An Analysis of Black Secondary Student Attrition from KIPP, Other Private Charters, and Urban Districts

Is Choice a Panacea? An Analysis of Black Secondary Student Attrition

from KIPP, Other Private Charters, and Urban

Districts<http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0vs9d4fr>

*Julian **Vasquez Heilig**, Amy* *Williams, **Linda McSpadde*n

*McNeil*, *Christopher* *Lee*



Public concern about pervasive inequalities in traditional public

schools, combined with growing political, parental, and corporate

support, has created the expectation that charter schools are the

solution for educating minorities, particularly Black youth. There is

a paucity of research on the educational attainment of Black youth in

privately operated charters, particularly on the issue of attrition.

This paper finds that on average peer urban districts in Texas show

lower incidence of Black student dropouts and leavers relative to

charters. The data also show that despite the claims that 88-90% of

the children attending KIPP charters go on to college, their attrition

rate for Black secondary students surpasses that of their peer urban

districts. And this is in spite of KIPP spending 30–60% more per pupil

than comparable urban districts. The analyses also show that the vast

majority of privately operated charter districts in Texas serve very

few Black students.