Sorting it Out: The Effects of Charter Expansion on Teacher and Student Composition at Traditional Public Schools

Since their introduction in the 1990s, charter schools have grown from a small-scale experiment to a ubiquitous feature of the public education landscape. The current study uses the legislative removal of a cap on the maximum number of charters in North Carolina as a natural experiment to assess the impacts of charter school growth on teacher quality and student composition in traditional public schools (TPS) at different levels of local market penetration. Using an instrumental variable difference-in-differences approach to account for endogenous charter demand, we find that intensive local charter entry reduces the inflow of new teachers at nearby TPS, leading to a more experienced and credentialed teaching workforce on average. However, we find that the entry of charters serving predominantly White students leads to reductions in average teacher experience, effectiveness, and credentials at nearby TPS. Overall these findings suggest that the composition of the teacher workforce in TPS will continue to change as charter schools further expand, and that the spillover effects of future charter expansion will vary by the types of students served by charters.     

Equal Access? Analyzing Charter Location Relative to Demographics in Ohio

We analyze the geographical distribution of, and access to, charter schools in the state of Ohio. Using poverty and race data from the U.S. Census, as well as publicly available student achievement scores, we analyze the locational preferences of charter schools. We use Geographic Information System (GIS) to visual display charter school locations relative to these community variables. Results suggest that policies limiting charters to locate in low performing school districts (labeled “challenged districts”) lead charters to cluster in urban cities; thus students living in poverty in large portions of the state lack easy access to school choice options. Further, we find that charters tend to avoid areas of the highest concentrations of poverty and Hispanic (though not Black) students.     

Seeing Charters Differently: A New Approach to National Comparisons of Charter and Traditional Public Schools

ABSTRACT

The national debate over charter schooling has become increasingly heated in 2016, driven by polarized narratives about the students charters typically serve. Opponents argue charters cream-skim more advantaged students, while proponents hold they primarily serve historically disadvantaged students. National evidence on charter student selectivity has not kept pace with these arguments. Rigorous comparisons of charter and traditional public schools (TPSs) have limited scope and generalizability, while oversimplified national comparisons are often misleading. This essay presents a novel method for national comparisons of charter schools’ student poverty, special education, limited English proficient (LEP) composition and discipline rates, to those of their nearest five TPS neighbors. Findings show that charters’ student compositions differ from those in neighboring TPSs, but not in uniform ways.     

Do Testing Conditions Explain Cyber Charter Schools’ Failing Grades?

Recent Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) analyses find that cyber charter schools in seventeen states show consistently low reading and mathematics value-added test scores compared to traditional public schools serving comparable students. This generally accords with prior research. We hypothesize that the relatively poor measured academic value-added of cyber charters reflects artificial testing conditions for students in those schools. Accordingly, we have collected testing information from the seventeen CREDO states. State-level analyses find that cyber student persistence, which likely indicates school quality, correlates moderately and significantly with the cyber student academic value-added as measured by CREDO. Further, we find evidence of lower cyber school value-added in states which permit cybers to use narrow testing windows, perhaps reflecting testing fatigue on the part of test-takers. We discuss implications, and suggest next steps for research exploring whether testing conditions affect measured cyber charter performance.     

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.     

It’s time to learn: School institutions and returns to instruction time

This paper investigates whether the effects of a reform that substantially increased daily instruction time in Chilean primary schools vary depending on school institutions. Focusing on incumbent students and exploiting an IV strategy, we find that longer daily schedules increase reading scores at the end of fourth grade and that the benefits are greater for pupils who began primary education in no-fee charter schools rather than in public schools. We provide evidence that these two types of publicly subsidized establishments, which cater to similar students but differ in their degree of autonomy, expand the teaching input in different ways: in order to provide the additional instruction time, no-fee charter schools rely more on hiring new teachers and less on increasing teachers’ working hours than public schools do.     

The relative efficiency of charter schools: A cost frontier approach

Charters represent an expansion of public school choice, offering free, publicly funded educational alternatives to traditional public schools. One relatively unexplored research question concerning charter schools asks whether charter schools are more efficient suppliers of educational services than are traditional public schools. The potential relative efficiency advantage of charters vis-a-vis traditional publics is one of the mechanisms that supports the hypotheses that charters could improve performance for their students while using the same or fewer resources, and that the systemic effect of charters could lead to improved outcomes for traditional public students without requiring an increase in education sector resources.     

