Family Recruitment and Parental Buy-In in Boston Charter Schools by Jackie Schechter

Family Recruitment and Parental Buy-In in Boston Charter Schools: The Role of Non-Demographic Parental Self-Selection

Nadine Rubinstein Inequality and American Democracy: Final Paper December 19, 2011

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CONTENTS I.

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………2 a. Background and Existing Literature………………………………………………3 i. Potential Self-Selection in Terms of Social Capital…………....................5 ii. Potential Self-Selection in Terms of Cultural Capital…………………….7 iii. Parent Accountability Contracts: Forcing out the Disengaged?..................8 b. Motivation for this Research………………………………………………………9

II.

Methodology…………………………………………………………………………10

III.

Findings……………………………………………………………….......................12 a. Family Recruitment: Reaching a Unique Subset of Parents………......................12 i. The Goals of Recruitment: “Underserved” and “Representative” Families…………………………………………………………….…….12 ii. Recruitment Methods and the Spectrum of Engagement: “Disengaged Families are not Always in Community Centers”……………………….13 iii. “Neutral” Recruitment Methods: Access to Everybody?..........................16 iv. The Limitations of Equal Information Access: The Example of School I………………………………………………………………......18 b. Family Outreach Efforts: Cultivating Engagement……………………………...21

IV.

Discussion……………………………………………………………………………23 a. Suggestions for Further Research………………………………………………..25

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...26

VI.

Appendices…………………………………………………………………………...27 a. Appendix 1: School Characteristics……………………………………………...27 b. Appendix 2: Interview Questions Used...………………………………………..36 c. Appendix 3: Findings…………………………………………………………….38

VII.

Works Cited………………………………………………………………………….40

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INTRODUCTION Since charter schools were first legislated in 1991, many education reformers have looked to them as a source of “promise,” as the U.S. Department of Education put it, “for public school innovation and reform” (Buckley and Schneider 1, U.S. Department of Education). Although most research has found that the average charter school does not do a better job of educating a child than the average traditional public school (TPS), the success of particular schools or school networks has attracted the attention of both researchers and policy makers (Weil 236-7). However, many have questioned whether the higher test scores and college acceptance rates of these high-performing charter schools is solely the result of better teaching and better school culture, or whether it is also dependent on the kinds of students and families that end up choosing charter schools. While there is already a robust literature investigating whether charter schools “skim the cream” of public school students or families in terms of race, income, or previous student achievement, there has been very little research on the possibility that the families served by charter schools are self-selecting in non-demographic ways. I hypothesized that because of the role of parent engagement in influencing differentiated decisions about whether to seek out alternatives to TPSs, charter schools might be serving a uniquely engaged subset of the public school parent population. In particular, the way that charter schools recruit parents and the way that they treat parent engagement in their schools might affect which parents end up at these schools. I investigated this possibility through qualitative interviews with nine administrators from Boston charter schools. In the following analysis of my interview results, I will argue first, that this preliminary research suggests that non-demographic self-selection does occur during the process of parent recruitment. Although the high-achieving charter schools in the Boston area use a variety of

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aggressive recruitment methods to try to reach disengaged families, they still end up serving a subset of parents that differs from the group of parents in a demographically similar TPS. However, I will also argue that charter schools supplement any pre-existing parent engagement by actively creating parental buy-in through clear expectations and continuous family outreach. BACKGROUND AND EXISTING LITERATURE The questions of whether or not charter schools “skim the cream” by enrolling groups of TPS students that already have particular advantages has important implications for the world of education reform (Schwartz 1996, 4). First, the existence of “creaming” would undermine the success of high-achieving charter schools and detract from current hopes that the achievement gap between low-income, minority students and middle- and upper-class white students can be eliminated through changes in schooling alone, without addressing poverty and other out-ofschool factors. Second, if charter schools “cream” this would mean that regular public school students are being deprived of both resources and the chance to profit from interactions with highly motivated students (Zimmer et al. 1). In other words, charter schools not only would lose their relevance for arguments about how best to eliminate the achievement gap but would also be seen as having a negative impact on any students left behind in TPSs. For these reasons, many researchers have already attempted to determine whether there is a “creaming” effect in charter school enrollment in terms of several demographic dimensions: race, socioeconomic status, English Language Learners or special education status, and previous test scores or achievement levels. There have been a wide variety of conclusions reached by different studies addressing creaming questions in particular regions or school systems (Cobb and Glass 1999, Fiske and Ladd 2001, Frankenberg and Lee 2003, Zimmer 2003, Nelson et al. 2004, Institute on Race and Poverty 2008). In an overall review of “creaming” literature, Betts

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concludes: “the evidence appears to be that charter school students are more likely to be economically disadvantaged and more likely to be nonwhite than students in regular public schools” (Betts in Betts and Hill 70). In any case, demographic “creaming” appears to depend mostly on the particular charter school or charter school network being studied. Table 1 in Appendix 1 presents the demographic data for the high-achieving schools in this study. All of the schools studied except for School H have percentages of students qualifying for free- or reduced-price lunch that are either about equal to or above the overall Boston Public Schools rate of 74%. While the racial compositions of these schools are quite varied, all of the schools except for School A serve a lower proportion of white non-Hispanic students than BPS as a whole. Moreover, School A’s greater proportion of white students is in large part due to School A’s neighborhood, which has historically been mostly Irish-American (A). Overall, the schools in this study do not appear to practice demographic “creaming.” At the same time, the statistics cited on the websites of high-performing charter schools neglect another important area of potential “creaming”: parental involvement and engagement in a child’s education. Many critics have brought up the idea that the parents who end up choosing charters are “self-selecting” and inherently different from most TPS parents. Weil argues that both unequal to access to information about charter schools and concerns about transportation to especially good charters have a selective effect on the families who choose to enter charter school lotteries (237, 252). A 2007 study analyzing middle-class parents who opted into alternative schools like charters substantiates Weil’s claims: Bosetti and Pryrt found that “parental choice involves a mixture of rationalities related to values, preferences, child rearing practices, social networks, and aspirations” and that for this reason some parents might be unable to make the most “rational” or “optimal” school choice because they lack “the competencies or

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information necessary to select most appropriate schools for their children” (92). This suggests that opt-in programs like charter schools might be attracting a uniquely well-informed and engaged subset of parents, even if these parents end up being in a low-income range due to the location or marketing tactics of the school. Betts brings up a similar point, writing that social networks enabling information access can be much more crucial for families at the lower end of the economic spectrum: If low-income parents lack contacts with other parents whose children attend schools of choice, they may know less about quality differences between the default local school and the schools of choice. It therefore becomes possible that low-income parents are less sensitive than high-income parents to differences between local schools and charter schools. (69) Thus while high-income parents might be able to uniformly make informed decisions about whether or not to use charter schools or other alternative options, for low-income parents this information access and the opt-in decisions that may result are dependent on other factors. Betts points out that for this reason it is “almost a certainty…that students self-select into schools based upon unobservable factors” which “might include the student’s own motivation and the parents’ attitudes about education” (70). Buckley and Schneider also write that “parents who have chosen to enroll their children in charter schools may be systematically different than parents whose children remain in traditional public schools. This self-selection…can lead to biased estimates of [charter schools]’ effects” (21). Moreover, they argue that “these differences” in parents’ attitudes or independent initiative “affect outcomes independently of what the charter schools actually do and of any value charter schools add to the educational process” (45). Potential Self-Selection in Terms of Social Capital Although there are many authors who express this concern about self-selection and “unobservable” creaming, there has been little substantial research on this issue. In 2000, Kleitz

