If you have heard of charter schools, you have probably heard an explanation along these lines:
Charter schools are publicly funded, privately operated schools which are open to all public school students who apply.
The order in which those applications are accepted, however, varies from school to school. Some schools accept English Language Learners first, others set geographic preferences. For example, the Success Academies in New York City first accept 20% English Language Learners, then give preference to students within the local school district.
In general, I do not find the use of geographic preferences problematic when the geographic boundaries are large enough to include a diverse community. However, in the city of Atlanta, one charter school has drawn its geographic preferences narrowly, resulting in de facto segregation.
The opened in August of 2001, moving into the closed Slaton Elementary School building. The school's website states that the parents who founded the school "aspired to send their children to an urban public school with a diverse student population." It also states that "ANCS is racially and economically diverse, serving a student population that is representative of the city of Atlanta."
Based on data collected by the State Department of Education, the second claim does not appear to be true.
The school is not economically diverse and its ethnic diversity has fallen year after year. Last year, only 19% of Atlanta Public School's Kindergarteners were white, but 75% of ANCS's kindergarten class was white. Last year, only 13% of the school's students qualified for free and reduced lunch programs while 75% of APS studnets qualified. At the local traditional public school, , 67% of students qualified for free or reduced lunch programs and only 22% of it's kindergarteners were white.
ANCS's rate of economic disadvantage is lower than all but two of APS's 107 schools. The rate is lower than Brandon Elementary and Smith Elementary in Buckhead. It is lower than Springdale Park which serves Midtown and Virginia Highland. It is lower than which serves Inman Park, Candler Park, and Lake Claire.
This finding is particularly surprising when you consider that Neighborhood Charter School is located in a very diverse area of the city.
Within a one-mile radius, homes are currently listed on GA MLS ranging in value from $16,900 to $425,000. However, ANCS does not provide equal opportunities for entry to resident's in a radius of the school's campus. Instead, it has drawn its own geographic boundaries, providing preference to the communities east of the school which are more affluent.
Ormewood Park residents drive two miles to reach the school. Mechanicsville and Pittsburgh are closer to the school, but their children do not get a shot at the lottery until all of Ormewood Park's students have been accepted.
In general, I am an unabashed supporter of charter schools and school choice. However, when charter schools draw specific geographic preference lines, including affluent neighborhoods, but excluding equidistant poor communities, they result in de facto segregation. That is unacceptable and regressive.
If ANCS wants to serve the neighborhood, I support that goal, but the "neighborhood" should include all the neighbors, not just those to the east who can afford expensive homes.
I urge the leaders of ANCS to amend the school's charter, expanding its geographic preference boundaries. Without such a change the aspirations of school's founders to send their kids to a public school with a "diverse student population" will not be met.
For more local school analysis and commentary, vist my blog Grading Atlanta.
You also aren't including the history of this school and the way chartering works. Summerhill was invited to be a part of ANCS but refused - angrily. Peopelstown's neighborhood association actively opposes charter schools that would either prioritize or draw from the neighborhood. You have my email address - feel free to send me or others a note whenever you are thinking about writing an article on our neighborhoods to make sure you aren't missing some major facts. There are also a couple of student dissertations available online that document the history of the creation of the school.
I'm sure you know this, but in case some don't: When talking about segregation "de facto" is a term meaning segregation NOT by law. It is used to discuss situations where factors other than a legal requirement result in segregation. Not just in Atlanta, but throughout the nation, tons of zoned public schools either are or nearly are segregated, so this title could apply to a discussion of many schools. What is unique about ANCS (and why I chose to write an article) is that it is not a regular school. It is a charter school with a narrowly defined admissions preference zone. I think (I am about to share an opinion or an unconfirmed belief) that the public perception of charter schools is that they are open to all who apply and slots are given out randomly. I think there are many in our city and the nation who don't realize that the tiered preferences can play such a big role. I also don't think most realize that ANCS in particular has such a small area in it's first geographic preference zone, even smaller than the zoned traditional school. Continued...
