CRP's Response to "Re-analysis" of Charter School Study

The Civil Rights Project was founded, in part, to bring rigorous social science inquiry to bear on our most pressing civil rights issues. On-going trends involving public school segregation have been a primary focus of the CRP’s research, and the expanding policy emphasis on school choice prompted analysis of the much smaller – but politically potent - charter sector. In 2003, and again this year, we have released reports examining charter school segregation.  Both times we have been subject to attacks, often for doing or saying things we never claimed to undertake in the reports.  On April 27, 2010, Education Next posted a re-analysis and commentary, by Gary Ritter and several colleagues, of our February 2010 charter school report, "Choice Without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards." In the attached document, we respond to the team’s claims, seeking to accurately explain what we did, why we did it, and the actual nature of our conclusions.