Study: Charter Schools Increasing Racial Segregation in Classrooms

AMY GOODMAN: While the charter school movement is growing, some concerns are being raised about the system.
A new study by UCLA’s Civil Rights Project suggests charter school growth is increasing classroom segregation. Seven out of ten black charter school students attend schools with extremely low numbers of white students. Black students account for 32 percent of charter school enrollment nationwide, twice the percentage enrolled in public schools. The UCLA report is entitled “Charter Schools’ Political Success is a Civil Rights Failure.”

Gary Orfield joins us now on the telephone. He’s co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, author of many books including School Resegregation: Must the South Turn Back? and Dismantling Desegregation: The Quiet Reversal of Brown v. Board of Education.

Gary Orfield, welcome to Democracy Now! Explain the results of your study.   Read transcript

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