Students targeted?

In 2009, a Miami-Dade school district study of middle-schoolers found that while black students and poor students were less likely to transfer to charter schools, those who were classified as gifted or had earned high marks on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests were more likely to choose charter schools.

The report also found that advanced students were nearly twice as likely to transfer to schools in the Mater and Doral networks of schools as to continue in their home schools.

“It is unlikely that the effects seen for these particular schools can be explained by direct marketing techniques, which are typically ineffective, given that these effects are not seen in other charter schools,” the report concluded. “This raises the possibility that specific students were targeted in some way.”

Fernando Zulueta, the CEO of Academica — the firm that manages the two networks of schools — said neither one targets certain classes of students. “My philosophy is to let everyone in and you can do amazing work with these kids,” he said.

Zulueta said more high-performing children may wind up at Mater and Doral because their parents are better informed about choice options. He criticized the findings of the district’s middle-school study, saying they reflected parent dissatisfaction with the traditional public schools, not recruitment practices.

Recruitment practices can, however, help shape a population of students.

Henry Rose, who sits on the executive board of the Florida Consortium of Public Charter Schools, said marketing is an important part of the equation. Student recruitment is frequently discussed at charter school governing board meetings, minutes show.

“You have to figure out what your market is,” Rose said. “Do you want to appeal to kids who are struggling? How far outside of the neighborhood do you want to go? How are you going to reach those parents?”

Florida charter schools are expected to “reach out to the community,” said Miller, of the state education department.

Some charter operators do. Haag, the consortium president who is also superintendent of the Charter Schools of Excellence network of schools in Broward County, said he places advertisements on public buses and in neighborhood churches. “I’ve tried every way to reach out to African-American students,” he said.

Some South Florida schools avidly court parents in affluent neighborhoods, sending recruitment fliers to homes in high-income ZIP codes. Two charter schools in Coral Gables and South Miami held an invitation-only information session at the posh Biltmore Hotel last year, parents said.

Often, a charter school’s best marketing device is a good reputation and high FCAT scores, said Jonathan Hage, president of Charter Schools USA, one of the region’s largest charter school management companies.

But for both charter schools and traditional public schools, poverty is linked to low test scores — creating a potential incentive for charter schools to avoid these students.

Most charter schools say they encourage all students to apply and that they admit students based on the results of a random lottery.

State law does not require any oversight of the lotteries, and the Miami-Dade school district has never sought information detailing which students apply to charter schools and which ones get in. Some charter schools contacted by The Miami Herald provided incomplete records, or said their application and lottery records for prior years had been discarded.