MEASURING THE SOCIOSPATIAL EFFECTS OF CHARTER SCHOOLS IN LA BROCK HICKS
MASTER’S CANDIDATE IN URBAN + REGIONAL PLANNING (BROCKHICKS@UCLA.EDU) UCLA LUSKIN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS
LA COUNTY
APPLIED PLANNING RESEARCH PROJECT APRIL 2015
INTRODUCTION
LA COUNTY
.
DATA
THE GEOGRAPHY OF STUDY Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)
1. CALIFORNIA DEPT. OF EDUCATION Current schools database + Longitudinal administrative data (Enrollment, Free Reduced-Price Meals, English Language Learners, API) 2. LAUSD Charters database + TPS attendance boundaries for 2002 and 2014 (only years available) 3. GEOLYTICS Neighborhood Change Database (packaged tract-level Census and ACS data with tract boundaries normalized to 2010)
City of LA + its neighborhoods
2nd largest district in the US (LA City + a few neighbors)
WHAT IS A . . . .
METHODS
TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOL (TPS) A school that is maintained at public expense for the
education of the children of a community or district and that constitutes part of a system of free public education. No selection criteria are allowed and all students may attend, regardless of background.
COLLAPSE INTO STUDY PERIODS
PRIVATE SCHOOL (PS) A school founded, run, and maintained by a private group rather than by
the government, usually charging tuition and often following a particular philosophy, viewpoint, etc. Many schools have complex selection processes with strict selection criteria.
SCHOOLS
6 three-year periods
HOODS
3 Census periods
SPATIALIZE DATA
CHARTER SCHOOL (CS) An independently run public school granted greater flexibility in return for greater accountability for performance. Unlike PS, they cannot ‘select’ students based on any predetermined criteria; in practice, certain criterion often biases the selection process. Charters are either startups or conversions from TPS.
ESTABLISH CS ATTENDANCE AREAS
Calc avg area of TPS areas by level for each period
CALC PCT CHANGES
Calc unique area for each CS = each CS enrollment / TPS student/m2 density
RESTRUCTURE BEFORE/AFTER
Join schools to CS buffers
Each 3-year period
3-year periods
Join CS buffers to census tracts
Each Census period
Census periods
THE RESEARCH PROJECT
BUFFER CHARTERS
By TPS area avgs By unique area value for each CS
ANALYSIS DESCRIPTIVE MULTIVARIATE
Mapping + comparisons of pct changes
Fixed-effect regression models
CHARTER ATTENDANCE AREAS
This project measures socioeconomic change—across space and time—associated with startup charter school emergence in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The scope is the entire district, from the first charters in the 1990s to the present.
1993/94 to 1999/00 VENTURA COUNTY
PURPOSE
2000/01 to 2009/10 VENTURA COUNTY
2010/11 to 2013/14 VENTURA COUNTY
LA COUNTY
LA COUNTY
L COU
Charter schools are a relatively new formulation of the neighborhood educational institution. The neighborhood public school has played an important role historically in the development of US cities. LA is a hotspot for charter growth and charter educational reform. Little is known about the effects of charter schools on cities and urban neighborhoods. Given the empirically-tested, long-established link between school quality and neighborhood quality, research on the potential impacts of charters is necessary. Could the search for higher quality schools outside a household’s neighborhood be the first step in eventual relocation? Could family households with school-age children be agents of neighborhood change and new gentrifiers in Los Angeles?