Competitive Incentives and the Education Market: How Charter Schools Define Themselves in Metropolitan Detroit

Policymakers often advance charter schools as an education reform model that can offer more diverse educational alternatives for families. Yet, as these schools compete for students, questions arise about how they respond to the competitive incentives in differentiating themselves through marketing distinct options for learners. The way these schools promote themselves to their anticipated clientele—as opposed to how they are defined by their competitors—speaks to how schools engage and thus arrange themselves in the local education market. In that regard, school mission statements can offer critical information on the intended organizational purposes that differentiate each organization. Yet there is little empirical research on what these statements contain, and thus how schools respond to incentives in engaging local markets. This study looks at the content of mission statements—which are largely consistent with the schools’ charters themselves—developed by each charter school in one of the most competitive charter school markets in the country: the Detroit metropolitan area. This study finds a notable level of isomorphism in charter school mission statements, indicating a tendency to replicate rather than innovate. This uniformity of mission statements suggests that charter schools are not fulfilling their potential in diversifying school markets.     

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.     

Do Charters Pose a Threat to Private Schools? Evidence from Nationally Representative Surveys of U.S. Parents

Charter schools increasingly challenge both district and private schools for student enrollments in the United States. With more parents able to choose among the sectors, the success of each in attracting students will turn in part on the levels of satisfaction provided to families who enroll. We analyze data from two nationally representative surveys of parental perceptions. Private school parents are the most satisfied with the climate, student behavior, and school-to-parent communications in their child’s school, but the gap between private school parents and charter parents is much less than the one between private school parents and those in district schools. We find little difference across sectors in satisfaction with school infrastructure and in school–parent communications about student behavior. Because charters, like district schools, are free, this narrowing of the satisfaction gap between the tuition-based and free school sectors may erode the size of the private sector.     

Privatising form or function? Equity,outcomes and influence in American charter schools

The American experiment with charter schools advanced on dual impulses of increasing opportunities for disadvantaged students and unleashing market competition. While critics see these independently managed schools as a form of privatisation, proponents contend that they are public schools because of funding and accountability arrangements and potential benefits, and believe that the economic logic around these schools will produce equitable educational opportunities. This analysis considers how charters are or are not instances of privatisation in education, showing that the marketised environment they are intended to nurture serves as a route for profit-seeking strategies. In reviewing the research on charter school organisational behaviour and outcomes in marketised environments, I find evidence of de facto privatisation in function if not in form. As charter schools often act like profit-seeking entities, but fail to achieve expected academic and equity outcomes, the concluding discussion considers how these schools are placed between conflicting goals, and serve as entry points for private organisations seeking to penetrate the publicly funded education sector. I conclude that perhaps their most important role is in serving as a vehicle for privatising public policy—diminishing the public while enhancing the position and influence of private interests and organisations in education policymaking.     

A Test of the Segregation Premise

ABSTRACT

Concerns have been raised over the potential of charter schools to re-segregate the nation's schools. This concern has been expressed mostly with respect to students with disabilities and with respect to ethnic and/or racial minorities. In this study, the enrollment statistics for charter and contiguous non-charter public schools in a large urban district were compared with each other and with district enrollment averages by school level (elementary, middle, and senior schools). Findings indicated that very few enrollment percentages of charters and of noncharters were comparable with District averages on gender, ethnicity, participation in the free/reduced lunch program (FRL), limited English proficiency (LEP), and students in exceptional student education (ESE). Indeed, contiguous charter and non-charter public schools were more likely to resemble each other than District averages. However, charters and non-charters differed significantly from each other on the number of schools that had “low” and “high” enrollments of students participating in FRL, of LEP, and of ESE students.     

‘Shit shows’ or ‘like-minded schools’: charter schools and the neoliberal logic of Teach For America

Over the past three decades, two neoliberal educational reform efforts have emerged in tandem – the charter school movement and Teach For America (TFA). This paper critically examines the relationship between these entities through the lens of TFA corps members placed in charter schools, and explores two types of schools described by interviewees, namely, ‘shit shows,’ and ‘like-minded schools.’ Grounded in corps members’ teaching experiences, this paper argues that even at its best, the close partnership between TFA and charters can create a mutually reinforcing educational subculture that is isolated from broader educational discourses and practices. At its worst, this partnership can result in the ill-advised ‘propping up’ of under-funded, mismanaged, ill-equipped charters that might otherwise struggle to find adequate staffing and, consequently, close. This paper suggests that these two tendencies – toward corps members’ insularity and poor placement – have the potential to conflict with the charter movement’s and TFA’s stated purposes of improving the quality of schooling for disadvantaged and marginalized students.     

