The community that I work with is under a court-ordered school desegregation program that grants historically underrepresented students of color the ability to attend school in the more affluent districts that surround their own, provided their parents apply between kindergarten and second grade. Every year, the county office for this program sends its information out to every household in the city. In addition to having access to schools in those six districts plus their own district, the families also have access to the numerous charter schools and private schools in the area. So, yes, as “school choice” has been on and off California’s ballot for every other election, this community has basically had access to “school choice” for almost forty years.

By parent request, I have had the opportunity to accompany parents to school meetings or to sit as a silent observer in a wide variety of classrooms for a variety of students. While there is a noticeable difference between the school grounds (affluent schools have nicer playgrounds and sometimes a large school library), there really isn’t a huge disparity between what I have observed in the classrooms from kindergarten to fifth grade. Elementary school across all of these schools– rich and poor, diverse and integrated, is almost exactly the same.

The major difference is middle school. There is a stronger college preparatory component and thus a higher level of academic engagement in the more affluent middle schools. However, the students who attend school outside of their district don’t perform any better or any worse academically than if they had remained in their home district. I don’t intend to address that phenomena here.