A couple of weeks ago Brian mentioned an Ed Next article we wrote with our colleagues Gary Ritter and Nate Jensen. The article, titled A Closer Look at Charter Schools and Segregation, challenges the methodology used in a study of charter schools and racial segregation  released in February by the Civil Rights Project (CRP) at UCLA. Our article is scheduled to appear in print this summer, but the debate is already in full swing. Today the Ed Next blog is running a response to our original article from the CRP authors, followed by a reply from us. You can find their response here, and our reply here.

In their response it is evident that the CRP staff either misunderstand or choose to willfully ignore the substantive methodological concerns we raised in our article. Instead they simply chose to reiterate their rightness, failing to engage in meaningful debate.

Even though they failed to address the methodological flaws present in their report, it is a greater disappointment that they failed to acknowledge the larger and more damning points we raised in the concluding paragraphs of our article.

In the closing portion of our reply, we bring the discussion back to what we believe are the most compelling arguments for why the CRP report is fatally flawed.

1)    First, neither the traditional public schools nor charter schools are doing a particularly good job at drawing racially diverse student bodies. Those genuinely concerned with the racial segregation in schools should focus their attention on traditional public schools, where the vast majority (97%) of U.S. students are enrolled.

2)    Families that send their children to charter schools are making a choice that best fits what they seek in an educational experience. To compare this choice to the forced segregation that occurred a half century ago is a trivialization of the true oppression that occurred. And to refer to these schools as “apartheid schools,” which implies that families are legally and physically required to attend segregated schools, is nothing more than alarmist rhetoric.  Such charges would be more appropriate if they were leveled at traditional public schools where students in residential boundaries are forced to attend segregated schools.

The Civil Rights Project has a history of seeking justice and we commend that.  But the organization is simply on the wrong side of this issue. First of all, the empirical data do not support the CRP claims.  Moreover, although the group’s leaders have called for regulations to encourage more integrated charters, vocal critics of charters will certainly use the conclusions drawn from the CRP differently.  And, if critics of charters were successful in limiting the growth of charter schools, the educational options available to poor and minority students would be further restricted.  We and the CRP authors would certainly agree that this outcome would not enhance the civil rights of our nation’s disadvantaged students.