Integration Without Integrating? Differences in Charter and Traditional Public Schooling Demographics in Gentrified Areas of Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles

• In Event: 42.059 - Policy, Politics, Choice, and Geography: How Place Matters Across the Pre-K–20 Spectrum

Abstract

Many U.S. cities have experienced demographic changes during the last twenty years relating to gentrification. This trend is technically defined as “the process by which decline and disinvestments in inner-city neighborhoods are reversed” (Freeman, 2005, P. 463). However, the process and outcomes of gentrification are typically recognized as when mid-to-high socioeconomic families, who are usually white, relocate to urban communities traditionally comprised of minority families with comparatively lower socioeconomic statuses (Levy, Comey, & Padilla, 2006).

Many of these cities have also seen policy changes in student placement, moving from assignments based on zip code to assignments based on choice. These choices are mainly in the form of charter schools (e.g. Wohlstetter, Smith, & Farrell, 2013). This paper examines the relationship between gentrification and charter schooling. Superficially, influxes of new populations to minority communities could serve as a possibility to promote school integration. This research seeks to understand if this integration is happening, or if gentrifiers create and choose segregative options by asking three main questions: Are gentrified neighborhoods more likely to have charter schools? Is the composition of charter schools in gentrified neighborhoods different than nearby traditional public schools? Are these comparisons consistent across gentrified and non-gentrified areas?

The locations examined here are Washington DC and Los Angeles, selected because the cities have seen increasing levels of both gentrification and charter schooling during the last decade (Maciag, 2015; e.g. more than 45% of schools are now charter schools in DC and about 15% in LA). The framework used in this study is based on Strategic Action Fields (SAF) (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011), considering “gentrification” as a unique field trait that induces different charter schooling options compared to other environments.

Using a variety of GIS mapping and statistical techniques, we show that gentrified neighborhoods in Washington DC experience different choice patterns than non-gentrified neighborhoods. In gentrified census tracts, there are a higher proportion of charter schools and these charter schools are less likely to have students in free and reduced lunch programs than nearby traditional public school counterparts. This finding differs from neighborhoods in tracts not eligible (due to already high levels of wealth and socioeconomic status) to be gentrified, which hardly have any charter schools, and those in tracts that have not yet gentrified, which consistently have both traditional public schools and charter schools comprised of high proportions of minority and free and reduced lunch students.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, while the proportion of charter schools is similar in all tracts, the enrollment trends in newly gentrified neighborhoods tends to match that of the neighborhoods with already high levels of wealth and socioeconomic status. This includes higher levels of White students and lower levels of students with free and reduced lunch in charter schools than nearby traditional public schools. In non-gentrified low-income, minority neighborhoods charter schools tend to match the enrollment patterns of the traditional public school, whereas in wealthy or emerging gentrifying neighborhoods it appears charter schools are receiving comparatively higher levels of advantaged students compared to nearby publics.

Authors

• Bryan Mann, University of Kansas

• Heather Bennett, The Pennsylvania State University