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.     

Some economic guidelines for design of a charter school district

As the number of charter schools has grown nationally, there is increasing discussion of the consolidation of such schools into charter districts in which all schools would be charter schools from which parents would have the freedom to choose the school that they wished their student to attend. A major question is how such a charter school district would be organized to support its schools and who would perform the different functions required. It is argued that three economic guidelines need to be an important determinant of the solution to this question: the presence of economies of scale; transaction costs; and externalities. The article describes the application of these guidelines to the formation of a charter school district and suggests the different possibilities for addressing a range of important roles by schools, their districts and intermediate organizations and markets.     

Assessing the Use of Econometric Analysis in Estimating the Costs of Meeting State Education Accountability Standards" Lessons From Texas

In 2004, over 300 school districts in Texas challenged the constitutionality of the Texas system of school finance. In West Orange-Cove et al. v. Neeley et al., the plaintiffs argued that because most school districts were at or near a state-imposed property tax rate ceiling and because the share of state education funding was declining, most school districts had inadequate funds to satisfy the student performance standards mandated by the Texas Educational Accountability system. To address the empirical question of whether school districts have insufficient resources to meet the state's accountability standards, two cost function analyses were conducted. One study, entered into evidence by the state of Texas, reached the conclusion that "in aggregate, the level of education funding in Texas is more than sufficient to meet performance goals consistent with the state's accountability system." The other study, entered into evidence by the plaintiff school districts, concluded that, in aggregate, Texas school districts would need at least $2 billion in additional revenue to satisfy the requirements of the accountability system. In this article we describe the methodological similarities and differences between the two cost function studies and provide an assessment of why the two studies arrive at such different results. Based on the outcome of the case in district court-a victory for the plaintiffs-the article draws some lessons about the use of statistical-based models in a judicial setting.     

Going Charter? A Study of School District Competition in Wisconsin

The question that drives this article is why some school districts decide to open up charter schools and others do not. Several answers are plausible: (a) entrepreneurial initiative, (b) structural explanations, and (c) spatial competition. We use data for the state of Wisconsin derived from extensive case studies of 19 charter schools and quantitative data on Wisconsin school district from state files and the U.S. Department of Education common core databases. We find evidence to support all three explanations for why districts “go charter.” First, in almost every school and district we visited for case studies, at the heart of either the district or the charter school, and often both, there were entrepreneurial administrators, school board members, teachers, or parents. Our evidence was anecdotal but very consistent across 19 case studies. Second, there are two general sets of structural characteristics that were shown to be quantitatively correlated with becoming a charter district. The first set comprised resource characteristics (size, federal revenue, and available seats); the second set comprised indicators of unmet students needs (the percentage of students eligible for free lunch). Finally, we argue and believe we provide significant evidence that competition is also a motivation for going charter. We posit that open enrollment and charter schools are working together to enhance the flows of students from homeschooling, private schools, dropouts, and other public school districts into charter school districts. Thus using several different indicators and models, estimating both which districts become charter districts and the flow and net gain directly from open enrollment, there is no question that charter schools are increasing competition for students in Wisconsin.     

Three Contemporary Dilemmas for Rural Superintendents

The school district is the fundamental administrative unit of schooling in the United States and the superintendent the lead official. The nature and the challenges of this position, however, vary across the landscape. Because most superintendents lead rural districts, the challenges facing those districts are the ones that typically bedevil the superintendency overall (perhaps a surprising thought to many readers). From this vantage, we theorize such challenges overall, and illustrate the theory with three episodes: (1) the continuing threats of school and district consolidation; (2) the arrival of ethnic diversity in previously all-White rural places; and (3) the leasing of school lands for mining, with a focus on hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”).     

Micropolitics and Rural School Consolidation: The Quest for Equal Educational Opportunity in Webster Parish

School consolidation in rural districts has been ongoing since the 1800s. Although many district personnel tout economic inefficiency as a reason for consolidation to occur, micropolitics among school board members, parents, and the business community often drive the consolidation process. This article presents a qualitative case study of Webster Parish, which documents the formulation and implementation of school consolidation policy in a rural context. On a macrolevel, I examine the role of micropolitics among district personnel in making the decision to consolidate. I also investigate the role of parish stakeholders—generally the business community and parents—in implementing the plan. On a microlevel, I explore the underlying themes of poverty, race, and educational opportunity as Webster Parish develops and implements a school consolidation plan. I find in the case of Webster Parish that strained community relations and micropolitics among parish stakeholders impeded the progress of providing equal educational opportunity to the parish's students. Given that many cases of micropolitics and education reform focus on urban districts, I find that it is significant to examine the role of micropolitics in educational change (or lack thereof) taking place in segregated, rural districts.     

