At the outset of this study, two central questions were raised: where do students attend school when all geographic boundaries are eliminated, and what factors influence or restrict where students attend school? Data from the 2017 New Orleans Equity Index, in addition to Torsten Hägerstrand’s theory of time geography have allowed for the inquiry into these questions through the lenses of geography, school quality, access, distance, financial resources, and student and family characteristics. Results from this study answer the research questions thusly: schools in the wealthiest areas of New Orleans are less likely to enroll economically-disadvantaged students, Black students, students with disabilities, and are less likely to provide transportation support to students. Schools located in the wealthiest areas of the city also score the highest on school quality metrics, attract a higher number of students, charge higher annual enrollment fees to attend, and are more likely to require additional enrollment requirements for students. In line with high levels of desirability, schools in wealthier areas such as Uptown/Carrollton attract students living the farthest distances from their schools, and have parents using the longest amounts of time to make the journey to school. From other supporting research, it is clear that families outside of the wealthiest areas of town are also less likely to have access to private transportation, and are more likely to rely on public transportation that greatly extends the time needed to travel to school for both students and parents.
These conclusions are important when considering that the rationales of the charter school system introduced in the literature, whereby the “classical market” rationale would expand educational opportunities for the poor, and the “biased market” rationale would instead further exacerbate educational inequality. Is the classical rationale correct in assuming that minorities will be better served by schools that pay no mind to one’s
geographic location? Is the decentralized system more responsive to change, making schools more efficient and leading to greater equity? I believe the results are mixed, but that overall, the charter system in New Orleans more closely resembles the “biased market” rationale, where the inherent, systemically biased practices act in favour of those already better off, thereby exacerbating existing inequalities.
For all its intentions to open up the best schools to all students, those families with the time, funds and knowledge are ultimately more successful in taking advantage of the system.
This is evident when the schools in the wealthiest zones of the city also have students coming
from families and zones where adults are more likely to have completed their own high school education. Those with car access and the time to travel across town on a semi-daily basis also have the capital to enroll their children in schools that do not provide transportation support. This is likely easier for those in higher paying jobs that come with flexible
schedules, as opposed to lower-wage jobs tied to strict, shift-based schedules.
Personal testimony from New Orleans parents included in this study have lined up with those of the parents in Andersson et al.’s analysis of the Swedish experience of
geographic boundary elimination. Both feature parents of minority and low-income children who prefer to stay closer to home and among students who are more likely to look like their own children. Conversely, parents with higher education levels in both studies tended to send their children to higher-ranked schools farther away from home, and with more white
students.
In regard to the system’s redistributive hopes of diversifying student body
populations, the charter school system in New Orleans has failed. Schools are now actually more segregated than they were in the previous system, particularly for Black high school students, Hispanic elementary and high school students, low-income high school students, and for high school students who are English language learners (Bell Weixler, Barrett, &
Harris, 2017). In a system made up of 83% Black students, Henig and McDonald’s finding that even with existing geographic segregation, classical neighbourhood schools would be more racially diverse than a charter school network, does indeed ring true (2002).
The loss of a central governing body or traditional school district also provides additional insight into the complexities of the charter school system in New Orleans. In the past, where a simple address translated into a streamlined admissions process, the wide variety of enrollment requirements, fee levels, transportation offerings, and school operators create a system that is ever-changing. New rules are also being put into place on a yearly basis to counteract the struggles and confusions faced by families trying to navigate the system. Before the introduction of OneApp, there was no central application system, until the 2017 school year, there was no requirement that elementary schools provide transportation (this will be a requirement in the future). Before OneApp, students were also not given enrollment preferences when siblings went to a school, or for attending schools in their own zone. Both of those are now taken into consideration by most schools following pushback from parents.
Students who are lucky enough to win a place at a top school can still face challenges following through with enrollment and registration. For example, in 2017, International High
School received its second warning in three years from the state Department of Education for discouraging students who were granted spaces in the school from actually registering, after the school deemed the students “a bad fit” (Jewson, 2017c). The desire to attract the best students and dissuade the more challenged ones is the system’s “Achilles heel,” even in the eyes of Caroline Roemer Shirley, the head of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools. She cites control as the central issue for schools:
“There is some unease among the charters about ceding too much control to the district, she said. After all, one major impetus behind charters is to give school leaders the chance to run things without the meddling of a central office. A centralized system for placing students is seen by some as “the camel getting his nose in the tent,” she said. “Today it’s enrollment, tomorrow, they want to run our curriculum” (Vanacore, 2011).
While the power to control curriculum may seem like overreach into the privately-run system, the characterisation of using a single enrollment system to level the playing field for parents as “meddling” in a school’s private affairs is alarming. As mentioned earlier by Williams, the decentralization of application systems and requirements is what made his introduction to the charter school system so difficult to navigate and can act as a barrier to families (2014).
The role of geography in education is multifaceted. To some, it carries with it a local community and identity, to others it represents ideas of containment and segregation. In the case of New Orleans charter school system, the role of geography in education has been fully reimagined by policymakers. However, while geography may have limited families in the previous system in terms of where students were destined to attend school, I believe that geography still plays a different, limiting role in where students attend school, even in a system without geographic boundaries. Whereas arbitrary lines divided the city in the past, more complex barriers of income, transportation access, and enrollment fees are what limit some families from moving beyond their prior geographic limitations. Without the
comprehensive transportation support of a traditional school system, an enrollment system that treats all students equally, and the willingness by privately-run schools to enthusiastically enroll any student that is able to gain a seat at their schools, geography will still limit low-income families to more local schools, and schools that are lower-performing. Some students will be able to take advantage of new opportunities and travel to new neighbourhoods, but it will still equate to those who are already better off having the ability to move on to better schools.
The solution to systemic inequity in education is still not known, and whether the New Orleans charter school experiment will lead to sustained educational gains still remains to be seen. However, the complete reorganisation of the school system on both geographic and private ownership terms has provided a new opportunity to understand how students and families navigate a system never seen before in the United States. Thanks to Hägerstrand’s concepts surrounding geography and the different types of barriers that exist within society, a comprehensive analysis of the charter system’s geographic properties provides both families and policymakers with important positives and caveats to consider.