Gary Orfield, codirector of the Civil Rights Project, believes school districts that fund charters do not do enough to promote racial integration in these schools. “Creating choice without serious civil-rights policies tends to reflect and even reinforce segregation,” he writes in the report’s foreword. Before the study was even released, however, advocates were already rallying to defend charter schools. Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform, a pro-charter organization, says the Harvard study is “misleading” because it compares charter-school segregation with the racial composition in all public schools nationally–rather than to the charter’s home districts. When charters are compared with their own district’s racial makeup, they fare better, she says, as many charters are in heavily segregated urban areas. The schools are there because that’s where there is the most need for alternative public schools. “The idea that charters have more black faces per capita is something we should be celebrating,” Allen says, “because these families are choosing to take their kids out of failing schools. For many, it’s the first time they’ve been given that opportunity.”