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.     

Does choice matter for school choice? An instrumental variables analysis of the effect of choice on parental satisfaction in charter schools

I employ ordered probit regression and a new instrumental variable to compare the Fall 2015 parental satisfaction survey results of open-enrollment charters to district-conversion charters. Choice status in Arkansas charter schools is largely beneficial to parental satisfaction. Specifically, parents with children in open-enrollment charters had between a 17-percentage point and 32-percentage point higher likelihood of grading their current school as an A or responding as Highly Satisfied in six of nine quality categories. I find no evidence that parents rate the quality of schools similar to the analysts at the Arkansas Department of Education or that satisfaction differs in oversubscribed schools.     

Using Charter Schools to Alleviate Racial Exclusion in Rural America: An Innovative Idea or a Trojan Horse?

ABSTRACT

Racial segregation has remained a lasting legacy of rural schools in southern states. Our article explains a case where community leaders created a diverse charter school to change its historical practice of an isolated White private school and isolated African American public schools. We scan documents and literature related to this integration strategy to surface key themes when using rural charter schools to alter patterns of school segregation. First, we explain pressing issues in rural schools. Second, we describe how segregation and inequality have evolved in the South. Third, we explain research showing how charter schools maintain patterns of school segregation, but with exceptions and nuances in certain contexts. Fourth, we consider the benefits and tensions surrounding one rural charter school that offers an integrated educational program. Benefits range from societal to individual as the school fosters an environment where students are exposed to diverse educational experiences. Tensions include shifting power and funding dynamics and the possibility of using a good example to shepherd in less effective charter models elsewhere.     

Teacher Satisfaction and Turnover in Charter Schools: Examining the Variations and Possibilities for Collective Bargaining in State Laws

Charter schools see as many as one in four teachers leave annually, and recent evidence attributes much of this turnover to provisions affected by collective bargaining processes and state laws such as salary, benefits, job security, and working hours. There have been many recent efforts to improve teacher voice in charter schools (Kahlenberg & Potter, 2014), including engaging in some form of collective bargaining, but we know little about the possibilities dictated by state laws. Therefore, this article describes the possibilities and variations for collective bargaining by state and for different charter types (e.g., conversion vs. newly created charters), as well as laws that have the potential to improve teacher satisfaction in charter schools. Ideally, state laws and the collective bargaining process should provide the appropriate balance between flexibility for charter school leaders, teacher voice, and protections for teachers.     

Media's Impact on Educational Policies and Practices: Political Spectacle and Social Control

Cyber and home school charter schools have silently become a prominent part of the charter school movement. These alternative school models differ from conventional schools by relying on parents and the Internet to deliver much of their curriculum and instruction while minimizing the use of personnel and physical facilities. This article examines how recent developments in California and Pennsylvania have resulted in public scrutiny of cyber and home school charters and led to considerable debate and demands for public accountability. Our findings outline the need to modify regulatory frameworks to accommodate cyber and home school charters, the consideration of the differing financial allocations for schools that operate with reduced personnel and facilities, and the division of financial responsibility between state and local educational agencies.     

The Impact of Charter Schools on Promoting High Levels of Mathematics Achievement

Abstract

This study compares achievement levels for high ability students attending charter schools and students in traditional public schools in Georgia. Researchers examined student achievement (as assessed by the state's Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests) using three comparison groups: students in the closest traditional schools with similar grade levels, schools with similar demographics, and comprehensive school reform schools. Hierarchical loglinear analysis was used to determine the impact of school type and student demographic variables on student achievement mobility (i.e., the degree to which students, from 2004 to 2005, moved into or out of the top 10% of each grade level on the CRT mathematics subtest). Results for the first comparison did not provide evidence of a significant relationship between school type and achievement mobility, but results for the second and third comparisons suggest that Black students generally experienced positive or neutral achievement mobility in traditional schools and negative mobility in charter schools; White students generally saw negative achievement mobility in traditional schools and neutral to positive mobility in charter schools. Implications for the study of gifted education and gifted students within charter schools are discussed.     

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.