Special Education in American Charter Schools: State level policy,practices and tensions

The US charter school movement is based upon the supposition that granting individual public schools increased autonomy from state and district rules and regulations in exchange for more accountability will foster the creation of innovative, effective and efficient schools. However, while state charter school laws free these schools from various state and district rules and regulations, the schools must still operate within the civil rights parameters legislated by federal statutes. Of particular import are federal laws that guarantee that children with disabilities receive a free appropriate public education. Project SEARCH, a 3 year qualitative study of special education in US charter schools revealed that there is a fundamental philosophical gap between the individualised, autonomous nature of charter schools and the highly regulated nature of special education. The philosophical gap is complicated by some charter schools' inability to amass the fiscal and human capacity needed to meet the needs of individual children with disabilities.     

Twice considered: Charter schools and student achievement in Utah

A relatively small state, Utah presents an interesting case to study charter schools given its friendly policy environment and its significant growth in charter school enrollment. Based on longitudinal student-level data from 2004 to 2009, this paper utilizes two approaches to evaluate the Utah charter school effectiveness: (a) hierarchical linear growth models with matched sample, and (b) general methods of moments with student-fixed effects regressions. Both methods yield consistent results that charter schools on average perform slightly worse as compared to traditional public schools, a result that is primarily affected by the low effectiveness and high student mobility of newly opened charter schools. Interestingly, when charter schools gain more experience they become as effective as traditional public schools, and in some cases more effective than traditional public schools. This research has implications for local and state charter school policies, particularly policies that avoid “start-up” costs associated with new charter schools.     

Why mission matters more for (some) charter principals

Reflecting post-bureaucratic organisation theory, education reformers intended charter schools to empower school-level leaders, most typically principals, with autonomy to pursue clear, student-centred missions. Yet little research explores whether charter school principals have more power than traditional public school counterparts. We summarise the limited literature addressing the issue. Second, we present findings from interviews with nine charter leaders from six US states who have experience in leading both charter and traditional public schools, a unique data set. Both prior research and our findings suggest that generally, leaders feel more likely to be held accountable for results in charter schools than in traditional public schools. Furthermore, without oversight from school boards and central office administrators, charter leaders report having more power over budget and personnel, and more ability to collaborate with teachers. At the same time, standalone charter leaders report needing business support and training, while those from charter management organizations feel free to focus on academic success.     

School Choice Policies Shaping Neighborhoods,School Locations,and Destinies

ABSTRACT

In this article, we introduce a special collection of research articles that consider the processes and consequences of school choice across different social and spatial contexts in order to better understand the relationship between school choice and stratification in educational opportunity. This special issue presents a wide range of studies that examine geographical configurations, locations, scales, and relationships, all of which shape and are shaped by school choice. We summarize the diverse theoretical perspectives and themes. We also highlight the articles’ key results and new contributions related to issues such as inter-district school choice, open enrollment school choice programs, diversification of curricular-related activities among EMO-operated schools, and geographic variation in achievement of the charter school sector     

美国特许学校的办学绩效分析--来自美国加利福尼亚的报告

特许学校是美国20世纪90年代出现的一种新型公立学校.经过10多年的发展,特许学校的办学绩效引起了美国教育界的广泛关注.本文介绍了美国加州关于特许学校绩效分析的一份最新报告.     

Segregation,Desegregation, Segregation: Charter School Options as a Return to Separate and Unequal Schools for Urban Families

The controversial glory of the Brown decisions and the retraction of court-ordered reforms represent the limited gains of racial justice in education and the protection of white privilege through law and policy. The return to segregation, as propagated through the rise of racially and economically segregated charter schools, exhibits the circuitous nature of law and education policy, represents a return to unequal schooling, and reveals the enduring and meaningful connections between race, law, and education. Using the lens of critical race theory, this paper focuses on law as an instrument of racial justice and oppression in education during the era of school desegregation and the inevitable return to separate and unequal schools for African American students through new education policies that promote the proliferation of charter schools in large urban school districts.     

School innovation in district context: Comparing traditional public schools and charter schools

Market reforms in education are part of the educational policy landscape in many countries. Central to arguments for market reforms is the idea that competition and choice will spur changes in schools to be more innovative, which in turn will lead to better student outcomes. We define innovation in terms of a practice's relative prevalence in a local district context. A charter school is innovative in its use of a practice if the traditional public schools in its local school district are not using that practice. We explore factors based on arguments for charter schools that may affect a charter schools’ propensity toward innovation to explain variation in levels of innovation across charter schools. We find that, on the whole, charter schools do not fulfill their promise of innovation. Teacher tenure is the most notable exception. Parental involvement is the only characteristic of charter schools that significantly predicts variation in levels of organizational innovativeness.     

