School Choice as a Civil Right: District Responses to Competition and Equal Educational Opportunity

Using geographic representations to examine choice policies and patterns in a major urban area, this analysis considers how districts in a metropolitan area are responding to competitive incentives in arranging options for African American students. The findings demonstrate that the distribution of districts' school choice policies exclude poorer students of color from the more preferred school options. The decision of districts to open or close their boundaries to non-residents is tied to both the physical proximity of districts to poorer communities, and to their relative status within the local market hierarchy. Thus, rather than seeing districts compete to attract students (and per-pupil funding) from failing schools, we are instead witnessing a process of districts targeting more preferred students—effectively ignoring the potentially lucrative pool of dissatisfied families (and per-pupil funding) in failing districts. This suggests that districts are responding to a set of incentives quite different from the ones envisioned by reformers, so that although choice is opening up school options, better choices are less available for poor students and students of color.