Exiting Detroit for school: inequitable choice sets and school quality

Race, Geography, and School Choice Policy: A Critical Analysis of Detroit Students’ Suburban School Choices

“…Instead, Detroit families bear the costs of enrolling in suburban schools (e.g., longer commutes, lack of political influence over their schools) without many of the perceived benefits (i.e., higher quality or racially integrated schools). In addition, this shift of Detroit students to suburban schools has significant costs for school systems in Detroit, as resources follow students into suburban schools (Lenhoff et al, 2020). Given the significant concentration of Detroit students in particular suburban schools, this raises questions about suburban school choice as a vehicle for Detroiters' opportunity and the state's interest in funding Detroit students' suburban enrollment.…”

“…We compared these characteristics of Detroit exiters’ schools with the schools that suburban students attend, as well as to the Detroit exiters’ choices in the city. To construct Detroit school choice sets, we used a methodology that creates a weighted average of the characteristics of schools attended by a student’s neighborhood peers, defined as those in the same grade level and living in the same neighborhood (Lenhoff et al, 2020). We also disaggregated these analyses by exiters’ identified race; and, for comparisons with Detroit choice set schools and suburban students’ schools, we tested differences for all students and for only students in districts bordering Detroit.…”

“…To build on prior research by ourselves and others, we focus specifically on the suburban school choices of Detroit students. Only about one out of five students living in Detroit attend their residentially assigned public school (Singer, 2020), with nearly one in four Detroit resident students attending a school in the suburbs via interdistrict open enrollment or suburban charters (Lenhoff et al, 2020).…”

“…When suburban districts are closer to a school district with a large Black residential population, they are more likely to enact restrictive enrollment policies; and these restrictions are associated with significantly lower levels of nonresident Black student enrollment (Lenhoff, 2020). In addition, while Detroit students (and especially Black Detroit students) who choose suburban schools are pushed by inequitable access to quality schools in Detroit and pulled toward schools with higher overall test scores (Lenhoff et al, 2020), far distances prevent them from enrolling in schools with the highest test scores (Edwards, 2021). 1 The present study builds on this prior research by contextualizing these policy arrangements and enrollment dynamics with theoretical insight and empirical evidence about the racialization of space and sociospatial dynamics of school choice.…”

“I Just Didn’t Want to Risk It”: How Perceptions of Risk Motivate Charter School Choice Among Latinx Parents

“…I e-mailed the principals of schools in this network about a project that would interview incoming families, and the principal of HCP Charter gave their approval. I chose to focus on just one campus to control for region because geography deeply shapes schooling options and exit opportunities (Bell, 2009; Denice & Gross, 2016; Lenhoff et al, 2020).…”