Elementary-level charter schools in the Twin Cities are more racially segregated than their counterparts in the St. Paul, Minneapolis and suburban school districts, according to a Star Tribune analysis of enrollment data going back to 1980-81. The Star Tribune defined segregated as any school that had 80 percent or more minority students (predominantly minority) or less than 20 percent minorities (predominantly white). The National Center for Education Statistics defines a school as segregated if more than 75 percent of students are either minority or white.
Footnotes: The Star Tribune analyzed enrollment data, broken down by race, for all 7-county metro public elementary schools each year from 1980-81 to 2014-15. The seven counties were: Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Anoka, Washington, Scott and Carver. Socioeconomic data is based on the percentage of students in each school that participated in a federal free or reduced-price lunch program in 2014-15, which is a commonly used proxy for measuring poverty. Proficiency rates are a combination of the number of students deemed proficient in math and reading on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCA) in 2014-15.
Source: Minnesota Department of Education
