Racial Disparities and Black Parents’ School Preferences: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

TL;DR

This study explores how racial disparities in school discipline and academic outcomes influence Black parents' preferences for schools.

Contribution

The study provides empirical evidence on how racial gaps in discipline and achievement affect Black parents' school choices.

Findings

Racial disparities in discipline and academic outcomes reduce Black parents' desire to enroll in high-achievement schools.

Schools with unequal punishment of Black students negatively impact parents' perceptions of student belonging.

Abstract

Nearly half of Black parents have access to public school choice, but choice may not provide equitable and supportive school environments. Qualitative research documents Black parents worries that majority-White schools with more resources and higher test scores may over-discipline, underestimate, and exclude their children. Yet large-scale studies rarely examine what Black families desire in potential schools, including how they navigate potential tradeoffs between high school quality and denigrating school racial climates. This survey experiment examines the extent to which test score gaps and suspension gaps between Black students and their non-Black peers deter Black parents from choosing schools with higher overall test scores and lower overall suspension rates. We randomly assign a large, national sample of Black parents (N = 1,677) to examine a school profile vignette where the school has overall high academic achievement and low suspensions rates but includes either one, both, or neither academic and discipline gaps to assess how test score and suspension disparities affect Black parents’ school preferences and perceptions. We find that racial disparities in student discipline and academic outcomes, on average, diminish Black families’ desires to enroll in high-achievement schools and their perceptions of student belonging. These findings align with qualitative research showing that well-resourced, high-achieving schools are less appealing to Black families when they marginalize Black students and that schools’ unequal punishment of Black students shapes Black parents’ evaluations of potential educational spaces.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11256-025-00797-x.

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