third, accessibility and clustering of charter schools to potential students may enhance the marketing strategies and management of schools competing for students (Lubienki, 2005; Henig & MacDonald, 2002; Bettinger, 1999). Finally, the charter schools’ knowledge of spatial connectivity to potential students may increase the synergy of complementary services needed by students that they serve and bring resources into the high-need public schools where they operate.

Analytic Framework: Both need-based and market-based models lend themselves to a subway analysis. The interconnected subway stations represent the arrangement of available charter school options for diverse families that are competing with existing public schools. The capacity of a school to be reached by potential student populations, clustered around an ordered connection of subway stations, may open up possibilities for students who are locked into public school high-need areas. Further, the connectivity between nearby subway stations and charter school locations represent the incentives to locate nearer public school high-need areas where potential difficult-to-serve populations are most likely to reside.

Data and Methodology: Current New York City Department of Education data is used to determine the spatial terrain of regular public school high-need areas. The spatial analysis is superimposed on the subway public transportation network to produce a subway map of stops and lines quantified by over a wide range of potential students attending high-need public schools.

Preliminary Findings & Significance: The mapping of the public school high-need landscape vis-à-vis public transportation linkages reveals that existing charter schools may expand in connected areas with dense proportions of vulnerable students as free public schools. This suggests that charter schools may find market niches in pockets of needs, the vulnerable and high-risk student populations in particular. For a policy perspective, the results of this study suggest the potential equity and competitive dimensions of charter schools. However, more research needs to be conducted to determine the broad range of factors that could be influenced by charter school location. Our spatial analyses do not control for the availability of facilities, low rents, and locational preferences over and above the connection between charter schools and need areas. These confounding variables will be examined in greater depth with a follow-up quantitative visualization of NYC’s educational data.

Author

• Charisse Atibagos Gulosino, University of Memphis