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White, and especially Asian, students attend charter schools at a higher rate than Hispanics, who now make up the greatest portion of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s school-age population.

Hispanic students account for 44 percent of all students in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, but they make up just 36 percent of charter school students. White students, who make up 40 percent of the school-age population, account for 48 percent of all charter students.

“The mission of public education is to give every child in our state the equal opportunity to excel to the maximum of their capabilities,â€� said Tim Ogle, executive director of the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ School Boards Association. “When you have disparities of opportunity, you are systemically inhibiting some groups over other groups through public policy, and that’s just inherently wrong.â€�

The ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Department of Education hasn’t conducted a formal analysis of the school enrollment demographics, but the agency’s spokesman, Charles Tack, said they’re anecdotally aware of the disparity, and that the data confirm that “there is work to be done.â€�

The disparity could be explained by a number of factors, researchers, education policy experts and school administrators say. The lack of transportation at some charter schools can be a barrier. Or an “information gap� about the charter school system may affect how minorities choose to participate in it. Parents might simply choose schools where the ethnic profile more closely matches that of their family.

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ lawmakers established charter schools in the 1990s so that parents could send their children to schools specializing in rigor, the arts or Montessori teaching methods. The intent was to provide education that was more tailored than what was traditionally available in public schools.

Today, roughly 17 percent of all students in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s public schools attend a charter school — about triple the national average of 5 percent. Only the District of Columbia has a greater portion of charter school students.

Charter schools here receive state funding based on enrollment and operate independent of school districts. They’re either run by nonprofit or for-profit groups. In fiscal year 2014, the state provided $8,041 per student to charter schools, compared to $9,096 per student to district schools.

District schools generate additional funding through voter-approved bonds and overrides. These funding streams aren’t available to charters, but they can raise more money through donations and grants.

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s open-enrollment law allows parents to send their children to any school they choose — district or charter — even if it’s outside their neighborhood, provided there is room.

The ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Center for Investigative Reporting analyzed school enrollment demographics for public schools in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, categorizing each and then comparing it to the demographic data from the surrounding communities and schools within a 10-mile radius.

The analysis provides a snapshot of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ school demographics from 2014, the most recent statewide data available. It did not look at elementary schools and high schools separately because schools have a variety of different grade levels and ethnicity data is provided only by school, not grade level and school.

While there are exceptions, when charter schools are compared to their neighborhoods and to other nearby schools, the data show that they are more likely to be whiter than the surrounding area, while district schools tend to overrepresent Hispanic students.

One of every six Hispanic students in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ attends a charter school. But for white students, it’s one in every four. Among Asians, it’s one of every three, and for Native Americans it’s one in 10.

The trend is more pronounced for charter schools located in more rural communities with fewer school choices, and among specific types of charters.

In both “rigorous� and “progressive� charter schools, more than half of the student population is white, and less than 30 percent is Hispanic. Alternatively, among “at-risk� charter schools, which cater to students at risk of failing out of school, Hispanics make up an overwhelming majority of the students, with white students making up less than 20 percent.

In the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ area, almost every school with a high ethnic disparity is a charter school.

A 1999 study of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s then-nascent charter school system found similar trends.

Diversity is good for schools, and the figures shed light on a need for greater awareness of education options, said Eileen Sigmund, president and CEO of the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Charter Schools Association.

“Results for students are better if there’s mixed demographics,� Sigmund said. “That is the research and my leaders know it. And they’ll often ask me, ‘How do I get more of a mixed demographic? I’m concerned that I’m not able to serve as many students as I can.’�

Jonathan Butcher, education director for the Goldwater Institute, said charter schools shouldn’t be criticized for their student demographics because being diverse wasn’t the initial goal.

“Yes, we want (charter schools) to serve diverse populations, but I think it’s unfair to criticize them for not doing something that isn’t part of the main goal that they were set up to do,� Butcher said. “Their goal was to give parents more options and to improve student achievement. That’s what they were set up to do.�

The BASIS charter schools, which consistently rank among the highest-performing public schools in the country, are particularly popular among Asian families. Nearly 28 percent of all BASIS students are Asian, although Asians only make up about 3 percent of the state’s K-12 public school students.

