In a book review of Choosing Charters: Better Schools or More Segregation?, Paul Hill considers the question of whether or not charter schools are major factors in the national trend of greater separation of the races in schools, which is driven by racial isolation by neighborhood, population change (fewer white students), the cost of housing, and a transportation system that makes cross-town movement difficult. Hill notes that charter schools are not solving the problem of school segregation, and, in some places, are making it a little worse. According to a 2009 RAND study that followed individual students from traditional public schools into charter schools, “the average increase in the African American concentration experienced by an African American transfer student was 3.8 percent.” To learn more about Choosing Charters, read the full review on EdNext.org.
—Education Next
