Linking Charter School Emergence to Urban Revitalization and Gentrification: A Socio-Spatial Analysis of Three Cities

Abstract

The link between neighborhood quality and school quality is long‐standing and well established. Over the last two decades there have been several federally sponsored initiatives aimed at revitalizing the urban core; initiatives that emerged around the same time as charter schools. Despite the changing urban context that has occurred alongside charter school emergence, little research has addressed the link between urban revitalization efforts and charter school emergence. Using three cities that have experienced massive urban core revitalization and metropolitan growth since the early 1990s (Atlanta, Chicago, and Philadelphia), we examine whether demographic changes resulting from urban revitalization and gentrification are associated with the opening of a charter school. Our findings illustrate a somewhat mixed account. We find some evidence to support this link in Chicago and Philadelphia, whereas we find little support for it in Atlanta.

Neighbourhood change and the neighbourhood-school gap

“…Research in UK and European contexts uncovers similar tensions as middle-class families appraise school quality in gentrifying neighbourhoods based on a school's share of minority and lower-SES students, often seeking market-based school choice alternatives, thereby reinforcing school segregation (Boterman, 2012;Noreisch, 2007;Raveaud and Van Zanten, 2007). There is also recent evidence that neighbourhood ascent may be associated with greater probability of a charter school opening (Davis and Oakley, 2013;Burdick-Will et al, 2013), while other work suggests that increasing charter and choice options may actually cause the socioeconomic ascent of low-income minority neighbourhoods in urban districts (Pearman and Swain, 2017). Thus, substantial charter school expansion in recent years in the US may contribute to greater dissimilarity between school and neighbourhood composition because it provides middle-class white parents with more opportunities to opt out.…”

The Enduring Atlanta Compromise

“…Furthermore, the slow violence of the notification and implementation of our focal school’s closure is inextricably linked to the neighborhood’s home foreclosure crisis, as a continued form of “redevelopment” (Aggarwal et al, 2012; Davis and Oakley, 2013). As families are pushed out of the neighborhood, the neighborhood’s school children are similarly pushed out of their neighborhood school.…”

Geo‐spatial analyses in education research: the critical challenge and methodological possibilities

“…Of course, in using statistical analyses, a researcher's subjective judgement on which geographic areas are included and excluded is a prominent consideration for modelling empirical data in competitive educational environments-that is, researchers have to decide how to bind the analyses. More recent studies also utilise administrative or census units to model neighbourhoods around schools (Davis & Oakley, 2013;Saultz et al, 2015;Smrekar & Honey, 2015). The most convenient method for setting up a school's catchment area is to situate a school within the census geographic unit to which it belongs (Thomson, 2010).…”

“…Lubienski et al (2009) matched newly opening, recently moving, and closing charter school locations, which were represented as single points on a map, to census tracts and block groups in which the schools were nested. More recent studies also utilise administrative or census units to model neighbourhoods around schools (Davis & Oakley, 2013;Saultz et al, 2015;Smrekar & Honey, 2015).…”