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et al. surveyed 1100 parents with children in Texas charter schools to analyze their reasons for switching to charter schools and found consistent results across both ethnic and economic groupings: in each group, almost all parents emphasized educational quality and large majorities said they wanted smaller class-sizes (853). While Kleitz’s findings are interesting in terms of parents’ reported motivations, they allude to but do not address possible reasons that these parents might have had access to information about charter schools. How did they come to view charter schools as higher quality, and why did they feel it was necessary for them to take action to ensure that their children’s educations were good enough? Kleitz reports that for the lowincome group, the “friends” variable was much more important in influencing their school choice than it was for the middle- or high-income groups. This suggests that the decision to enroll in a charter school might be based on important selective factors that are not accounted for by demographics, like social networks. Pierre Bourdieu has argued that social networks that connect individuals to useful resources represent a unique form of nonfinancial capital which he terms “social capital.” “Social capital” is specifically defined as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition—or in other words, to membership in a group—which provides each of its members with the backing of the collectively owned capital, a ‘credential’” (86). According to Bourdieu’s theory, parents that find out about a school through a social network— perhaps a church, a community organization, or a non-institutionalized network like a tight-knit extended family—are already endowed with this form of capital. I suggest that a uniquely high level of social capital could potentially represent a pre-existing advantage for families considering where to enroll their children. If charter school families consistently have more

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social capital than most other families of their socioeconomic status, this would represent one possible form of non-demographic self-selection. Potential Self-Selection in Terms of Cultural Capital Bourdieu also defines “cultural capital” as another potential form of nonfinancial capital, as found in “long-lasting dispositions of the mind and body,” “cultural goods (pictures, books, dictionaries, instruments, machines, etc.)” or “educational qualifications” (82). Bourdieu wrote that he initially thought of “the notion of cultural capital…as a theoretical hypothesis which made it possible to explain the unequal scholastic achievement of children originating from the different social classes by relating academic success, i.e., the specific profits which children from the different classes and class fractions can obtain in the academic market, to the distribution of cultural capital between the classes and class fractions” (82). “Embodied” cultural capital, in the form of attitudes about schooling, can help explain why different social classes allocate “different proportions of their resources” to cultural or educational investment (82). Bourdieu’s definition in itself suggests that families that are highly engaged in their children’s schooling and that devote large “proportions of their resources” to choosing a school and supporting their child throughout the schooling process must possess this form of capital. Moreover, Lareau (2003) and Crozier (1997) have shown that parental involvement in a child’s education represents a specific form of cultural capital that is sharply defined along class lines. Both of these authors show that when compared to upper- and middle-class parents, working-class parents tend to have a much more deferential attitude towards education institutions, leaving it up to the school and the teachers to ensure their children’s achievement. Given this research, it seems likely that parents who see it as their job to actively seek out an alternative schooling option like a charter school

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would have more cultural capital than the average low-income parent and would represent a selfselecting group. Moreover, another study that surveyed parents on why they chose charter schools found that 45.5% of low-income parents said that they switched to charters because they wanted “greater opportunity for parent involvement” (Vanourek et al., 199). This suggests that nearly half of the survey participants in the low-income group were engaged in their children’s education in a unique way: they were actively seeking schools that would allow them to be highly involved in their child’s schooling. In the context of Lareau and Crozier’s work, the desire among low-income parents for a way to be actively involved in a school indicates that they are different from the average low-income parent. If charter schools are attracting low-income parents that want to be highly engaged in their students’ schooling, as Vanourek et al.’s study suggests, this would indicate even more definitively that charter schools serve a cohort of parents that have more cultural capital than other parents that might be demographically similar. Parent Accountability Contracts: Forcing Out the Disengaged? Additionally, even if charter schools somehow succeed in attracting low-income parents who lack this unique sense of their needed involvement in their child’s schooling, in order for students to actually enroll in the charter school many parents have to signal their personal commitment to their child’s schooling. Charter schools often use “explicit parent contracts” that enlist a parent’s strong engagement with their child’s achievement (Buckley and Schneider 5). This agreement form often states that the parent will promise to donate either time or resources and significant attention to the charter school and to their child’s participation in the school (Weil 252). As Weil points out: Tying parents hands with such commitment forms or contracts is unfair to many working class families who often work two jobs to survive and simply do not have the time,

"#$%&'()%&!2! resources, or often the transportation to travel to school functions and events. These practices, argue opponents to such charter school admission practices, are not equitable and constitute a form of screening for selective admission purposes…The question at issue is if the larger societal commitments that parents have to meet allow them to actually devote time to their child’s personal or social development and whether this class disparity should deny their children’s admittance to charter schools. (252)

Use of these parent contracts is very common, and out of the nine schools in this study, five employ some sort of accountability contract that parents must sign. Appendix 1 includes examples of these contracts, which often include stipulations about checking homework and reinforcing the school’s behavioral expectations. MOTIVATION FOR THIS RESEARCH I have shown that there are potentially more subtle, non-demographic elements of selfselection that may contribute to an alternative form of “creaming” in charter schools, which has important implications for their reported gains when compared to TPSs. These elements might include uniquely high amounts of social capital among parents who find out about charter schools through social networks, uniquely high amounts of cultural capital in the form of parent engagement in schooling, and the potential of parent contracts employed by charter schools to force out less engaged parents. For this reason, further investigation into these cultural or social forms of skimming is crucial to a better understanding of charter schools and their implications for education reform as a whole. To address this larger question about parental self-selection, I chose to focus on the potential role of charter schools themselves in determining which parents end up at their schools. First, the recruitment methods of charter schools may influence who finds out about their school and what kinds of parents enter the schools’ lotteries for admission. Second, charter school administrators who work with families at their schools could potentially have unique insights into the non-demographic characteristics of parents that enroll in charter schools. Third, the way

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that various charter schools treat parent engagement, especially through parent accountability contracts or other ways of setting expectations, may influence which parents end up enrolling in a school and keeping their child there for several years.

METHODOLOGY In order to investigate the role of charter schools in parental self-selection, I conducted thirty to sixty minute interviews with nine administrators from nine different charter schools in the Boston area. The questions used in the interviews fell into three major categories meant to address the three possible areas of research listed above: (a) recruitment methods currently being used in the schools; (b) non-demographic or anecdotal information about the characteristics of parents in the schools; and (c) the role of parent contracts and the necessity of parental buy-in. For a complete list of the interview questions used, see Appendix 2. The nine schools in this study serve a range of age groups and neighborhoods and have varying school philosophies or missions. Appendix 1 gives detailed profiles of each of these schools, which I have coded alphabetically in order to keep the identities of interviewees and of participating schools confidential. All of the information in this appendix comes either directly from the interviews or from the websites of the schools, which I will not cite in this paper in order to maintain confidentiality. I have categorized five of the nine schools as “No Excuses” schools because these schools follow a common model of charter school management that emphasizes character development and uses strict behavioral expectations enforced by “demerits,” negative points that lead to detentions or suspensions when accumulated. These schools also often stress standardized test scores as an important measure of school success, and tend to do very well on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS.

