When schools open: Student mobility and racial sorting across new charter schools in Kansas City, Missouri

Does opening new schools of choice in urban areas lead to increased racial isolation among students? We examine whether the availability of new charter schools in Kansas City, Missouri, shapes patterns of segregation using student-level data between 2012 and 2016. We find that White students are over-represented among those who switch into new charter schools, and that they enter schools with lower proportions of Black students and higher proportions of other White students. This suggests that the sorting of students into new charter schools led to slightly increased levels of racial segregation. But rather than a generalized phenomenon, this sorting appears to be due to two schools with particular characteristics. As cities look to attract more affluent and White families to their urban public schools by opening up new school options, we conclude by discussing how such policies might come at the expense of educational opportunities for lower-income, non-White residents.