Michigan schools are tied for second most segregated in the nation with Mississippi for African American students, according to a new report from the Associated Press.
The AP report suggests that the segregation is driven, in part, by schools of choice. On average, Charter schools were more segregated than their public school counterparts.
Mary Grech is with Education Trust-Midwest, an education policy research group. She said it’s not clear why charter schools would drive segregation.
“It’s not clear why but if you can sort of imagine if parents in inner-ring suburbs choose to go to schools of choice farther out from main cities they choose to go to schools that are whiter and more affluent and you can start to see a cascading effect.”
According to the AP, 64 percent of black charter school students are in schools that are 90 percent black.
Buddy Moorehouse is with the Michigan Association of Public School Academies. He said it isn’t fair to blame schools for segregation.
“The fact in Michigan is that Michigan charter schools are totally reflective of the communities in which they are located. Most charter schools in Michigan are in high poverty, urban areas. If you go into any charter school in Michigan it’s going to look like the community in which it’s located.”
Moorehouse said he disagrees with the entire premise of the AP report.
“By their very nature, there is no segregation in Charter schools because nobody is forced to go to a charter school and nobody is prohibited from going to a charter school.”
Grech, with Education Trust-Midwest, said regardless of how it happens segregation - both racial and economic - hurts student performance.
“That kind of isolation and segregation just really puts poor kids at huge disadvantages and then that really hurts their chances of getting opportunities that rich and middle-class families have all the time.”
In a written statement representatives from the Michigan Department of Education said quote “it is the parents’ decision to enroll their student where they believe is the best educational fit for them.”