"#$%&'()%&!**! On the other hand, I have categorized three of the schools as having “alternative”

missions. School E is a high-school with the unique goal of reaching very at-risk youth likely to never graduate from high-school, including students who have previously dropped out, students who are three or more grade levels behind, pregnant or parenting students, and immigrant and refugee students. School E does not use grade levels, takes a “workshop” approach to learning, and serves students as old as twenty-two. School H is an “expeditionary learning” school that bases much of its philosophy on “principles of Outward Bound.” School D places an unusual emphasis on enrichment activities, including dance, fine arts, music, Mandarin, and technology skills. Although School D is perhaps the closest to the “No Excuses” model of the three schools I have placed in the “alternative” mission category, it does not employ the same pattern of strict behavioral management through a demerit system used by the “No Excuses” schools. The final school, School I, follows the “No Excuses” school model but has been placed in its own category because it represents a very unique case as a “turnaround school.” School I is currently housed in what was a failing traditional public school, which a “nonprofit school turnaround organization” has taken over for the 2011-2012 school year. All students who had previously been enrolled in the failing middle school were given priority spots in School I, meaning that nearly all the seventh and eighth graders currently at the school never had to opt-in to the charter school, but were simply given the option to leave at the end of the 2010-2011 school year. So, the seventh and eighth grade students are much more similar to students at TPSs than they are to charter school students. At the same time, School I recruited students from all over Boston to fill its sixth grade class, and admitted sixth graders using the regular lottery process of admitting students to charter schools. Thus School I presents a one-time opportunity

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to compare a sample of the TPS student and parent population to a cohort of charter school parents and students.

FINDINGS The nine interviews in this study yielded two major findings. First, although charter schools use a range of recruitment methods, many of these methods are still only reaching a subset of the parent population that already has a unique amount of either social or cultural capital. The example of School I shows that even a mailing that goes out to every parent of a fifth grader enrolled in the public school system will for the most part only draw in unusually engaged parents. The second major finding from this study is that although charter schools may attract a cohort of parents that overall are more engaged than most TPS parents, they also increase existing levels of engagement by working to build positive relationships with families. FAMILY RECRUITMENT: REACHING A UNIQUE SUBSET OF PARENTS The Goals of Recruitment: “Underserved” and “Representative” Families Before asking whether charter schools are successful in counteracting parental selfselection, it is necessary to establish that charter school leaders do want their parents to be similar to parents at a TPS. All but one of the administrators interviewed confirmed that school recruiters do not want to “cream” the crop of families in any way. When asked about the “types of families” they would “ideally hope to attract,” most administrators mentioned trying to reach families that were “underserved” and families that were “representative” of the district population. The administrator at School A reported that “we are targeting families who wouldn’t otherwise have access to a great college prep school,” and the administrator at School I said that her school hoped to serve “the most challenging students” and to bring in “families who

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otherwise would not seek a charter or exam school.” Similarly, School F aims to attract “the populations that have been underserved by charters: English Language Learners, special education students, homeless, and foster kids” (F). The administrator from School B also used the term “underserved”: “we concentrate our info sessions and street corner recruitment” on “the most underserved neighborhoods in Boston” (B). At School E, the administrator explained: “We look for helping the students that need it.” The administrators from schools B, F, and G all mentioned trying to maintain “representative” populations of English Language Learners (ELL) and special education students that would “mirror[] the district” (G, B). However, some school administrators did admit to wanting certain characteristics in either the families or students they hoped to attract to their schools. Two administrators noted the necessity of a specific level of work ethic or commitment among the students: “what I tell people is that students that are successful here are willing to work hard and have the desire to go to college” (School C). Similarly, the administrator at School H reported that “the most important characteristic we want is kids who are hardworking and college bound…we’ll take the kid who is lower skilled but who has real commitment, dedication, and perseverance.” At the same time, the only administrator who implied that her school might prefer some level of parental selfselection was the administrator at School D, who said that they were “really trying to get more parents who are more heavily involved in the school, who are really actively involved in the school.” Thus with the exception of School D, the charter schools studied do aim to prevent parental self-selection. Recruitment Methods and the Spectrum of Engagement: “Disengaged Families are not Always in Community Centers” In order to meet this goal, the schools in this study employ a wide range of recruitment methods, many of which are fairly “aggressive” (as the administrator at School F put it) in their

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attempt to reach a both “representative” and “underserved” population. At five of the nine school I spoke to, recruiters go door-to-door or stand on street corners in targeted neighborhoods handing out flyers and telling people about their school (B, C, F, G, I). At six schools, recruiters post flyers in community centers or reach out to families through community organizations (A, B, C, F, G, H). For a complete list of the recruitment methods mentioned by the administrators, see Table 2 in Appendix 3. All of the schools but School I have used a variety of recruitment methods in order to ensure that they reach “underserved” families, and School I plans to employ many methods next year. Even schools C, H, and D, which had admitted a desire either for hardworking students or especially engaged parents, reported either putting advertisements in newspapers, recruiting through churches, or in the case of School C even going door-to-door. However, not all recruitment methods are equal, and the methods in Table 2 fall along a broad spectrum in terms of the sorts of families they can potentially reach. For example, every year the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association hosts a showcase that families can attend to browse the many charter school options in the Boston area. Schools A, B, and H reported using this showcase to find families, and School B this was their strongest source of applicants. Families that attend this showcase, however, are families that are already actively seeking an alternative, higher-quality school than the district default, and will therefore represent a unique subset of parents and students. Similarly, families that make use of community centers are likely to be particularly active in seeking resources and uniquely engaged in promoting the welfare of their children. As one administrator put it: “disengaged families are not always in community centers” (I). On the other end of the spectrum, families reached homeless shelters are less likely to have the time or resources to concentrate on promoting their children’s educations and are therefore more likely to meet the criterion of being “underserved.”

