1. Where the Schools Are: An Examination of Charter School Location and Its Implications
Carol S. Weissert, Matthew J. Uttermark and Kenneth Mackie
LeRoy Collins Institute
September 27th, 2018

2. Why are we Talking About School Location?

3. Groups are looking to start two new charter schools in Leon County
“Originally, charter schools were intended by the Legislature to concentrate specifically on low performing students, especially those who were struggling to read. While history has proven that areas of poverty have a disproportionate number of struggling students, charter schools in Leon County aren’t even located near neighborhoods with the highest needs. . . This system is not equal.”
- Rocky Hanna in the Tallahassee Democrat April 3rd, 2018

4. Overview Using a geospatial analysis we will examine this claim.
Overview how we have collected geospatial data on charter schools
We will explore if a charter school:
Is located near areas of need
Placement has varied overtime
Location varies based on the type of charter school
Enrolls students that mirror surrounding community demographics

5. Overview
Takeaway points
Charter Schools – for the most part – are doing a good job!
Placed closer to areas of high diversity and limited mobility
Patterns have not changed since the 1990s
Both Corporate and Community charters place in areas of need
Charter school enrollment mirrors surrounding neighborhoods – and even manages to have slightly higher enrollment for Blacks

6. What is a Geospatial Analysis?

7. Geospatial Analysis Schools are located in geographic space District
Number
Miami-Dade
133 out of
(485)
Broward
110
(348)
Palm Beach 57
(234)
Hillsborough 47
(289)
Orange 40
(243)
Schools are located in geographic space
Using coordinates (latitude and longitude) we can plot them on a map
We have 692 Charter Schools in our sample
Concentrated in urban areas
Especially south Florida

9. Overlay Census Tract Maps with Demographic data
We draw 1, 2 and 5 mile boundaries around each school in our sample
If the center of a Census Tract falls within the circle we connect the Tract’s data with the Charter School
This gives us our community profiles with which we can conduct comparisons.

11. Where Are the Charter Schools?

12. Where Are the Charter Schools?
We begin by looking at SES and demographic factors for all charter schools
We find that as we draw boundaries farther from Charter schools:
Rental rates decrease
Communities become less Black
Communities become less Hispanic
We can observe these patterns in the following bar charts

13. Renters

14. Blacks

15. Hispanics

16. Hispanics – Subsets

17. What About When We Look Overtime?

18. What About When We Look Overtime?
We examine the SES and demography of characteristics of charter schools—based on when the school was opened
Two year intervals
Only presenting the 1 mile analysis, but results are identical when examined at the 2 and 5 mile level
We find no long-term overtime trends between charter school placement and demographics
Placement is the highest for Black communities in the 1990s
Placement is the highest for Hispanic communities in the 2000s
However, there is a lot of variation
We average over two-year intervals to cut down on variation

19. Renters

20. Blacks

21. Hispanics

22. What About When We Look at Charter Type?

23. What About When We Look at Charter Type?
We compare Charter school started by individuals in the community against those formed by Charter Corporations
We find that Charters do place themselves in diverse neighborhoods – however, the findings are bifurcated
Community charters are more likely to place in Black neighborhoods
Corporate charters are more likely to place in Hispanic neighborhoods

24. Renters

25. Blacks

26. Hispanics

27. Hispanics

28. How do School Demographics Compare to the Surrounding Community?

29. How do School Demographics Compare to the Surrounding Community?
We compare neighborhood demographics to the enrolled rates of Blacks and Hispanics within Charter schools.
Enrollment rates were gathered from the Department of Education
Overall, charters do a good job representing their surrounding neighborhoods
Black enrollment is higher in charter schools than surrounding neighborhoods
Hispanic enrollment is about the same surrounding neighborhoods

30. Blacks

31. Hispanics

32. Conclusions

33. Conclusions Our findings do not support Rocky’s claim.
We find evidence that Charter schools place themselves in both diverse socio-economic environments and diverse racial environments.
Evidence which supports the Florida Legislature’s original goal
Moreover, this pattern of school placement has remained broadly consistent over the past twenty years.
However, the distribution of Charter types is not uniform. Community charters are more common in Black neighborhoods, while Corporate charters more common in Hispanic communities.
School demography mirrors community demography