: A Critical Race Spatial Analysis of Detroit Students' Suburban School Choice Patterns

• In Event: Race, Place, and the Marketization of Education: Understanding How Spatial Imaginaries and Structures Shape Schooling

Abstract

School choice policies have expanded dramatically over the last three decades, and from a traditional policy perspective they provide an alternative approach to racial integration in the post-Brown era (Scott & Quinn, 2014). Yet, families must weigh the costs of choosing (e.g., time; costs of travel; racial or economic isolation) with the potential benefits (e.g., higher student achievement scores; more school resources). In many urban areas in the United States, these potential costs are exacerbated by historical policy decisions related to geography, such as redlining, school segregation, and district zoning (Frankenberg, 2013).

Critical race spatial analysis offers a necessary theoretical and methodological perspective to critically interrogate the potential of school choice policies to facilitate school integration. Critical race spatial analysis draws upon critical race theory, which understands racism as an endemic (rather than abhorrent) part of American laws, attitudes, and institutional arrangements (Morrison et al., 2017). Critical race spatial analysis thus helps researchers explore how geographical spaces—both real and socially constructed—have been operationalized in policy as a means of racial inclusion or exclusion. A critical race spatial analysis of school choice also fits coherently within a socio-spatial understanding of education policy, wherein parent and student choice-making is bounded by social and spatial positions and dispositions (Yoon & Lubienski, 2017) and structured by racial histories, racist policies, and racialized perceptions of place (Morrison et al., 2017).

Using a unique combination of student-level administrative data, public-use community data, and archival data on the racial geography of the metro Detroit region, we use critical race spatial analysis to examine Detroit student enrollment in suburban public school districts and suburban charter schools. Understanding suburban school districts as constructed geographies that contain both traditional public and charter schools and that have racial histories and racialized spaces breaks from a traditional policy analysis that would narrowly focus on a single policy, such as charter schools or inter-district choice alone. We use the term exiters for Detroit resident students who enroll in suburban schools. Our overarching research question is: How is Detroit student enrollment in suburban schools patterned by race, space, and school choice policy?

Our descriptive analysis suggests that racial, spatial, and policy dynamics in Metro Detroit intersect to maintain racial and socioeconomic isolation for Detroit exiters. On average, exiters go to schools where more than 50% of their peers are also Detroit exiters, 84% of students are non-White, and 83% are economically disadvantaged. Mapping shows that this isolation is driven by high concentrations of Detroit exiters in school district geographies with larger non-White residential populations and more charter schools than other border districts. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding school choice policy design and enactment from a critical race spatial perspective and suggests important directions for future research, including how racial and spatial dynamics shape families’ school-choosing, charter school authorizing and siting, and the implementation of inter-district choice policies.

Authors

• Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, Wayne State University

• Jeremy Lee Singer, Wayne State University