Considering Legal Identity as a Critical Variable of Interest in Charter Schools Research

ABSTRACT

Fifteen years ago charter schools were considered a radical addition to the public education landscape. Today they present a viable educational choice in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Much has been written about charter schools, their purpose, effectiveness, and future. However, to date, much of the dialogue has focused on ideology and methodology resulting in a discussion framed as “charter vs. noncharter.” Overlooked have been the more substantive issues that would provide a more accurate framework for studying charter schools. We propose that the education policy and research communities need to identify the critical variables in the charter schools sector that affect both student outcomes and education policy. One such major variable is the legal status of a charter school, that is, its identity as a local education agency (LEA) or as part of an existing LEA and the charter school's linkage to other parts of the public education system that flows from that identity. Differentiating charter schools according to their legal status will allow stakeholders to categorize these schools in a manner that succinctly captures critical differences. doi:10.1300/J467v01n03_11     

Examining Variation Within the Charter School Sector: Academic Achievement in Suburban,Urban, and Rural Charter Schools

ABSTRACT

To date, there is a paucity of research that examines differences between charter schools that operate in suburban and nonsuburban contexts. This article examines whether students in suburban charter schools perform better or worse than their counterparts in traditional public schools or students in urban charter schools. Boasting the largest and most diverse charter school population in the United States, California offers a fertile urban-suburban context for the study of geographically differentiated charter school impacts and, thus, serves as the focus of our study. The student achievement data (2009–2010, 2010–2011 and 2011–2012 school years) for this study come from the California Department of Education. Using propensity score matching and virtual control records, our findings show that suburban charter schools do not improve academic achievement relative to the matched comparison group of traditional public schools. Suburban charter schools (namely, charters in high-income areas) are largely ineffective and appear to leave their students’ achievement unchanged or diminished. This study adds to the existing literature by examining the effects of charter schools on the neighborhoods in which they operate. Methodologically, another important contribution of this study is that it supplements traditional selection criteria for suburban charters (NCES classification) with census-based neighborhood factors. Finally, this study provides evidence of the broader implications of school choice policies in a suburban setting.     

Social returns to private choice? Effects of charter schools on behavioral outcomes,arrests, and civic participation

The vast majority of literature on school choice, and charter schools in particular, focus on attending an elementary or middle school grades and often focus on test scores or other proximal outcomes. Much less is known about the long-term effects of attending a charter school in 9th grade. It is important to fill this information void for a few reasons. First, schools in general affect more than just students’ test scores. Second, secondary schools (including grades 9–12) make up a larger share of the charter sector. Third, school choice depends on freely available information for parents and students to make informed decisions about where to attend, including potential long-term benefits. We add to the empirical research on charter school effects by using a doubly-robust inverse probability weighted approach to evaluate the impacts of secondary charter school attendance on 9th grade behavioral outcomes and individuals propensity to commit crime and participate in elections as young adults in North Carolina, a state with a large and growing charter school sector.     

An Institutional Theory Analysis of Charter Schools: Addressing Institutional Challenges to Scale

This article presents a conceptual framework derived from institutional theory in sociology that offers two competing policy contexts in which charter schools operate—a bureaucratic frame versus a decentralized frame. An analysis of evolving charter school types based on three underlying theories of action is considered. As charter school leaders pursue new and different forms of schooling, they are challenged by well-established bureaucratic rules and norms that define what it means to be a legitimate school. Microlevel institution-building efforts, however, may represent viable alternatives to the institutional order of public education as charter school leaders attempt to achieve scale.     

Charter School Attitudes and Practices in States with Diverse Public Sector Bargaining Laws

ABSTRACT

Virtually all state charter school legislation addresses teacher rights and working environment. Relationships with teacher unions are either specified in the law, or approval of the charter requires suitable provisions for employee hiring, firing, grievances, etc. Charter school evaluation almost without exception includes some references to these issues. This study uses an online survey to gather information gauging the effect of the ambient union environment on charter school practices and attitudes related to teacher rights and teacher participation in school administration and governance. In the first phase of a projected national study, three states were selected whose public sector collective bargaining environments are very different. Analysis of attitudes, practices, and demographics showed significant differences in views about teacher involvement in school governance, but little difference in views or practices concerning teacher unions in charter schools. Limited survey response resulted in collection methods which will be corrected in an anticipated national study. The online survey method of data collection is discussed. Implications for public policy and future charter school legislation are explored. Further studies should address variations in the impact of union involvement between public, private, and charter schools.     

