Hispanic students make up the largest share of charter school students nationally, but research focusing specifically on Hispanic school choosers is lacking. A new report describes a qualitative case study of families in Houston, Texas, looking to determine how and why they settled on their school. While the report is framed as “why they chose to exit district schools,” it is clear that the families were, more accurately, moving toward the best fit available to them.
Researcher Julia Szabo of Rice University conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with thirty-four parents (representing thirty-one families) whose children were accepted to start sixth grade at the pseudonymously-christened Houston College Prep Charter School (HCP) in the 2019–20 school year. Sixth is the first grade offered at HCP. Study participants were recruited in the summer before the start of school during a mandatory registration day event. Interviews were conducted in English or Spanish per the parents’ preference and done in person or over the phone. Interviews lasted, on average, 1.5 hours, and families received $20 honoraria for their time.
HCP is part of a large charter network in the region that has operated for more than twenty years, drawing students who are zoned for both Houston ISD and an anonymous neighboring district. HCP is a high performing school whose students far outpace both district and state averages on raw test scores and performance indices. Ninety-five percent of HCP students are Hispanic, as compared to 62 percent in Houston ISD and 80 percent in the suburban district. Eighty percent of HCP students are economically disadvantaged, the same as Houston ISD and slightly lower than the suburban district. HCP was founded on “no excuses” principles—including rigorous data-driven instruction, highly structured behavior management, and a strong focus on getting students into college. Although the terminology has been dropped in recent years, practices grounded in those principles remain. Szabo notes that HCP has a far lower exclusionary discipline rate than either of the neighboring districts, and is lower than the charter network’s average.
Ninety percent of the surveyed parents were Hispanic and 94 percent were female. The group was evenly split between U.S. born and foreign born individuals, and most of the U.S. born individuals were second-generation immigrants. Eighty-four percent of respondents had a high school diploma/GED or above, including five individuals with master’s degrees. Two out of three families were zoned for the suburban district—the rest for Houston ISD—although the number of individual elementary and middle school assignment zones represented was large.
Szabo recorded, catalogued, and coded the structured and freeform responses and presented her findings in terms of observed patterns related to risks that influenced the choice to enroll at HCP. “Present risk” factors cited by a majority of parents include school safety—specifically fights, bullying, and drug use, as observed first hand by children—and academic quality based on what they experienced in their previous schools. Examples of the latter included “a focus on the low” (meaning the lowest achievers), which left no time and teacher attention for students who could do more, class periods that featured just fifteen minutes of instruction followed by unstructured time daily, and a self-paced science class that many children completed in March and were then left to “review” on their own for two additional months until the year ended. These fears were exacerbated when parents attempted to raise concerns with teachers and school administrators but were greeted with disbelief, disrespect, or inaction.
“Future risk” factors were particularly pronounced for parents whose students would have changed school buildings between fifth and sixth grade. These included more of the same in terms of safety and academics, as well as overcrowding. Those who had experienced poor treatment from district officials were expecting even more of it in higher grades. Additionally, parents who expressed general satisfaction with their district schools for fifth grade knew of or anticipated the academic and school culture problems expressed by their peers in sixth grade. Interviewees noted all that they had heard from the news and from friends and neighbors, as well as what they had observed in their own communities about the quality of the schools around them. It is also clear that parents were looking beyond middle school as well. The outcomes of district graduates were not felt to be compatible with their own aspirations for their children. If HCP was indeed the right fit, they may never need to change schools again and could stay put in the right choice until graduation.
Although parents characterized their choice to go to HCP as an “experiment” or a “test,” it is clear that they were testing different factors than those that had raised alarm bells for them in their district schools. That is, while they did not fully know how the school culture and academic support was going to be at HCP, their research had convinced them that the risk factors they experienced or predicted were lower or nonexistent at the charter school. They were experimenting to see if they would get not only the basics of education and safety—which they expected and for which they moved—but perhaps even more supports and services beyond the basics. Parents expressed universally high academic hopes for their children and were expecting to find that their new school did, too.
There is a lot more to read and learn in this report. However, none of it feels very specific to Hispanic families. The experiences of and calculations made by these Texas parents sound no different than those of parents in London, England, except that school choice is the default in London. Researcher Szabo fails to note that the “experiment” characterization denotes empowered parents. Having made one move, they now knew they could make another if they needed to—the feasibility of acceptable additional options notwithstanding. These parents had been given the power to put their children’s needs first, and they did so.
SOURCE: Julia Szabo, “‘I Just Didn’t Want to Risk It’: How Perceptions of Risk Motivate Charter School Choice Among Latinx Parents,” American Educational Research Journal (March 2022).