Findings on Economies of Scale in Higher Education: Implications for Strategies of Merger and Alliance

Studies on economies of scale seek to establish atwhat size an institution functions at an optimal level ofefficiency. Higher education mergers produce an increase in thescale and scope of an institution, and are commonly driven on anexpectation of economic benefit. To what extent are greatervalue for money, savings in government expenditure, significantinstitutional financial benefit, achieved through the pursuit ofeconomics-of-scale-focused policies? The paper investigates thevaried findings of sixteen studies into economies of scale andscope in higher education, associated cost factors and cost/sizerelationships, and considers the strategic implications.

     

Enrollment decline and school reorganization—A cost efficiency analysis

The recent enrollment decline and its cost implications are major financial concerns for many school districts. This paper presents an analytical framework enabling the examination of the cost impact of a school reorganization that specifically involves the shifting of ninth-graders to senior high school and simultaneously transferring sixth-graders to junior high schools. Main considerations pointing to the merit of such a plan are likely benefits of scale economies and increased capacity utilization, combined with the economic advantage of having the most expensive resources (vested in high schools) least underutilized. An empirical study of schools in a metropolitan suburban county suggests that there can be a major cost saving under the proposed plan.     

State Education Finance and Governance Profile: North Carolina

Educational cost functions are used to estimate the additional costs associated with certain student and school district characteristics. Scholars and policymakers often assert that the results of cost function analysis can be used to distribute state aid more equitably among school districts. This technique, commonly referred to as “costing out,” allows state aid to vary with characteristics over which school officials have no control, with weights equal to coefficient estimates. This article reviews the literature that estimates educational cost functions and attempts to facilitate the comparison between the studies' methodologies and results.     

Examining the generalizability of administrative personnel allocation decisions

This study examined the effect of district and school size on principal teacher allocation decisions. The study tested the invariance of a personnel allocation decision making model for elementary school principals from three categories of school and district size. The sample consisted of elementary school principals from small, medium, and large schools and districts. The results confirmed the fit of the model across schools of all sizes and across small and medium size districts. For large school districts the proposed decision-making model did not fit the data. This result implies that district size has an effect on the personnel allocation decisions made by elementary school principals.     

Economies of scale in schooling

A model of optimal school size is developed which predicts that schools will minimize total costs by operating in a region of increasing returns to school inputs. Two sources of estimates of the economies of scale coefficient emerge from the optimal school size model, and two rich data sets are used to generate estimates of this coefficient. These estimates support the model and are shown to imply sizeable differences in the cost of schooling between urban and rural areas.     

Japanese and American student teacher voice: A comparative study of critical incidents

This study evaluates the effect of school district size on public high school graduation rates. The study calculates the graduation rate for each graduating class in each state between 1991 and 2002 and uses a fixed-effects model to examine the relationship between these graduation rates and changes in the size of each state's school districts during that period. The analysis indicates that decreasing the average size of a state's school districts by 200 square miles leads to an increase of about 1.64 percentage points in its graduation rate. To put this result into context, if Florida decreased the size of its school districts to the national median, it would increase its graduation rate by about 4.5 percentage points.     

Local amenities,unobserved quality,and market clearing: Adjusting teacher compensation to provide equal education opportunities

Local school districts differ in their ability to pay for teacher quality, and in the amenities they offer as places to live and work. Market clearing with heterogeneous quality yields geographically varying teacher salary levels that confound scarcity with unobserved differences in quality. The paper discusses identification and estimation of a model of quality-adjusted teacher salaries in local markets with unobserved market-clearing prices. Exogenous variables in the model include community and district characteristics, job characteristics and working conditions, and individual characteristics. We apply the model to estimate the relative cost of providing comparably qualified teachers for urban and rural public schools in the state of Alaska, which has high geographic variation in amenities and local financial resources. The quality-adjusted geographic salary differentials implied by the results suggest much larger compensation differentials for isolated rural schools than most of these school districts can afford under current levels of state support.     

Using Social-Impact Borrowing to Expand Preschool-to-Third Grade Programs in Urban Schools

Budget constraints and difficulty raising taxes limit school districts from expanding education programming, even when research shows that additional expenditures would generate economic benefits that are greater than costs. Recently, coalitions of private investors, philanthropists, education practitioners, and government finance analysts have emerged to create opportunities to expand education services that promise high rates of social net benefits without raising taxes or reducing other expenditures. These collaborators have a strong interest in obtaining careful estimates of educational program effectiveness. We describe the use of social-impact borrowing to increase access to the Child-Parent Center preschool-to-third grade intervention for at-risk students in the Chicago Public School District. The partners include the city, school district, investors, nonprofit organizations, and a university. The key to the feasibility of social-impact borrowing is the ability to document that early intervention can reduce the need for later special-education services. With the help of private investors and nonprofit organizations, it is possible for public school districts to finance services with funds from private sources and use future cost savings to repay this debt. We discuss how social-impact borrowing is being used in Chicago and in Salt Lake County as the nation's first 2 instances of using pay-for-performance social-impact borrowing to support early education.     

