ChatGPT Lied To Me About Charter Schools

Charter schools segregate Black and other minority students and worsen economic and racial isolation. That “fact” was given to me by the artificial “intelligence” of ChatGPT.  

A few days ago, I asked ChatGPT, an AI program many students use nationwide, about the differences between charter and traditional public schools (TPS). I was particularly interested in how the two models can address educational inequity, so I instructed ChatGPT to only use .edu, .org, or .gov sites as sources.

It responded that there are reasons to be concerned about charter schools segregating students. My first instinct is to do some rage typing to vent my feelings about this ludicrous misinformation, but I’ll try to break this down like an educator in a classroom instead. 

I’ve read a lot about (A) charter schools and (B) segregation, and at no point have I come across information that demonstrates A caused B. So, what in the name of AI hallucinations happened with this ChatGPT query? Well, sometimes, it really is a good idea to do your own research because the source was questionable and seven years old. 

The Associated Press, the New York Times, and other prominent outlets reported on a 2012 study by George Orfield, and education reform groups and anti-charter school advocates battled over its accuracy, which singled out charters for criticism.  

Fortunately, several well-crafted rebuttals were written seven years ago, including this article by Emily Langhorne for U.S. News and World Report titled “The Truth About 'Segregated' Charter Schools." Langhorne detailed five truths that, unfortunately, in some cases, remain true today. 

Truth #1: Residential segregation, not charter schools, increases "racial isolation" in public schools.

Truth #2: Choice is not equal to force.

Truth #3: Questioning the right to school choice disempowers minority families.

Truth #4: Academic success is as important as diversity.

Truth #5: Low-income and minority children need access to high-quality education now.

No. 1 was my first thought in response to the claim that charter schools somehow exacerbate segregation and racial and economic isolation.

It seemed like a monumental leap to cite charters as a problem in the face of the long history of redlining and other practices that forcibly separated people by race—as if charters were holding us back from breakthroughs in neighborhood desegregation.

Racial segregation still largely determines opportunities available to American kids, and the reason is that many historically redlined areas can’t break free from the devastating effects of those policies without significant investment. Hoping it will happen without social justice reforms is like expecting a 100-year-old oak tree to get up and move to a better spot. 

These are deep-rooted problems, so asking people to wait for neighborhoods to be reborn is akin to asking families to voluntarily downgrade their children’s education by knowingly sending them to low-performing schools. We shouldn’t abandon efforts to improve all schools, but we should not hold it against families when they don’t want to volunteer for the rebuild.

Choice is at the core of Truths No. 2-5. Can anti-charter school advocates and politicians look minority parents in the eyes and give good reasons why they shouldn’t go to a local public school that happens to be a culturally affirming charter? And if you object to their choice, is it because you also attended a series of public schools in low-income areas and are defending their quality, or were you in public schools with more opportunities?

There are many benefits to attending high-quality charters, and education reformers should encourage legislators in all 50 states to copy what works. (Parents and guardians should still research as much as possible to determine if a charter is high-quality. My position in this article is not that all charters are marvelous machines of educational justice.)  

However, a contingent of educational progressives jump on any new information to advance the narrative that all charters are bad for the traditional public school system. Their position is at odds with the progressive history of charters and the history of Black education pioneers who were forced by racist systems in states nationwide to create their own excellent schools. 

In doing so, Democratic leaders in teachers unions and legislators nationwide risk further alienating themselves from a growing number of Black and Brown parents who want more school choices in their neighborhoods. 

In the end, what does this have to do with ChatGPT? Consider how many students and professionals use it, and then consider how many would have checked what it told me about “segregation concerns” in charter schools. 

What if they were writing about educational justice issues in American education when the news includes coverage of divisive debates about vouchers and Education Savings Accounts? They might view a study published by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA as confirmation of their worst fears that traditional public schools are under attack. 

Instead, one more step further of research punched numerous holes in the argument. It has been school policy for a long time that you shouldn’t use Wikipedia as a source for research. ChatGPT can be just as unreliable if you don’t check the source material.