Scholarship on the links between families and schools encompasses contradictory notions about social capital and its relation to inequality. One view holds that schools can narrow inequality by generating dense relationships among families, while others suggest that advantaged parents can use these networks to hoard opportunities. This multiple case study analyzes qualitative data from diverse North Carolina elementary schools to learn how parents build and deploy social capital. We distinguish between bonding social capital, built in dense, homogeneous networks, and bridging social capital, gained through relationships across a social distance. Our analyses suggest that bonding alone is associated with opportunity hoarding; however, when schools are committed to building both bridging and bonding social capital, they can produce more equitable and inclusive schools.

Where do parent-teacher associations (PTAs) and other similar school-linked nonprofits form? What role do PTAs play in distributing educational opportunities between and within public schools? In this paper, we link IRS data describing nonprofit organizations associated with North Carolina public schools to school- and student-level administrative data in order to answer these questions. Our analyses suggest PTAs form in a wide variety of school contexts, but high-revenue PTAs form primarily in affluent, predominantly white schools. Students in schools with active PTAs enjoy relatively strong achievement growth compared to their peers in schools without active PTAs. However, our analyses suggest that in reading, the benefits associated with PTAs flow disproportionately to nonpoor students.

Purpose: Charter schools are unique public schools in part because this type of school can close if it fails to meet objectives set forth by the chartering body that approved it. Thus far, however, little research has been conducted into the causes of charter school closures. In this article, we examine charter school accountability. Research Design: We consider four types of accountability to guide our event history analysis of environmental influences that affect charter school closures in North Carolina. In addition, we present two case studies of schools that closed in North Carolina to better illustrate the differing micro-level processes that can lead to the closure of a school. Findings: We find evidence that market, bureaucratic, and financial accountability processes influence the likelihood that a school will close. The initiation of closure procedures, however, is more complex than our quantitative model alone suggests and our two case studies illustrate the key role that financial accountability plays in charter school closures in North Carolina.

Charter schools are promoted by policy makers and advocates as a way to reduce educational inequality. Charter schools tend to enroll higher proportions of black students than do traditional public schools. However, the accountability function of charter schools means that these schools are also more likely to close than traditional public schools. A high incidence of closure can lead to educational instability with students moving in and out of charter schools and traditional schools. We use critical race theory to build on prior work, examining the factors that may promote or constrain charter school closure. Specifically, we ask, how do the racial demographics of a charter school affect its likelihood of closure? Our findings reveal that as the proportion of black students in a charter school increases, so too does its likelihood of closings. Our work suggests that the promotion of charter schools as avenues of racial equity may be misleading.

Dropout is a major issue facing our country’s schools; however, many students who drop out of school later go on to finish their degree either by returning to high school or by earning a General Education Development (GED) credential. Despite this, there has been relatively little research on these students who “stopout” of high school. Drawing on a sample of high school dropouts, we build on research conceptualizing dropouts as having been “pushed” or “pulled” out of school by examining how routes out of school influence the process of return. Our analysis reveals that being either pushed or pulled has little differential impact on the reengagement process. But, particular reasons within the categories have strong effects on keeping students out of school and on the pathways that they take if they return. Implications are suggested for both school practice and for how researchers should best conceptualize dropouts.