From Professional Development to Implementation: A District's Experience Implementing Mathematics Tiered Systems of Support

This article is about a school‐district‐initiated partnership with university faculty and their effort to implement a mathematics multi‐tiered system of support (MTSS). In addition to reporting research about MTSS implementation, we describe how this district translated research into practice. We also share the perceptions of key stakeholders about implementing mathematics MTSS in their district. We found that stakeholders identified time and human capacity as barriers to implementation, while the primary facilitator to implementation was identified as the acquisition of concrete strategies and tools supporting instruction. These stakeholder perceptions have implications for other districts with limited resources attempting to implement mathematics MTSS in their buildings through professional development and coaching.     

The Role of School District Science Coordinators in the District-Wide Appropriation of an Online Resource Discovery and Sharing Tool for Teachers

When introducing and implementing a new technology for science teachers within a school district, we must consider not only the end users but also the roles and influence district personnel have on the eventual appropriation of that technology. School districts are, by their nature, complex systems with multiple individuals at different levels in the organization who are involved in supporting and providing instruction. Varying levels of support for new technologies between district coordinators and teachers can sometimes lead to counterintuitive outcomes. In this article, we examine the role of the district science coordinator in five school districts that participated in the implementation of an online resource discovery and sharing tool for Earth science teachers. Using a qualitative approach, we conducted and coded interviews with district coordinators and teachers to examine the varied responsibilities associated with the district coordinator and to infer the relationships that were developed and perceived by teachers. We then examine and discuss two cases that illustrate how those relationships could have influenced how the tool was adopted and used to differing degrees in the two districts. Specifically, the district that had high support for online resource use from its coordinator appeared to have the lowest level of tool use, and the district with much less visible support from its coordinator had the highest level of tool use. We explain this difference in terms of how the coordinator’s promotion of teacher autonomy took distinctly different forms at those two districts.     

School consolidation vs. decentralization: Trends,issues, and questions

The author examines two opposing administrative/policy trends that have simultaneously influenced the size and shape of American school districts. First,consolidation of school districts has dramatically reduced the number of districts from 130,000 in 1930 to 15,500 in 1990. State officials have viewed this as cost-effective approach and a way of reducing overlapping services and expenses. Local school and community people have seen this trend as a means of undercutting their local identity and pride. Second,decentralization has usually taken place in an urban school setting and involves reducing the size of the school district by dividing it into smaller units. This trend reached its peak in 1980, when 91% of the school districts with 100,000 or more students (n=22) reported some form of decentralization. By the 1990s, both school trends had slowed down; nevertheless, 20 questions are delineated for school administrators and school board members to consider in the event they wish to consolidate or decentralize.     

高校多校区办学的规模与效益

在多校区办学的过程中,高校的人、财、物、办学空间等都有了显著的增加,这为高校扩大办学效益提供了必要的物质条件。由于规模与效益的非线性关系,如何控制办学规模已成为多校区办学高校亟待解决的现实课题。对于多校区办学的大学,同样也存在规模效益,当在校生人数在20000人左右时,其规模效益随着规模的扩大而增加,呈现规模经济,且其规模效益的增加主要靠人力资源的提升。但多校区办学所带来的成本增加较快,特别是不可控的可变成本或边际成本大幅增加,过大的规模将会引起规模不经济,应合理控制办学规模。     

Left Behind: District Secession and the Re-segregation of American Schools

ABSTRACT

Sixty-five years after the Brown v. Board decision, American schools are re-segregated and re-segregating. The mechanisms of this re-segregation are legal action, voluntary moves towards unitary status, unintended consequences of integration-oriented strategies, and an increasing trend towards the fracturing, or splintering of school districts. Both economic and political theory would indicate that splintering districts would work to pull racial and economic advantage out of the remaining district and into their own. To test this theory, we created a dataset that captures the fiscal and demographic status of U.S. school districts between 2000 and 2014 and analyzed the effect of district separation on the remaining districts in terms of student body composition, overall integration and local, state, and federal resources. Our findings indicate that separating districts are less diverse than the districts left behind. We further find that separating districts gain resources from local revenue and that remaining districts gain federal revenue in insufficient amounts to account for the loss of local funds. We find that these relative disadvantages for left behind districts and relative advantages for seceding districts persist when compared to the general population of school districts.     

4 Public choice perspectives on urban schools

Using public choice theory as a conceptual orientation, the authors argue that politics in urban school districts have differed from those in suburban school districts. Urban school politics have been characterized by relatively well‐organized interest groups and weak market controls, although politics in suburban school districts vary also, as a function of the strength of market controls. The strength of these interest groups in city school systems is reflected in school board politics, in the administrative structure and in district policies. Interest group liberalism in urban school districts may be lessening due to the changing educational needs of urban students and due to reformers’ efforts to give parents more educational choices. However, the success of market reforms depends on a number of conditions which will be a severe challenge to reformers.