Photo by Pete Souza, courtesy of White House Photo
Why Charter Schools Are Failing Black Students
Students gather to see then-President Barack Obama at a charter school in New Orleans, LA, on October 15, 2009.
The education system has failed black children. At least, that’s how black parents see it.
As a 2017 poll shows, 42 percent of black parents believe the education provided to black students is not as good as that for whites. 90 percent do not believe that schools in black communities receive the same level of funding as schools in white communities.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 found that segregation was detrimental to the development of black children. But the parents of Linda Brown, the third-grader at the center of the case, had no complaints about the all-black school she was attending.
Nevertheless, the Brown decision led to the closing of black schools, the firing of black educators and the assimilation of black children into white schools. Over time, white students departed from these schools while white teachers remained.
The results of school integration have devastated black children. Black students are disproportionately disciplined, and the schools they attend are dilapidated and underfunded.
Given this dismal reality, it makes sense that black parents have desired an alternative to public schools—homeschooling, for example, tripled among black families from 1999 to 2007.
Given this dismal reality, it makes sense that black parents have desired an alternative to public schools.
Homeschooling, however, isn’t an option for most households. Not every parent can afford to move to a zip code with a more desirable school district. And private schools are even more prohibitive. With the cost of these other “options,” it’s no wonder that many black parents in America’s cities have turned to charter schools.
If we are going to advocate for the ability of black parents to decide how their children are educated, we must also tell the whole truth about charter schools—even if we may not like what we hear.
According to a 2019 report from the National Center for Education Statistics, charter schools are no better at improving test scores than regular public schools.
Research has also shown that charter schools are more racially isolated than other schools. Some charter advocates argue that segregation is acceptable, as long as it’s a by-product of choice. A similar argument among black charter school advocates is that integration shouldn’t be the top concern. After all, the impetus for Brown wasn’t the inadequacy or inferiority of black schools.
Black parents, however, aren’t choosing to segregate from white children. It’s white parents who choose to segregate from black children. What charter schools do is exacerbate the divide.
Black parents, however, aren’t choosing to segregate from white children. It’s white parents who choose to segregate from black children.
This has a lot to do with how children are assigned schools. Racial residential segregation produces racially segregated schools. Black pro-charter advocates are correct when they say a child’s zip code shouldn’t determine the education they receive. But they’re wrong in thinking that charters are the answer to racial segregation in schools.
For all of the talk about the liberating effect of school choice, charters are often created, funded and led by white people. Because of this, they often dismiss the importance of employing black teachers.
In New Jersey, for example, charter schools are either majority black and brown or majority white—and fifty-five percent of these schools have hired significantly fewer black teachers than public schools in the same districts. That matters because black teachers improve black student outcomes.
Not all charter schools have widened racial inequality in education. Some are governed, funded, and regulated by black people. In Chicago’s South Side, the Barbara A. Sizemore Academy was designed to offer an Afrocentric education, helping students cope with the residual effects of slavery. Unfortunately, Sizemore Academy, like other African-themed charter schools, has faced pressure to close due to low test scores.
These black-run schools are exceptional. For the most part, charter schools are privately governed by white professionals from outside the communities they serve.
Unlike public school districts, the people who run charter schools are appointed, rather than elected. In light of efforts to disenfranchise black voters, electoral representation within black communities should be a priority—maintaining local control of how black children are educated is especially important.
School board elections are often how black people are initiated into politics. Charter schools hinder those opportunities.
And of course, addressing racial segregation in schools would require addressing racial segregation in housing.
Education is a high priority for black people, dating back to our ancestor’s enslavement. It’s why black people laid the foundation for public education for themselves and white people to begin with. It’s why we challenged Jim Crow in schools.
We may disagree on how to best educate our kids. And that’s okay. I understand the desire to provide an immediate solution to a problem caused by systematic racism. But we all must ask ourselves, are charter schools really an anti-racist solution?