Public School Quality, Private Schools, and Race

White Flight in the Context of Education: Evidence from South Carolina

“…This preference theory in education explains white flight from urban schools with predominantly minority students because of white families' motivation for seeking racial homogeneity or religion affiliation (Saporito, Yancey, and Louis 2001). Empirical studies, such as Clotfelter (2001), Fairlie and Resch (2002), Ledwith and Clark (2007), and Wrinkle, Stewart, and Polinard (1999), provide supportive evidence for the preference theory. Fairlie and Resch (2002), for instance, determined that white flight to private schools was partly because of the large concentrations of minorities in urban public schools.…”

Does the amount of school choice matter for student engagement?

“…1115–1116), judging by their searches for school information and actual school choice decisions, it is clear that parents consider many factors when choosing schools, such as particular racial characteristics, religious instruction, and proximity to home (Buckley & Schneider, 2003, p. 131; Smith & Meier, 1995, pp. 470–476; Wrinkle, Stewart, & Polinard, 1999, pp. 1250–1252).…”

This School's Gone Downhill

“…Many find that as urban public schools integrate, whites leave these schools and their neighborhoods for private schools or for more raciaUy homogeneous suburban schools (Bankston and Caldas 2000;Clark 1987;Clotfelter 1976;Coleman, Kelly, and Moore 1975;Fariey, Richards, and Wurdock 1980;Giles, Cataldo, and Gatlin 1975;Hess and Leal 2001;Reardon and Yun 2001;Smock and Wilson 1991;Wrinkle, Stewart, and Polinard 1999). In the past few years, as the clamor for affordable alternatives to traditional public schooling has grown stronger, research has sho'wn that the proportion of nonwhite students in public schools significantly impacts the likelihood of white enrollment in private, charter, and magnet schools, even when controlling for actual measures of school quality such as graduation rates, test scores, safety, and student-teacher ratios (Bankston and Caldas 2000;Fairüe 2002;Fairlie and Resch 2002;Hess and Leal 2001;Renzulli and Evans 2005;Saporito 2003;Saporito and Sohoni 2006;Wrinkle et al 1999). However, there is some debate in the literature over whether or not white families are responding to school racial composition when they leave these schools.…”

“…Neighborhood residents may have access to several of these sources of information and may form their perceptions based on them. Because a school's reputation has consequences for where families choose to move (Holme 2002) and who chooses to attend them (Wrinkle et al 1999), exploring the foundation of these perceptions is important.…”

“…First, even if white neighborhood residents do not have children attending their local schools, they are likely to be concerned about the quality of schools. For those who have very young or schoolaged children, changes in the perceived quality of the neighborhood schools may influence a family's decision to send children to Catholic, other private, charter, magnet, or other nonneighborhood schools (Wrinkle et al 1999).…”