Charter Schools and Student Compositions of Traditional Public Schools

One of the most contentious urban education policy issues in the United States today is the expansion of charter schools and its repercussions. Does the expansion of charter schools affect the racial and socioeconomic composition of traditional public schools in the United States? This study provides empirical evidence on this question by relying on a panel design that uses school-level data from two states that have experimented with charter schools for more than 15 years: Ohio and Texas. Using county-level, spatial, and enrollment-based measures of charter exposure, the changes from pre-to post-charter-legislation stages in the student compositions of public schools that do and do not face competition from charters are examined. The results suggest that charter school presence contributes to aggregate-level changes in the share of nonHispanic White and free-lunch-eligible students in traditional public schools in both states in different ways.