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We examine the effect of the expansion of charter schools on socioeconomic segregation in American public education. Using a district-level panel data set from 1998 to 2015, we describe and model changes in within-district segregation of low-income students, proxied by free-lunch eligibility (FLE). We show that the segregation of FLE students from non-FLE students increased by about 15% in large school districts and find that charter school penetration and growth played a role in increasing socioeconomic segregation within districts. We estimate that a one standard deviation increase in charter enrollment rates increases the dissimilarity index in a district by 6% of a standard deviation. Although this impact is modest, we do find that segregation is more pervasive in the charter sector. So, continued growth of charter schools could exacerbate socioeconomic segregation.
Marcotte et al. (Wed,) studied this question.