"#$%&'()%&!*.! To make these differences among recruiting methods more concrete, I have organized the

recruitment methods in Table 2 along a spectrum of cultural and social capital as defined by Pierre Bourdieu. While the low-income families targeted by many of the schools in this study might be similar in the amount of “cultural goods” or “educational qualifications” they possess, it is less likely that the families found through courts or parole officers share the same “dispositions” as families found through after-school programs about how best to allocate “proportions of their resources” to cultural or educational investment (Bourdieu 82). In other words, families found through after-school programs are likely to have more “embodied cultural capital” than families found through parole officers (Bourdieu 82). Thus families reached through after-school programs, community centers, or non-profit programs probably already have more cultural capital than the average low-income family, and clearly have more than families reached through parole officers. At they same time, certain methods of recruitment, like recruiting through churches, only reach populations that are already linked in to useful social networks and that therefore already have a unique level of social capital. Moreover, even though many of the schools use recruitment methods meant to reach families that might not already have access to cultural or social capital, it is important to note that eight of the nine schools in this study emphasized the importance of “word of mouth” in attracting families to their school. For Schools G, D, and H, “word of mouth” was reported as one of their most important sources of applicants, and “word of mouth” was called a “big source” or “big factor” by Schools B, C, and E. The administrator from School A referred to a “strong family network” as a significant source of applicants, and the administrator from School F mentioned “a very engaged parent community” that tells friends and family about the school. This suggests that many of the families that come to these schools already have a unique amount

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of social capital in the form of useful social networks that connect them to information about education options. If many parents find out about a school through word of mouth, this can easily contribute to a unique cohort of parents entering the lottery. As the administrator from School A acknowledged: We do have results that speak for themselves, so we have to be careful not to attract too many high-performing students. Highly-involved families is not necessarily the population that we’re targeting, although we do end up attracting these families. If a school does not employ many other recruitment methods to counteract this self-selection, it will likely end up with a unique subset of the population. The administrator at School D felt that because of School D’s reputation, it was not necessary to employ other recruitment methods: “we just haven’t really had to [do active recruitment.] People just know about our school…it just has a reputation for being a good school” (D). This strategy makes sense in the context of School D’s goal of attracting engaged parents, but is clearly a strategy other charter schools need to avoid if they hope to counteract parental self-selection. “Neutral” Recruitment Methods: “Access to Everybody”? There is, however, a third grouping of recruitment methods that lies between the two extremes of recruiting families through parole officers and relying on word of mouth—methods that appear to be neutral in the sorts of populations they reach. These include advertisements in newspapers, or on subways, busses, and trains; outreach done in Laundromats, supermarkets, or subway stations; door-to-door recruitment; and a mailing sent to all families of children enrolled in Boston Public Schools in a particular grade level. It is important to note that even among these methods there is variation in selectivity—for example, the door-to-door method is higher on the spectrum in Table 2 because it is usually used to target very low-income or underserved neighborhoods, while advertisements in newspapers is lower down on the chart because not all

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adults read the newspaper. The mailing method, lying right in the middle of this more neutral group, was authorized by legislation passed in August 2010: “As amended by Chapter 12, Section 7, of the Acts of 2010, the charter school statute now requires that both school districts and Commonwealth charter schools provide the names and addresses of students to a third party mail house for mailings” (Chester). The mailings usually include pamphlets about the school and applications, often in many languages, along with a stamped return envelope. The charter schools using it are not given access to any names or addresses. Because it permits them to send applications to every BPS student in a particular grade, the mail house method was cited by many administrators as their most important evidence against the idea that they might be attracting a unique subset of parents. As one administrator put it: “Now we have access to everybody in BPS. The only gap would be some of the students in parochial schools” (C). Others noted that with the mailings, sometimes “people just fill stuff out” without “know[ing] exactly what they’re signing up for”—“with the third party mailing, we may get parents that have never heard of charter schools before” (A, F). The mailings would seem to eliminate any sort of informational barrier, since they effectively distribute information about many charter school options to all eligible students in Boston. With the inclusion of applications and return envelopes, and with the use of many languages, the mailings also eliminate obstacles related to language or to having the time to pick up an application. The effectiveness of the mailing is especially clear in the case of School H, which used the mailing for the first time last year and received twice as many applications as it had the year before. The administrator from School H also noted that the mailing changed the overall demographics of applicants, increasing the Hispanic population of the school and bringing in English Language Learners from a variety of places (“one each from India, Hong Kong, Cape Verde, and Benin”). This evidence suggests

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that the mailing has been very effective in allowing schools to reach groups of families that would not normally hear about them or consider applying. The Limitations of Equal Information Access: The Example of School I However, the unique case of “School I” suggests that even if the mailing method allows a broader group to apply to charter schools, this group still represents a selective subset of parents. For the 2010-2011 school year, the seventh- and eighth-grades at School I were primarily made up of returning students that had previously attended the failing middle school that School I took over. The administrator in charge of recruitment “did well over 250 home visits” to encourage families from the failing middle school to enroll in School I, and overall 91% of seventh- and eighth-grade families accepted their spots at the charter school. This left only about ten spots open in the eighth grade and twenty spots in the seventh grade, out of 162 students per grade. Meanwhile, through the new mail house legislation, School I sent a mailing to every fifth grader enrolled in the Boston Public School system in order to fill the sixth-grade. The mailing went out to 4300 families. This was the only method the leaders of School I chose to use for sixth-grade recruitment because most of their attention was focused on getting the students from the failing middle school to return and accept their spots in School I. The administrator from School I reported that the mailing method was “successful” in that they attracted “a diverse group of students that reflect overall the type of students that BPS serves” as well as proportions of English Language Learners and students with learning disabilities equivalent to the proportions in the seventh and eighth grades. For this reason, School I allows a direct comparison of the sorts of parents who apply to charter schools through a mailing—the sixth-grade parents—and the sorts of parents who do not opt out of their traditional public school option—the seventh- and eighth-grade parents—along strictly non-demographic dimensions.

"#$%&'()%&!*2! According to the administrator interviewed, the sixth-grade parents at School I are

significantly different from the seventh- and eighth-grade parents in two main ways. First, the sixth grade parents take a very different attitude in the way they engage with the school: “we did notice a significant difference in the way parents were reaching out to the school and wanting to be a part of it.” When School I held an open house for returning seventh and eight grade parents, “about one parent showed up…turn out was very low.” In contrast, when the school held an open house for the sixth grade parents: About 100 families out of 162 came, and they really had great questions at the open house. “What would the curriculum look like?” Questions that families from the [failing middle] school wouldn’t have. The questions from [seventh- and eighth-grade] families were more geared toward: “How long are they going to be in school each day? What is the uniform?” Rather than about curriculum or teachers…Sixth grade parents were very much looking for specifics and consistency. I hate to generalize, but a lot of our [seventhand eight-grade] families were not so concerned about things. Having someone come to their home and introduce their new school was enough for them. The difference in types of questions asked is a clear indicator of differences in the sort of cultural capital these two cohorts of families have. As Annette Lareau has shown, the tendency to engage with a school on the level of questions about curriculum and in a way that demands results from the school is a form of cultural capital usually much more common among middle- and upperincome families than it is among low-income families, who tend to see their role in their children’s schooling as much more minimal (218-220). Lareau argues that most educators want parents to take “a leadership role in monitoring their children’s schooling” rather than be “deferential and reactive,” and her argument is reinforced here by the administrator’s implication that seventh- and eighth-grade parents were not “concerned” enough about the curriculum (219). The desire of parents to engage with schools in this way gives them a pre-existing advantage in interactions with schools, indicating that the sixth-grade parents at School I—and other parents

