Mary Pattillo S Charter School Research Shows South Side Students Don T Really Have A Choice

As you may have figured out by now, I have what you might call a—oh—conflicted attitude toward the charter school movement.

Over the past few years, Pattillo has focused on school choice. Her research is a constant reminder to people like me: Don’t lose sight of the anxiety that so many ordinary working-class and low-income parents and guardians have about sending their children to high-crime, low-scoring, dead-broke neighborhood schools.

Ideally, school choice would mean that all students get to select from schools including expensive private ones such as the U. of C. Lab School or Francis Parker, or even well-funded suburban public ones like New Trier. But for most black south-side Chicagoans, choice comes down to either a local charter school, which limits enrollment to those who apply, or the local neighborhood school, whose doors are open to anyone who walks in.

Pattillo’s study—”Black Politics and Social Choice”—was published in the May 2015 issue of the Du Bois Review, a scholarly journal. Parents from both schools told Pattillo they were looking for a school that would get their children the kind of education they needed to prepare for college. And not surprisingly, safety and security were major concerns for both sets of parents.

None of the people Pattillo interviewed were well off, but she found that the Neighborhood High guardians were even poorer than their Charter High counterparts. The median income for Charter High parents was $25,000; it was just $5,000 for Neighborhood High. In addition, roughly 71 percent of Neighborhood High guardians were unemployed. In contrast, 35 percent of the Charter School guardians were unemployed. The Charter High guardians also were more likely to have a car and access to the Internet, and more likely to attend church.

“Even the Charter Parents told me that they were glad they won the lottery,” Pattillo said. “But they were beleaguered by the process. I don’t take the waiting list at charters as evidence that they want more charters. What they want is more high-quality schools.”