BASIS Chandler has the greatest percentage of Asian students of any BASIS school. Sixty-eight percent of the school’s population — 497 out of 731 students — are Asian, though the surrounding neighborhood is only 5 percent Asian. Overall, the combined student population at the BASIS schools is 57 percent white and 11 percent Hispanic.

BASIS representatives didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment but said in an email that BASIS is “incredibly proud of the diverse nature� of its student population.

Andrew Morrill, president of the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Education Association, said public schools have historically had a strong connection to the community in which they’re located and that it’s difficult for charter schools to build that same connection when they don’t serve the students from around the area.

“When you have schools that may encourage folks of some ethnicities but not necessarily the ones in those communities, how connected is that school to the local neighborhood?� Morrill said. “What really is that charter school then to the local community?�

CHARTER SCHOOL BARRIERS

Researchers at the Civil Rights Project at UCLA found in 2009 that access to charter schools and other school choice options are constrained by a number of factors, including socioeconomic status, language barriers and parents’ social networks.

Their research found that charter schools that don’t provide transportation create a barrier for students whose parents aren’t able to arrange alternative transportation.

In ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, neither charter nor district schools are required to provide transportation, and only district schools get funding to pay for it.

However, charter schools get “additional assistance� from the state, included in the overall per-pupil funding, that can be used flexibly, including for transportation costs.

A 2014 national PDK/Gallup poll found that most parents don’t have a clear understanding of what charter schools are or how they operate. Half of the poll respondents said they thought charters were not public schools. Forty-eight percent thought they can teach religion. The majority believed charter schools can charge tuition and admit students based on academic ability.

Chicanos por la Causa (CPLC), a nonprofit that provides social services primarily to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s Hispanic community and runs two charter schools, conducted a small focus group with 22 Hispanic parents in Phoenix that produced similar results.

Magdalena Verdugo, CPLC vice president of education, said most parents didn’t know they could send their children to charter schools, saying, “The perception was that charter schools were private.�

Hispanic parents whose children are enrolled in charter schools believe charter schools are better than district schools because of their small and organized classrooms, disciplined students, secure environment and challenging academic curriculum.

For the most part, Hispanic parents who don’t have children enrolled in charter schools have a positive view of charters. Spanish-speaking Hispanic parents, however, perceive charters as the last resort for students who have been expelled from other schools. Some also think charters are religious schools.

Spanish-speaking parents were also unaware of school choice and thought low-income students don’t have the right or ability to attend a high-quality school, regardless of whether the school is a district or charter.

The lack of transportation presents the biggest barrier for Hispanic parents who want to enroll their children in charter schools, Verdugo said. For Spanish-speaking parents, it’s the inability to communicate with charter school staff in their native language.

CPLC plans to create a program to raise awareness of charter schools and school choice options among primarily low-income Hispanic families in Phoenix. The grant-funded program will include attending community events and meeting with parents to educate them about school choices.

David Garcia, an ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ State University professor who also ran unsuccessfully for superintendent of public instruction in 2014, conducted a study in 2008 that tracked individual students moving from public schools to charters from 1997 to 2000.

White students left district elementary schools to enter charter elementary schools that were, on average, 10 percent more white. Black elementary school students entered charters that were, on average, 29 percent more black than the district schools they left. For students leaving district high schools, however, both white and black students entered charter schools that had similar percentages of white and black students.

Native Americans across all grade levels chose to attend charter schools that had a higher concentration of Native Americans than the district schools they exited. Hispanic elementary school students were the only group that didn’t self-segregate into charter schools with a higher percentage of students from the same ethnic group.

“If you look around, we spend a lot of time with people like ourselves,� Garcia said. “And the question I have is, why then when it comes to sending your kids to school, what makes us think we would do anything different? That is, to me, a legitimate challenge when we stand up and say we should have more integrated schools.�

INTEGRATION RULES

At least three states have laws in place that attempt to ensure charter schools are more integrated and reflect the communities in which they’re located.

North Carolina mandates charter schools to “reasonably reflect the racial and ethnic composition� of the community it serves within a year of opening. South Carolina requires charter schools to have the same racial and ethnic composition as the local school districts where they’re located. And in Nevada, the racial and ethnic composition of a charter school cannot differ by more than 10 percent from that of the surrounding public schools.

All three states require charter schools to provide open enrollment to any student in the state.