Archived - National Study of Charter Schools: Students of Charter Schools

The findings suggest that charter schools as a group do not serve White students primarily or disproportionately, but they do not address the question: Do charter schools tend to serve economically advantaged students more than other public schools? The following discussion addresses this issue.

Eligibility for Free or Reduced-Price Lunch

ESTIMATED PERCENTAGE OF STUDENTS ELIGIBLE FOR FREE AND REDUCED-PRICE LUNCH IN CHARTER SCHOOLS (1996-97) AND ALL PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE SIXTEEN CHARTER STATES (1994-95)

State	Students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch
	Charter schools		All public schools
	# of students	% of students^[1]	# of students	% of students^[2]
California	15,620	37.1%	2,257,008	43.7%
Arizona	6,877	42.2%	284,357	40.1%
Michigan	3,109	30.3%	459,747	29.0%
Colorado	1,227	19.1%	174,023	27.4%
Minnesota	1,107	51.7%	217,375	27.4%
Massachusetts	1,433	36.0%	225,110	26.2%
Texas	1,379	60.9%	1,662,900	45.9%
Wisconsin	168	16.1%	210,011	24.7%
Georgia	1,899	27.9%	501,824	39.7%
Florida	285	63.9%	895,510	43.3%
New Mexico	1,179	31.9%	159,740	49.8%
Louisiana	231	82.2%	474,608	61.4%
Alaska	5	5.5%	32,340	26.5%
Delaware	15	5.2%	33,738	34.2%
Dist. of Columbia	100	57.5%	48,370	62.3%
Hawaii	127	15.3%	48,661	26.5%
Total^[3]	34,761	35.8%	7,685,322	40.2%

1 The percentage of charter school students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch is computed by dividing the number of eligible students by the total number of enrolled students. This figure relies on information from 319 open charter schools that reported information on free and reduced-price lunch.

2 The percentage of students in all public schools eligible for free and reduced-price lunch was computed using two sources. Eligibility counts by state were provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, Program Information Division, for the 1993-94 school year. Total student counts were derived from the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics 1994-95 Common Core of Data Survey, including students from schools which were open and where student enrollment was reported. For each state, the total number of eligible students was divided by total number of students to develop a percentage of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch.

3 In interpreting the meaning of the figures in the Total row, it is important to realize that California has the largest number of students in charter schools, representing almost half (46 percent) of all charter school students for the time period shown in the table. California also accounts for about 45 percent of all charter school students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, but the state represents less than thirty percent of the students in public schools in the 16 charter states. These figures imply that the total percent of charter school students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch is positively affected by the California numbers and the total percent of eligible public school students is influenced by the California numbers to a lesser degree.

These data should be interpreted with caution for two reasons. First, fewer charter schools reported information on free and reduced-price lunch than on other survey questions used for earlier analyses (84 percent of schools in the 89 percent sample responded to the free and reduced-price lunch question). Moreover, there is variation across the sixteen charter states in the degree to which response patterns influence the total percentages of eligible students. California has the largest number of students in charter schools, and also the largest number of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch. However, the state represents less than thirty percent of the students in public schools in the sixteen charter states. The total percent of charter school students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch is positively affected by the California numbers and the total percent of eligible public school students is influenced by the California numbers to a lesser degree.

Given these reservations regarding the data and how they should be interpreted, we wanted to look beyond the broad state level patterns to understand whether charter schools disproportionately serve more economically advantaged students compared to other public schools. Though the data are not as complete as the data presented on racial concentration, we can provide an exploratory analysis that addresses the question: Do charter schools tend to serve students that are economically more advantaged, using eligibility for free and reduced-price lunch as a surrogate measure of economic disadvantage?

Concentration of Economically Disadvantaged Students. To investigate the concentration of economically disadvantaged students served by charter schools, we divided the distributions of the percentage of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch into thirds, as we did previously for racial concentration. Exhibit 4-10 shows that about half of charter schools are schools in which fewer than one-third of the students are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch. Almost a third of the schools are schools in which more than two-thirds of the students come from poor backgrounds. Since 16 percent of the responding charter schools did not answer this question, these estimates of concentration are less accurate than the estimates for racial concentration.