PACIFIC OCEAN
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
0
Charter School Attendance Areas
Charter School Census Tracts (>50% by area)
ORANGE Charter School Census Tracts (>50% by area)
ORANGE Charter School Census Tracts (>50% by area)
LAUSD
LAUSD
LAUSD
City of LA
5
10
CHARTER SCHOOL
704
700
646
NO. OF SCHOOLS
600
589
614
300
545
511
6,533 Absolute percent change 1996-2013 363 Average percent change per year
200
109
100 -
VENTURA COUNTY
627
593
500 400
3
11
1996/97 – 1998/99
1999/00 – 2001/02
739
653
163
2005/06 – 2007/08
2008/09 – 2010/11
VENTURA COUNTY
LA COUNTY
PACIFIC OCEAN
518
LA COUNTY
PERCENT OF LAUSD PUBLIC SCHOOLS
100%
1%
2%
8%
90%
CHARTER SCHOOL 14%
2011/12 – 2013/14
NUMBER OF CHARTER SCHOOLS BY CENSUS TRACT
21%
NUMBER OF CHARTER SCHOOLS BY CENSUS TRACT
3 4-5 6 - 10
5-7 8 - 14
40%
2,000 Relative percent change 1996-2013 111 Average percent change per year
LAUSDboundary
0
5
30% 20% 10% 0% 1996/97 – 1998/99
1999/00 – 2001/02
2002/03 – 2005/06 – 2004/05 2007/08 3‐YEAR PERIODS
2008/09 – 2010/11
2011/12 – 2013/14
LAcityOutline
10
2000/01 to 2009/10 20 Miles
PACIFIC OCEAN
2
70%
50%
0
5
10
0
Charter school attendance areas
LAUSD
Charter school census tracts (intersect >= 50% by area)
City of LA
520 Miles 10
20 Miles
N
LA County census tracts
+ 1.6%
Median household income
+ 6.6%
Median gross rent ( CS tracts also had greater loss of renter-occupied units (-2.19) )
+ 13.1%
Proportion of non-hispanic white (CS tracts saw a higher percent change in white pop.) ORANGE
(for 1990-2000, when there were only 5 total charters, the difference was nearly identical)
COUNTY
LAUSDboundary
0
5
Coming soon! The preliminary descriptives tell an interesting story about neighborhood change, but fail to control for may factors—like major differences between neighborhoods. Will the seemingly substantial differences between tracts with charter schools and tracts without hold up to regression analysis?
3-4
1
PACIFIC OCEAN
2
80%
60%
20 Miles
MULTIVARIATE 1
19%
10
LA County Census Tracts
199
3‐YEAR PERIODS
TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOL
5
City of LA
Mean percent changes 2000 to 2010 in charter census tracts vs. non-charter census tracts (discluding outliers)
53 2002/03 – 2004/05
0
LA County Census Tracts
DESCRIPTIVE
DENSITY BY CENSUS TRACT
PRIVATE SCHOOL
800
20 Miles
City of LA
ORAN COUN
COUNTY
VERY PRELIMINARY FINDINGS
CONTEXT DRAMATIC CHARTER GROWTH IN LA TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOL
Charter School Attendance Areas
COUNTY
LA County Census Tracts
PACIFIC OCEAN
1) the effects on surrounding neighborhoods district-wide; and 2) the effects on adjacent public schools (a microcosm of the neighborhood)?
PACIFIC OCEAN
Charter School Attendance Areas
What are the [sociospatial] effects of charter school growth in the LAUSD on surrounding neighborhoods and traditional public schools? Specifically, what does a comparison of before and after charter school openings indicate about:
PACIFIC OCEAN
LAcityOutline
10
ORANGE COUNTY
ORANGE COUNTY
2010/11 to 2013/14 20 Miles
1 charter
4-5 charters
1 charter
5-7 charters
2 charters
6-10 charters
2 charters
8-14 charters
3 charters
3-4 charters
NEXT STEPS
ORANGE COUNTY
1. Spatialize the schools-to-schools longitudinal dataset; calculate percent changes between 3-year periods; restructure for before/after analysis. 2. In both datasets, compare means of selected percent change variables 3. Construct fixed-effect regression models 4. Write a report and graduate!
N
BACKDROP MAP “CONSTELLATION OF SCHOOL CHOICE IN LAUSD (2014/15)”
TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOL
PRIVATE SCHOOL
STARTUP CHARTER
CONVERSION CHARTER
CLIENT FACULTY CHAIRS
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS DR. PAAVO MONKONNEN, GOETZ WOLFF