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that apply to charter schools through the mailing method—represent a unique subset of the parent population endowed with more cultural capital than a typical low-income parent. A second major difference was that the sixth-grade parents at School I have been more able than seventh- and eighth-grade parents to complete organizational tasks that are often necessary for a student to enroll in a charter school. The administrator at School I shared an anecdote to illustrate this: After the lottery, you [need to sign] an intent-to-enroll form [to complete the process of enrolling in the school]. Typical charter schools give families about ten days. Being a turnaround, we gave families three weeks…In the first week, we got almost 100% of the sixth-grade family’s forms. (Some sixth graders were taking spots at other schools.) Meanwhile, we had to do a massive volunteer day to send people into homes of the seventh- and eighth-grade parents to get those forms…we did about one-hundred home visits on that volunteer day, so we received about two-thirds of them back by the three week deadline—not in the first week. The inability to return an enrollment form on time might not always reflect a different attitude toward the school, as did the differing questions of the two groups of parents at the open house. Instead, families might struggle to return the forms because there are other urgent concerns in their homes that take precedence over returning a mailing. The administrator reported that “many families never responded to [the] mailing [with the enrollment forms], but when we went to their homes they were totally in.” For this reason, she hoped that next year they could “simplify the process for families that are too busy.” However, even if School I manages to make returning forms easier for returning families, the question remains of how they or any charter school can initially get in contact with the sorts of families that do not respond to mailings or that struggle to simply return a signed form to the school. While some administrators argued that the mail-house method of recruitment eliminated all barriers to access (“people just fill stuff out” without “know[ing] exactly what they’re signing up for”), this story from School I illustrates that even with a mailing that goes out to every

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student in a particular grade, certain parents will not respond (A). While School I was able to get these less organized or less responsive parents to buy into the school by going to their homes, this is not currently a possibility for charter schools trying to recruit new families, because schools sending out mailings are not given access to the addresses or names of the students they are trying to reach. Until some sort of “magical database” of addresses (as the administrator from School F put it) becomes available and schools can follow up on mailings with door-to-door recruitment, even seemingly “neutral” recruitment methods will draw in a select group of parents that have higher levels of cultural capital than TPS parents like the seventh- and eighth-grade parents at School I. FAMILY OUTREACH EFFORTS: CULTIVATING ENGAGEMENT When asked about parent accountability contracts at their schools, many administrators explained that these are meant to serve two main functions. The first function is obvious: to “outline expectations…in terms of academics, behavior, support, and involvement” (A). However, most of the administrators interviewed (all except the administrator from School D) did not see parental buy-in as something determined by the nature of the parents attracted to the school, but instead as something that “it’s the school’s job to cultivate” (H). Thus the second function of parent accountability contracts is to help create buy-in among parents and to make them feel more of a connection to the school. As the administrator from School H put it: “there’s this perception that parents aren’t invested in their kids’ educations, but the problem is really that sometimes the school doesn’t have time to reach out to build the relationship” (H). This “reaching out” often includes not only accountability contracts or parent handbooks but also constant communication from the school. At School B, “every child has an advisor in pretty regular contact with home. Even if the family is lagging, the school is forcing that

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communication.” At School C, there are “advisors calling parents monthly” as well as a “parentadvisor night every quarter.” In addition, “about 95% of parents come to the school to meet with a faculty member over the course of the school year” (C). At School H, 100% of parents have a face-to-face meeting at the school at least once each year. School F hosts “a curriculum day when [teachers] acquaint parents with the curriculum their child will be learning.” The goal of both the curriculum day and the parent accountability contract used at School F is to “communicate with parents over and over again so that they support [the school] and buy into it.” These actions were reported by the administrators to be important not only in that they create “buy in” but also in that they “make parents feel more comfortable with the school” and “remove a barrier” (H). Even though the charter schools studied do appear to be drawing most of their parents from a unique subset of the public school population, they are supplementing any pre-existing parent engagement through these methods. Lareau has found that working-class and poor parents tend to have “much more distance or separation from the school than…middle-class mothers” (237, 243). In the families she studied, this often led to lower-income parents urging their children to “outwardly comply with school officials” while also “resist[ing] school authority” (243). The constant outreach and effort to create a “very welcoming community for parents” in charter schools appears to be effective in counteracting this resistance (H). As one administrator said, as soon as parents “come to the school and get to know us…whatever resistance there is seems to lessen” (H). At School G, which has particularly high standards in its parent accountability contract, the administrator reported that “parents really follow through on this. Families and kids alike like to know what’s expected of them. It’s a commitment, but parents really do sign homework at night and make sure it’s completed.” While these aspects of parent

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engagement at Schools H and G might be in part due to the self-selection of parents, the administrator at School H provided anecdotal evidence suggesting that for at least some parents, interactions with the school cause previously disengaged parents to become engaged: We have a student who’s a senior who our executive director met at Stop and Shop bagging groceries. He said he never would have applied unless he had that conversation at the grocery store. His mom has become very engaged in the school…her social capital has increased significantly! She was definitely not a parent that had high social capital…before [her son] came to [School H], she was in and out of his life and definitely did not know about us at all or know what a charter school was. This example suggests that for those disengaged parents that charter schools do manage to recruit, the efforts of the charter school to engage all parents can create a positive feedback loop between the parent and the school, in which increasing communication leads to increasing engagement in the school. By making expectations for parents explicit through parent contracts and by encouraging parents to learn about school curriculum and have face-to-face conversations with school personnel, charter schools are changing parents’ attitudes about their role in their children’s educations. Through these methods, schools are thus creating the sort of cultural capital Lareau has discussed.

DISCUSSION Parental self-selection in terms of non-demographic measures, like relative amounts of cultural or social capital, appears to have a strong effect on the kinds of parents that end up at charter schools even when these schools employ a wide variety of recruitment methods. As Diagram 1 in Appendix 3 shows, the recruitment process is counteracted by mediating factors that shrink the initial pool of all Boston public school students. These mediating factors might include limitations on the group of families charter schools are drawing from when they use a particular recruitment method, as when they visit a church, a community center, or a charter

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middle school. In all of these cases, the parents found at these institutions are not representative of the overall pool of families because either they are already demonstrating a form of cultural capital in their use of institutions like nonprofit organizations or they are already part of a social network that represents their higher levels of social capital. However, mediating factors might also be as simple as the ability or desire of parents to respond to mailings. In either case, the pool of families that enter the charter school lottery is different in character from the initial pool of all possible families. Given that all of the schools studied other than School D hope to attract a population that is “representative” of the overall Boston Public Schools system, these findings indicate that the three recruitment methods currently being used most by these schools—relying on word of mouth, recruiting through community centers, and sending out a mailing—are not allowing these schools to reach their recruitment goals. For this reason, perhaps charter schools would benefit from actively seeking out parents that have less cultural or social capital or that are especially disengaged by employing some of the methods toward the top of Table 2—for example, reaching out to parole officers or homeless shelters. If charter schools truly want to reach populations that have previously been “underserved,” these would be potential places to find them. The first step toward reaching these disengaged groups of parents is for charter school administrators to become more aware that parental self-selection does occur even when the school sends out a blind mailing. When asked directly whether they thought charter schools served a uniquely engaged subset of parents, the administrators from Schools A, B, C, and H all disagreed with this idea, arguing that mailings and neighborhood recruitment effectively counteract self-selection. The administrator from School H also argued that parents in the Boston Public Schools system are not different from charter school parents, “they just might not be reached out to in the

