■ An Associated Press analysis finds charter schools are among the nation’s most segregated.

Rising number of students placed in racial isolation

MILWAUKEE — Charter schools are among the nation’s most segregated, an Associated Press analysis finds, an outcome at odds, critics say, with their goal of offering a better alternative to traditional public schools.

National enrollment data shows that charters are vastly over-represented among schools where minorities study in the most extreme racial isolation. As of school year 20142015, more than 1,000 of the nation’s 6,747 charter schools had minority enrollment of at least 99 percent.

The problem: Those levels of segregation correspond with low achievement levels at schools of all kinds.

In the AP analysis of student achievement in the 42 states that have enacted charter school laws, along with the District of Columbia, the performance of students in charter schools varies widely. But schools that enroll 99 percent minorities, both charters and traditional public schools, on average have fewer students reaching state standards for proficiency in reading and math.

“Desegregation works. Nothing else does,” said Daniel Shulman, a Minnesota civil rights attorney. “There is no amount of money you can put into a segregated school that is going to make it equal.”

Shulman singled out charter schools for blame in a lawsuit that accuses the state of Minnesota of allowing racially segregated schools to proliferate, along with achievement gaps for minority students. Minority-owned charters have been allowed wrongly to recruit only minorities, he said, as others wrongly have focused on attracting whites.

Even some charter school officials acknowledge this is a concern. Nearly all the students at Milwaukee’s Bruce-Guadalupe Community School are Hispanic, and most speak little or no English when they begin elementary school.

“The beauty of our school is we’re 97 percent Latino,” said Pascual Rodriguez, the school’s principal. “The drawback is we’re 97 percent Latino … Well, what happens when they go off into the real world where you may be part of an institution that’s not 97 percent Latino?”

There is growing debate over just how much racial integration matters. For decades after the Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that segregated schools were unconstitutional, integration was held up as a key measure of progress for minorities, but desegregation efforts have stalled and racial imbalances are worsening in American schools. Charter schools have been championed by the U.S. education secretary, Betsy DeVos, and as the sector continues to grow it will have to contend with the question of whether separate can be equal.

Carrie Antlfinger The Associated Press First-graders listen Oct. 20 to teacher Dwane Davis at Milwaukee Math and Science Academy, a charter school in Milwaukee. Charter schools are among the nation’s most segregated, an Associated Press analysis finds.