School Choice and Inequality: Choosing Schools Activity

Abstract

This in-class activity is designed to illustrate how school choice (i.e. charter schools and private schools) contribute to the growing inequality of schools by social class and race. In this activity, students are split into groups and are given a family profile that includes their income, race, family structure, neighborhood school zoning, and...

Download this resource to see full details. Download this resource to see full details.

Details

Subject Area(s):

Education

Resource Type(s):

Class Activity

Class Level(s):

Any Level

Class Size(s):

Any

Learning Goals and Assessments

Learning Goal(s):

1. Students will role play and understand how family background constrains the educational opportunities of students from different racial, class, and other backgrounds.
2. Students will understand how residential segregation and school zoning practices reproduce racial and class inequality in the education system.
3. Students will understand how school choice opportunities (i.e. private and charter schools) may provide mobility pathways for some individual students but overall reproduce structural inequality by race and class.

Goal Assessment(s):

1. By working in small groups students will weigh the school options based on the constraints of their family profile. They will compare their school selection with other group selections when all demographics and choices are written in a table on the board.
2. Through in-class discussion and viewing a visual map of the geography of the families and schools, students will hear and debate how residential segregation and school zoning practices reproduce inequality (and optional post-class quiz to assess).
3. By examining the different family decisions and through in-class discussion students will hear and debate different opinions about the impact of school choice on inequality for individuals and on a structural level (and optional post-class quiz to assess)