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same way.” Although I disagree with this administrator’s claim that the two groups of parents are identical, my findings do substantiate her emphasis on the success of charter schools in engaging parents through constant outreach efforts. The way that the schools in this study have been able to cultivate cultural capital by emphasizing how and why parents should take more of a role in their students’ educations has important implications for any public school. The positive feedback loop of engagement found in these charter schools could potentially be replicated in traditional public schools by simply making expectations more explicit and by building relationships with parents that would undermine the pre-existing barriers Lareau found to be common among low-income parents. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH The conclusiveness of this research is limited because much of the evidence supporting my argument that charter school parents are different from traditional public school parents was second-hand—it was the reported observations of an interviewee, rather than the direct observations of a researcher. For this reason, additional research comparing these two cohorts of parents is needed to support this idea. School I presents an exciting and unique opportunity for a case study in which two groups of parents are interacting differently with the same institution. Moreover, School I is the first in a planned network of turnaround schools, so as additional turnaround schools are created in Boston in the coming years, researchers could conduct several case studies on this unusual situation. Directly engaging with the parents at these schools and interviewing them about how they saw their role in their children’s schooling could offer a more concrete analysis of differences in cultural capital in terms of parent involvement in the schooling process. These interviews could be supplemented by direct observations of parentteacher or parent-administrator interactions at the schools.

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interviewees were used when quantitative data would be a better source. For example, I relied solely on the administrators’ impressions to determine which recruiting methods were the largest sources of applicants for the various schools. None of the administrators I spoke to had actual data on where the majority of their applicants had found out about their schools. It would be interesting to code charter school applications depending on where they were distributed and then quantify where the majority of applications came from in order to track which recruitment methods were most effective in reaching particularly “underserved” families.

CONCLUSION This research project has offered preliminary evidence supporting the claims of Betts and Buckley and Schneider that charter school parents are “systematically different than parents whose children remain in traditional public schools” (Betts 69, Buckley and Schneider 21). The recruitment methods reported by charter school administrators often either draw from an inherently selective pool of parents or rely too heavily on the individual parent’s responsiveness and engagement. If charter schools want to prove that their school cultures and teaching methods could truly be used with any students—regardless of parent characteristics—they need to employ other recruitment methods that target especially disengaged parents in order to counteract nondemographic parental self-selection. However, charter schools also benefit from parental buy-in that is not pre-existing in recruited parents but that is instead cultivated by the charter school through family outreach and explicit expectation-setting. The success of charter schools in building positive relationships with parents contributes to their impact and is something that all public schools could potentially emulate.

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APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: SCHOOL CHARACTERISTICS Table 1: Demographics of Schools Compared to Boston Public Schools (BPS) Overall BPS A Free- or reduced- 74% n/a price lunch Racial/ethnic composition: Hispanic 41% 14 African American 36 25 Asian 9 <4 White Non13 57 Hispanic Multi-Racial 0 <4 English Language 30 n/a Learners or Limited EnglishProficient Special education 19 19

B 73

C 77

D 81

E 85

F 78

G 72

H 66

I 85

24 69 0 7

24 71 1 1

28 67 2 1

62 26 <1 11

n/a 98 n/a n/a

72 n/a n/a n/a

10 83 0 1

n/a* n/a n/a n/a

0 n/a

3 LEP 5.3

2 LEP 7

<1 n/a ELL n/a 27

n/a n/a

6 LEP 4

n/a LEP 32

n/a

(n/a denotes that information was not available) *Although the exact percentages of student ethnicities were not available for School I, the administrator interviewed implied that the school was very high-minority, more than BPS overall. More detailed information about the schools in this study: School A Population: - Lower school: grades 5 and 6 - Middle school: grade 7 and 8 - High school: grades 9-12 - 550 students Demographics: - Percentage of students living “at or below the poverty line”: 44% - Racial composition: 57% White Non-Hispanic, 25% African American, 14% Hispanic, 4% Asian, Native American, or Bi-Racial - LEP/ELL: N/A - Special education: 19% School philosophy: “No Excuses” model - “high academic and behavioral expectations” - focused on MCAS results and college acceptance - uses demerits Results:

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100% of students have been accepted to college o 80% of them will be the first in their families to complete a college degree MCAS results: o School A is the only public, non-exam school in the state in which 100% of students have passed the 10th grade Math MCAS for the past nine years. Moreover, over 99% of students have passed the English MCAS over the past nine years. o In comparison to Boston averages, School A students had a higher passing percentage on all 14 exams in all 6 grades - 10th grade Math and English, 9th grade Physics, 8th grade Math, English, and Science, 7th grade Math and English, 6th grade Math and English, and 5th grade Math, English, and Science.

Parent accountability contract: - Yes: “Family Accountability Contract” Interviewee’s position: Director of Special Projects - not directly connected to the family recruitment process School B Population: - 6th-12th grade - 350 students Demographics: - Free- or reduced-price lunch: 73% - Racial composition: 69% African American, 24% Hispanic, 7% White Non-Hispanic - LEP/ELL: N/A - Special education: 16% School philosophy: “No Excuses” model - “rigorous curriculum” focused on college acceptance - emphasis on character development or “personal development” in terms of “virtues of courage, compassion, integrity, perseverance, and respect” - uses demerits Results: - Effective Practice Incentive Community (EPIC) named it one of the five highest performing schools in the country in 2009 - MCAS results: o On the 10th grade Math exam, 100% of students scored in the Advanced or Proficient Categories. o On the 10th grade ELA and Science exams, well over 90% of students scored Advanced or Proficient. Parent accountability contract: - Yes: “Contract for Excellence” signed by parents, students, and families Interviewee’s position: External Relations Assistant - not directly connected to the family recruitment process

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School C Population: - 9th-12th grade - 294 students Demographics: - Free- or reduced-price lunch: 77% - Racial composition: 71% African American, 24% Hispanic, 3% Bi-Racial, 1% Asian, 1% White Non-Hispanic - Limited English-Proficient: 5.3% - Special education: 17% School philosophy: “No Excuses” model - Focus on “academic achievement” and “citizenship” - uses demerits Results: - 100% of graduates have been admitted to college - MCAS results: o School C is one of only eight Massachusetts high schools with a low-income rate of 60% or above and with more than 50% of students scoring Proficient or Advanced in all three 10th-grade MCAS tests o 10th grade test scores: 94% Advanced or Proficient in English, 92% Advance or Proficient in Math, 74% Advanced or Proficient in Science Parent accountability contract: - No, but does encourage parent involvement in the offer letter and in an enrollment night which parents attend to learn more about the school Interviewee’s position: Director of Development and Community Relations - very connected to parent engagement and the recruitment process School D Population: - Lower school: Kindergarten-2nd grade - Upper school: 3rd-6th grade - 1025 students Demographics: - Free- or reduced-price lunch: 81% - Racial composition: 67% African American, 28% Hispanic, 2% Multi-Racial, 2% Asian, 1% White Non-Hispanic - Limited English-proficient: 7% - Special education: 11% School philosophy: alternative - Particularly focused on enrichment activities, including: dance, fine arts, music, Mandarin, and technology - Does not follow patterns found in the “No Excuses” model Results:

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MCAS results: o The third graders outperformed the state in both reading and math in 2009 o Full results not available. Not as high performing as most of the schools in this study, but consistently outperforms BPS averages

Parent accountability contract: - No, but lists parent expectations on the website o These expectations were approved by the Parent Advisory Board. o They include many expectations similar to those listed in many of the parent contracts used by other schools in this study. Interviewee’s position: Registrar - directly connected to the recruitment process School E Population: - High school that serves ages 14-22 - 188 students Demographics: - Free- or reduced-price lunch: 85% - Racial composition: 26% African American, 62% Hispanic, 11% White Non-Hispanic, 1% other ethnicities - English language learners: 27% - Other demographics: o 15% pregnant or parenting o 38% dropped out of school before attending School E o 59% are currently or have been involved with the Department of Children and Families, the Department of Youth Services, and/or are involved with the Juvenile Court System School philosophy: alternative - special mission of reaching (and graduating) older, disconnected adolescents, including: o students who are three or more grade levels behind o students who have dropped out of school o immigrant and refugee students o pregnant or parenting teens o English Language Learners - Does not use grade levels - “workshop model” of instruction - not “No Excuses” model Results: Because this school is focused on high-school graduation rather than college-acceptance or raising test-scores, the school’s website does not focus on “results” in either of these terms. Parent accountability contract: No. Interviewee’s position: Development Associate - directly connected to the recruitment process

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School F Population: - Kindergarten-8th grade - 475 students Demographics: - Free- or reduced-price lunch: 78% - Racial composition: 98% African American - English language learners: N/A - Special education: N/A School philosophy: “No Excuses” model - Primary mission is “getting our scholars to and through college” - Focus on MCAS scores - Focus on teacher quality - Refers to itself as a “no excuses” charter school on the school website Results: - Ranked #1 among all schools in the state on both the 2011 8th grade English Language Arts (ELA) MCAS and the 2011 8th grade Math MCAS - Ranked #1 among all schools in the state on the 2011 7th grade ELA MCAS and #2 among all schools in the state on the 2011 7th grade Math MCAS - Ranked #1 among all schools in the state on the 2011 5th grade ELA MCAS - Ranked as either the #1 or the #2 school in Boston (in all grades tested) on both the 2011 ELA MCAS and the 2011 Math MCAS - Students consistently outperform students in wealthy suburbs like Wellesley, Lexington, and Brookline in both reading and math - Students attend top high schools and colleges, including Boston Latin, Phillips Andover, and U. Mass-Amherst Parent accountability contract: - Yes: “Contract of Mutual Responsibilities” signed by parents, students, and the school Interviewee’s position: Operations Fellow - not directly connected to the family recruitment process, but does deal with parent engagement as one of many partial responsibilities - participates in training across “all non-instructional school components, including facilities, transportation, nutrition, state reporting, student health, and parent engagement” School G Population: - 5th-8th grade - over 200 students (exact number N/A) Demographics: - Free- or reduced-price lunch: 72% - Racial composition: 72% Hispanic - English language learners: N/A, although roughly 55% speak a language other than English at home, as compared to 45% of BPS students

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- Special education: 23% School philosophy: “No Excuses” model - High behavioral and academic expectations o “prepared, respectful, engaged, professional” - uses demerits Results: - graduates are attending many of the premiere high schools and colleges throughout New England, including but not limited to: Deerfield Academy, The Groton School, Milton Academy, Boston College High School, Holy Cross, Tufts University, and Boston College - MCAS results: o Ranked #1 in 7th grade math with 98% of students scoring advanced or proficient o Ranked #1 in 8th grade English with 100% of students scoring advanced or proficient o Ranked #2 in 8th grade math with 96% of students scoring advanced or proficient o 100% of School G students passed all subjects on the 2011 MCAS o Overall 93% of Excel students scored advanced or proficient in English and math Parent accountability contract: - Yes: a “Parent/Guardian Commitment” Interviewee’s position: Director of Expansion, previously worked as Interim Executive Director - directly involved in the recruitment process School H Population: - 9th-12th grade - 145 students Demographics: - Free- or reduced-price lunch: 66% - Racial composition: 83% African American, 10% Hispanic, 6% Multi-Racial, 1% White Non-Hispanic - Limited English Proficiency: 4% - Special education: 30% School philosophy: alternative - Based on the “ten design principles of Outward Bound and Expeditionary Learning” o Learning outside the classroom: field work on Fridays - Wellness program, offering classes in dance, fitness, skill and conditioning, tennis, and basketball, as well as athletic teams for basketball, soccer, and volleyball - Seniors must complete an internship and a social action project - not “No Excuses” model Results: - 100% of students in the six graduating classes to date have been accepted to four year colleges and universities - MCAS results: not up to date on the website, but 73% of students were Advanced or Proficient on the 2008 MCAS (outperforming BPS averages)

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Parent accountability contract: - No. However, parents do receive a handbook that lists expectations. Interviewee’s position: Dean of Enrichment - directly involved in the recruitment process School I Population: - 6th-8th grade - 490 students Demographics: - Free- or reduced-price lunch: 85% - Racial composition: N/A - Limited English Proficiency: 32% - Special education: 18% School philosophy: turnaround school that follows the “No Excuses” model - Emphasis on character building - “Relentless” work to “close the achievement gap” - Uses demerits Results: As the school opened this year, it does not yet have any results to report. Parent accountability contract: - Yes, the “Contract for Excellence.” - However, the administrator reported that it was not strictly enforced. Interviewee’s position: Senior Coordinator of Family and Community Relations - very involved in the recruitment process - primary person in charge of family recruitment For comparison: Boston Public Schools overall demographics: - Free- or reduced-price lunch: 74% - Racial composition: 36% African American, 41% Hispanic, 9% Asian, 13% White NonHispanic - Limited English-Proficient: 30% - Special education: 19%

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Some Examples of Parent Accountability Contracts Used in Schools in this Study Parent contracts are used at Schools A, B, F, G, and I. School G:

! School F:

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APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS USED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS: Administrator interviews 1. Tell me about your admissions process. (in detail, timeline) - How many spots are open each year? - How many kids apply for these spots? - Do you advertise your lottery outside of your website? If so, where? Timing? - Is there a gap b/w the number of applications you get and the number of people entered into the lottery? (incomplete applications or other barriers?) - How are parents notified that they’ve won the lottery? - Does everybody who wins the lottery accept their spot? 2. How do you think parents who enter your lottery hear about your school? - If “from friends/word of mouth”: Can you be more specific? / Do your parents tend to be part of certain kinds of social networks, like churches or community groups? - did you use the mail house method? If yes, did the demographic pattern of applications received change? 3. Beyond advertising your lottery, do you actively recruit families to your school? If so, how do you do this, and why? • Have you always used these methods? If not, why did you decide to start using them? 4. If YES to #3: How effective do you think your recruiting strategies are? What makes them effective? Are there strategies you would like to employ but don’t? (If so, why don’t you use these strategies?) • If NO to #3: Why don’t you actively recruit? 5. How would you describe the parents who enter your lottery? How are they similar to and different from parents who do not enter your lottery? 6. How would you describe the types of families you would hope to attract to your school? Are there any characteristics that you would ideally want them to have? 7. Does your school use a parent accountability contract? Why or why not? • •

Do you have other ways of setting expectations? Are these high expectations ever a deterrent to parents—do parents either not accept their spot in the school b/c of them, or transfer their kids out of the school b/c of them?