ESTIMATED CONCENTRATION OF STUDENTS ELIGIBLE FOR FREE AND REDUCED-PRICE LUNCH IN CHARTER SCHOOLS (1996-97)

Proportion of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch	# of charter schools in sample	% of charter schools in sample
<1/3	165	51.7%
1/3-2/3	60	18.8%
>2/3	94	29.5%
Total	319	100.0%

Charter Schools Compared to Their Districts. We were able to obtain district-level data on the eligibility of students for free and reduced-lunch only for a limited sample of school districts in which charter schools were located.^[15] We therefore can make comparisons of charter schools to surrounding districts for 225 of the 381 charter schools.^[16] Since this constitutes less than 60 percent of the responding charter schools, we caution the reader that the statistics are subject to substantial errors and that the analyses must be treated as indicative only.^[17]

Similar to our analysis for racial composition, we defined a charter school as distinct from its surrounding district if its percentage of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch is 20 percent more or less than the district average. Exhibit 4-11 shows the following results: About half of the 225 charter schools are not distinct from their surrounding districts, one-quarter serve a distinctively higher proportion of low-income students compared to the district, and one-quarter serve a distinctively lower proportion of low-income students.

ESTIMATED PERCENTAGE OF CHARTER SCHOOLS (1996-97) COMPARED TO THE AVERAGE OF THE SURROUNDING DISTRICTS' PERCENTAGE OF STUDENTS ELIGIBLE FOR FREE AND REDUCED-PRICE LUNCH

We next explore the relationship between the concentration of low-income children and the distinctiveness of the charter school from the district. Exhibit 4-12 shows the following results:

ESTIMATED CONCENTRATION OF STUDENTS RECEIVING FREE AND REDUCED-PRICE LUNCH IN CHARTER SCHOOLS (1996-97) COMPARED TO SURROUNDING DISTRICTS (1993-94)^[1]

Proportion of FRL students	Not distinct from district [within 20% of district average]	Higher % FRL students than district [>20% of district average]	Lower % FRL students than district [<20% of district average]	% of all schools	# of schools
<1/3	23.6%	0.0%	23.1%	46.7%^[2]	105
1/3-2/3	15.6%	1.8%	2.2%	19.6%	44
>2/3	11.6%	21.3%	0.9%	33.8%	76
# schools	114	52	59	100.0%	225

B. Percentage of Proportion of Low-Income Students (Read Percentage Across Row)

Proportion of FRL students	Not distinct from district [within 20% of district average]	Higher % FRL students than district [>20% of district average]	Lower % FRL students than district [<20% of district average]
<1/3	50.5%	0.0%	49.5%
1/3-2/3	79.5%	9.1%	11.4%
>2/3	34.2%	63.2%	2.6%
# schools	50.7%	23.1%	26.2%

C. Percentage of Distinctiveness from District (Read Percentage Down Column)

Proportion of FRL students	Not distinct from district [within 20% of district average]	Higher % FRL students than district [>20% of district average]	Lower % FRL students than district [<20% of district average]	% FRL across all schools
<1/3	46.5%	0.0%	88.1%	46.7%
1/3-2/3	30.7%	7.7%	8.5%	19.6%
>2/3	22.8%	92.3%	3.4%	33.8%

1 This exhibit draws on 1996-97 data from open charter schools where both school and district information on free and reduced-price lunch is available. Data for the majority of comparison districts was derived from district-level reports of free and reduced-price lunch information as reported by the National Center for Education Statistics, 1993-94 Schools and Staffing Survey Teacher Demand and Shortage Questionnaire for Public School Districts. Where charter schools draw students from more than one district, free and reduced-price lunch data were averaged across the relevant districts. Complete data were unavailable because SASS includes a sample of school districts, rather than the population of districts. For two additional states (AZ and MA), we were able to obtain supplemental 1996-97 data from state sources.

2 These proportions of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch differ from those reported in Exhibit 4-11 because fewer schools are included. Only those open charter schools where both school and district information on free and reduced-price lunch is available were used in this analysis.

The next section uses qualitative information from our fieldwork to explore these findings further.
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B. Are Charter Schools Serving Economically Disadvantaged Students?

Eligibility for Free or Reduced-Price Lunch