美国特许学校兴起、纷争及动向

1992年以来,发展特许学校成为美国改善K12教育的重要创新举措,引起诸多利益相关者的强烈关注。在特许学校扩展进程中,不同研究对其是否为学生提供了有质量的教育,是否推动了传统公立学校改进,是否促进了教育机会公平等成效表现存在不同判断。当前,在教育自由选择理念的主导下,美国政府不断完善特许学校发展的政策支持体系,采取包括加大对特许学校财政资金的资助力度、强化对特许学校授权机构的问责、增强对特许学校质量评价的综合性等一系列针对性措施。     

The effect of charter schools on districts’ student composition,costs, and efficiency: The case of New York state

Charter schools can influence a school district's costs by reducing economies of scale and by changing the share of high cost students a district serves, but might also increase the district's efficiency through competition. Utilizing data for New York State school districts from 1998/99 to 2013/14, we estimate difference-in-differences models to assess the effect of charter schools on enrollment and student composition. Then, we estimate an expenditure function, using data prior to the charter school program, to measure the costs associated with reaching a given performance standard for students in various need categories and different enrollments. Next, using the entire data set, we run a second expenditure function to determine changes in efficiency associated with charter school entry. We find that charter schools increase the cost of providing education, and that these cost increases are larger than short-run efficiency gains, but are offset by efficiency gains in the long term.     

Choice,Competition, and Cognition: How Arizona Charter School Leaders Interpret and Respond to Market Pressures

ABSTRACT

A key goal of school choice policies is to generate competition between schools, which should theoretically drive school leaders to improve their programs to attract and retain students. However, few studies examine how principals actually perceive and define competition. This article empirically examines school leaders’ conceptions of competition and their strategic behaviors using cognitive frameworks from new institutional theory, including sensemaking theory. Drawing on data from qualitative interviews with 30 charter school leaders in Arizona, we explore how leaders’ cognitive understandings of competition influence their actions in an educational “marketplace.” We find charter school leaders make meaning of “competition” in different ways, influenced by their local contexts and their conceptions of what actions are legitimate. Our work suggests that it is important to study the meanings of competition to school leaders, as it has important implications for schools’ competitive responses and, ultimately, student outcomes. Our work has important implications for policy makers seeking to expand school choice as it sheds light on how competition works in practice, with implications for equity and access.     

Federal precedents and the origins of the charter school movement in Florida,USA, 1981–1996

After four years of failed attempts, lawmakers in the State of Florida sanctioned charter schools in 1996. This paper traces the political origins of the charter school movement in Florida and the USA as a whole. Examining legislation and reforms at the federal level, as well as state legislative proceedings, this paper identifies key political precedents. Nationally, the privatisation initiatives of the federal government created a climate conducive to charter school programmes. In Florida, a dual educational emphasis on local operational autonomy and accountability to the state appeared in the early 1990s, which paved the way for charter school legislation. By 1996, new federal charter school programmes solidified bipartisan support in Florida for this particular brand of school choice.     

A different type of charter school: in prestige charters,a rise in cachet equals a decline in access

This paper seeks to elucidate a specific type of charter school. While much has been written about school choice and the expanding charter school segment, a growing and important number of charter schools do not fit in to the common understanding of these schools. Distinct from many of their counterparts, prestige charter schools have the following two features: elements which foster a reputation similar to that of elite private schools and a student population demographically distinct from local public district schools – whereby the prestige charters serve a disproportionate number of advantaged families. The prestige elements include: founding by advantaged community members; parental involvement; wait lists; popularity with advantaged professionals; high test scores; and niche themes. The authors will show through two in-depth case studies that prestige charter schools work hand-in-hand with gentrification in urban neighborhoods, and result in racial and class segregation and inequality. This paper examines how these charter schools struggle when a rise in prestige coincides with a decline in access for low-income students. The authors recommend that given the current system of school choice, prestige charter schools must use tools and mechanisms to maintain demographic diversity and educational equity which is in the best interest of all children.     

Politics of Charter Schools: Competing National Advocacy Coalitions Meet Local Politics

This article identifies supporters and opponents of charter schools at all levels of government and describes their motivations and behaviors. It is explained that state and local support for charter schools is most often determined by educational needs and material incentives. Different political contexts produce different charter school policies. For example, charter school legislation in Michigan was designed to increase competition among public schools. Legislation in Georgia served to deregulate public education after a period of increased state centralization. The article concludes that there is no cohesive state or local charter political pattern, given the variations in charter schools and their contexts. It remains unclear whether national charter school advocates have enough influence to expand the number of charter schools significantly. Local policymakers in areas with few educational pressures, such as some suburban communities, may resist change. Charter schools could end up as a marginal reform that impacts small numbers of students in urban centers, or continue their impressive growth, but it is state and local politics that will decide.