Clay, that's really interesting. Do you have any more info on the GA DOE position? Andrea, I will send you any article/blog I write about Jackson cluster schools at least one day before posting. If you want to review articles on any other schools, just shoot me an email saying which ones.
If your intention truly was to discuss charters limiting to small geographic areas, then you should have included Drew, Wesley, Intown Academy and the myriad other charters using the same system to zone their schools rather than point a finger at ANCS only. If the intention was to discuss your opinion about unintentional segregation at ANCS then you should have included some basic context and history of the school and neighborhood it draws students from. Making statements like "In general, I do not find the use of geographic preferences problematic when the geographic boundaries are large enough to include a diverse community" are also more inflammatory than actually useful to make that point. You did neither, so all you have really managed to do here is denigrate a school and the neighborhood it serves.
I think it's fine to want all of the schools in the city to be as racially and economically diverse as all of Atlanta. Why you would single out ANCS and use a term like 'segregation' and then claim to be making a perfectly rational point is where things get muddy. Clearly, and you know this very well, that word conjures up horrible images of the bad-old-days. If you want for all of the schools in Atlanta to have a diverse economic and racial population, then let us discuss how we can make that happen, the pluses and minuses of what it will take to do that etc. That would actually be a good discussion.
And hopefully my comment about input on articles wasn't too high handed, but everyone around here with kids spends a *lot* of time thinking about schools. I doubt anyone who has school aged children and lives near ANCS believes that all spots are given out at random. I must respond to your statements about the size of ANCS's zone because they are inaccurate. ANCS Tier 1 includes 684 K-5 children. Drew's Tier 1 includes 87 children. Drew Tier 1+Tier 2 has 162 children, so ANCS's Tier 1 is three times as big as Drew's. There are many zoned schools have much smaller attendance zones than ANCS Tier 1, including Whitefoord, Toomer, D.H. Stanton, & until redistricting Parkside. As to de facto segregation that has reoccurred in the public school system, I don't think it's the zoning typically that causes the problem. The City of Atlanta might be 54% African-American, but the children who attend City of Atlanta schools aren't. I think it's about 90%. Associating the word "segregation" with a school that is fairly diverse as schools go probably isn't going to be the best way of building more diverse schools. While I'm also concerned about regregation of schools, as a parent, I think there is a lot of value in having neighborhood schools.
Until the redistricting that took place mere months ago, Grant Park and Ormewood have been split by APS between anywhere from 3-5 elementary schools, 2-3 middle schools and 3 high schools. The fact is, APS did not serve the community well, so the community did for itself. Despite this, the community continued to work with APS (often dragging it along) in a long and strenuous effort by many to finally unite the neighborhood into a single public school zone achieved only months ago. Until the 9th hour of redistricting, Grant Park was still zoned for more than one elementary, middle and high school. And many of those that worked the hardest to improve Grant Park's public schools were those which also founded the charter. So forgive me if I feel like someone from Midtown, who clearly hasn't done enough research, is raining on the parade of those who have fought long and hard but have ultimately found a way to succeed.
Can you clarify something for me about this post: "ANCS Tier 1 includes 684 K-5 children. Drew's Tier 1 includes 87 children. Drew Tier 1+Tier 2 has 162 children, so ANCS's Tier 1 is three times as big as Drew's." The Tier 2 for Drew with 162 children ==> is this current Tier 2 population attending Drew, or total Tier 2 population? Tier 2 is Eastlake & Kirkwood, and there has to be more than 162 school age children in those two neighborhoods? And the same question for Tier 1; The Villages only have 87 school age children? And being our local unofficial demographer, you would know : - )
I wonder how many elementary aged children resided in East Lake Meadows? While I'm thrilled that East Lake is no longer Atlanta's Vietnam, these redevelopments of those housing projects resulted in a loss of children from the neighborhoods, including Villages. We need to remember this any time we're talking about the success of the redevelopments - they didn't just rehouse a segment of the population in better mixed income housing - they pushed people out. Englewood's former land sits open currently, & would love to see that redeveloped in a way that does actually act as a magnet for low income & working families with children. -Your resident demographer/historian.