8. Do you think some level of parental buy-in is necessary for a charter school to work? Why or why not?

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9. There are always families that don’t explore traditional public school alternatives like your school. Do you see circumstances under which all kids apply for charters? When would that happen? 10. In Rhode Island, a state representative proposed an “opt-out” charter enrollment system in which a random sample of the general public school population would be offered places in charter schools. The bill didn’t pass, but it’s an interesting thought experiment. Do you think your school would work as well if your parents hadn’t actively chosen to “opt-in”? Why? 11. Some people argue that because “opting-in” to a charter school requires a certain level of parent engagement, charter schools end up having a unique subset of parents who are particularly active in their kids’ educations. How would you respond to this? 12. Are there other things you would do to ensure that all parents have equal access to your school if you had more time or resources? 13. I’m interested in understanding how charter schools can connect with those parents who don’t have social networks or who aren’t particularly engaged in their kids’ educations. What have I not asked you about that I should know? ! !

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APPENDIX 3: FINDINGS !

Table 2: Recruitment Methods

Spectrum of engagement

! ! 4)''!5#6(#786! ! 97!'95%86! ! 58:%(86!;!4)''! )&<8<)=! !

Recruitment method mentioned

by which schools?

Parole officers, courts Social workers, Department of Youth Services (Roca program for at-risk youth) Homeless shelters “Boots-on-the-ground”, going door-to-door in neighborhoods, or street corner recruitment Mailing sent to the targeted age-group through a thirdparty mail house Ads on subways, busses, and trains Laundromats, supermarkets, or T-stations Ads in newspapers

E*, (I) E*, (I)

TPS middle schools hosting high school fairs community centers or community organizations Public libraries Churches (and mosques) Non-profit programs (including: Head Start, child care centers, mentoring programs) After-school programs Charter school showcase done by MCPSA Charter middle schools hosting high school fairs Other “word of mouth”: “there’s also a strong family network” “our students are our best recruiters” “school reputation”

>97)! 5#6(#786!97! '95%86!58:%(86! ;!>97)! )&<8<)=!

F, (I) B, C, F, G, (I) A, (B), C, F*, G, H*, I* E A, B, (F) A, B, C, D, (I) C, H A, B, C, F, G, H B A, B, F, H* D, F A, B, F A, B*, H C, H A, B, C, D*, E, F, G*, H*

* denotes that this was reported to be the strongest source (or one of the strongest sources) of recruited families () denotes that this has not been used in the past but will be used for the next round of recruitment

Diagram 1: A Model of Parental Self-Selection

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WORKS CITED Betts, Julian R., and Paul T. Hill. "The selection of students into charter schools: A critical issue for research and policy." In Taking Measure of Charter Schools: Better Assessments, Better Policymaking, Better Schools. Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield Pub. Group, 2010. 6582. Bosetti, Lynn, and Michael C. Pyryt. 2007. Parental motivation in school choice: Seeking the competitive edge. Journal of School Choice 1 (4) (01/01): 89-108. Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Forms of Capital.” (1986). In Cultural Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Imre Szeman and Timothy Kaposy. 2010. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. 81-93. BPS Communications Office. "Boston Public Schools at a Glance 2010–2011." Boston Public Schools. http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/files/bps_at_a_glance_11-0428_4.pdf (accessed October 21, 2011). This report was produced by BPS itself and reflects the most recent school year. The information is trustworthy because it is BPS reporting its own demographics. Buckley, Jack, and Mark Schneider. 2007. Charter schools : Hope or hype? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chester, Mitchell D. “Massachusetts Charter Schools: Use of Approved Mail House—Charter Schools and Districts.” Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=5691 (accessed December 10, 2011). This report is on the Massachusetts Department of Education website and is therefore an accurate reflection of the laws overseen by that Department. This page was last updated on August 26, 2010. Cobb, C. D., and G. V. Glass. 1999. Ethnic segregation in Arizona charter schools. Education Policy Analysis Archives 7 : n1. Crozier, G. 1997. Empowering the powerful: A discussion of the interrelation of government policies and consumerism with social class factors and the impact of this upon parent interventions in their children's schooling. British Journal of Sociology of Education: 187200. Institute on Race and Poverty. 2008. “Failed Promises: Assessing Charter Schools in the Twin Cities.” University of Minnesota Law School. http://www.irpumn.org/uls/resources/projects/2_Charter_Report_Final.pdf This report was produced in November 2008 by the Institute on Race and Poverty at University of Minnesota Law School. The IRP reports that its purpose is “to ensure that people have access to opportunity” and “to help the places where people live develop in ways that both promote access to opportunity and help maintain regional stability.”

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Frankenberg, E., and C. Lee. 2003. Charter schools and race: A lost opportunity for integrated education. Kleitz, B., G. R. Weiher, K. Tedin, and R. Matland. 2000. Choice, charter schools, and household preferences. Social Science Quarterly 81 (3): 846-54. Ladd, H. F., and E. B. Fiske. 2001. The uneven playing field of school choice: Evidence from New Zealand. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 20 (1): 43-64. Lareau, Annette. 2003. Unequal childhoods: class, race, and family life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Nelson, F. H., Rosenberg, B., and Van Meter, N. 2004. Charter School Achievement on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Washington, DC: American Federation of Teachers. Download at http://www.aft.org/pubsreports/downloads/teachers/NAEPCharterSchoolReport.pdf! Schwartz, Wendy, and ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education. 1996. How well are charter schools serving urban and minority students? ERIC/CUE digest, number 119. U.S. Department of Education. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Successful Charter Schools: Innovation in Education.â&#x20AC;? Office of Innovation and Improvement. June 2004. http://www2.ed.gov/admins/comm/choice/charter/report.pdf (accessed December 10, 2011). This report was produced by the Department of Education and is therefore an accurate representation of how the federal government sees the role of charter schools (or at least how it saw them in 2004). Vanourek, Manno, Finn, and Bierlein. "Charter schools as seen by constituents." In Learning from school choice. Ed. Paul Peterson. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998. Weil, Danny. 2009. Charter School Movement: History, Politics, Policies, Economics and Effectiveness. Amenia, NY: Grey House Publishing. Zimmer, R.. 2003. Charter school operations and performance: evidence from California. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Zimmer, R., B. Gill, K. Booker, S. Lavertu, and J. Witte. 2009. Do Charter Schools Cream Skim Students and Increase Racial-Ethnic Segregation? Prepared for School Choice and School Improvement: Research in State, District and Community Contexts. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University. Download at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/schoolchoice/conference/papers/Zimmer_COMPLETE.pdf.