As for this article, I am advocating that ANCS make a change in its charter going forward. It seems like people are concerned that the emotive language used in that argument places ANCS in a bad light, but no one seems to be disagreeing that this preference zone should be reviewed/amended.
We've all disagreed with it. Satisfied?
2. Can you answer the question I posed previously to you? ... "Wait, so you must also be suggesting that Drew eliminate or expand it's tiered attendance zones? What is the basis and threshold where a school has to "eliminate or expand" an attendance zone?
As for your second question, I don't have a rigid concept of what an appropriate geographic boundary should be. I am concerned about the current situation, but I am flexible on an appropriate solution. Here are three ideas. 1. A radius of x miles from the school. 2. A radius including x times the number of students served by the school. 3. All of APS. My gut is that all kids should have equal access to charter schools. At the same time, I appreciate Andrea's point that there's a benefit to neighborhood schools, owned by a local community. In that trade off between choice and local, I think I lean more toward choice with charters. To some extent, a chater without zoning preferences may still remain a local school as more applicants are likely to apply in the immediate region. The other two ideas try to compromise on the local vs. choice trade off, while ensuring a large community has access to the charter. The great thing about charter schools is that they're so flexible. You can try something, see how it goes and adjust if needed.
And since our resident demographer also takes great meeting notes, I have a question related to the last sentence in his opening remarks from last night's meeting: "Davis: Two issues to address before opening to questions. 1) What are you doing now that you redistricting is over? We are deeply engaged in a body of work to establish a culture of excellence across all schools. Our 3 year-round schools opened this week - great to be back in. I've made a number of staff appointments. We're focusing on professional development for teachers. We're rolling out the common core Georgia performance standards. We will start when our traditional schools open in the new cluster format - what does that mean? What's cluster planning? It's our vision every cluster will be a cluster of choice." (continued)
You are taking the charters to task for their attendance tiers, without knowing their histories or why the tiers were created that way. You want the charters to change their attendance policies because YOU don't like them. Are you also taking APS to task for the same thing? Although Davis says he wants the new clusters to be a "cluster of choice", at the same time he has eliminated/restricted many of the transfer policies that existed in APS. You mention that families should not be locked out of their school of choice because they can't afford a home in the attendance zone, but how is that any different from any family in our (Jackson) cluster wanting to attend SPARK, Morningside, or Jackson Elementaries? Do you think any of us could attend Grady High as our "choice" high school? (Not saying that any of us would...) Will you also be writing an article about traditional PUBLIC schools that everyone pays into with their tax dollars, and about how their attendance zones are restricted? Are will you just stick with charters?
I'm not trying to be combative, but I'm going to ask you something that could rub you the wrong way: Why should any of us in Southeast Atlanta care what you think (one way or the other) about our schools? I don't believe you are a parent, you don't live in our area, you are not an education expert. Frankly speaking, unless you are Daddy Warbucks offering large education enrichment grants to our schools, I can't think of a reason why any of us should get too wrapped up in anything you write. No offense, but you are a person just the like the rest of us, no better & no less. Your profession is as a forensic accountant, correct? If you REALLY wanted to improve the local schools, you would do some pro bono work down at Trinity Avenue and find out just how much money has been pissed away over the years, which department the next scandal will come from, why APS' administrative rate per student is almost twice as much as other school systems, the real reason why APS is reducing the per child amounts to the charter schools, or why the pension system has been grossly underfunded for years. If you find the answers to any of those questions, I think you'll garner enough accolades to be the next Mayor.
Thankfully, we live in a nation and a city where de jure segregation ended a long time ago. However, our school populations are still largely determined by how much house you can afford. It's not that people living in the ANCS or SPARK zones are malicious. It's just a natural effect of zoning that good schools create demand and increase real estate prices. That ultimately results in exclusion of those without the means to pay the higher prices. In my view, charter schools give us a great opportunity to recreate to world of education as it should be. I think that world is one where children's opportunities are not limited by where their parents can afford to live. I am just a person trying to persuade you that ANCS has an opportunity to untie real estate prices from education access that that is an important action to take.