The Evolution of Charter School Quality (original) (raw)
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Charter school quality and parental decision making with school choice
Journal of Public Economics, 2007
Charter schools have become a very popular instrument for reforming public schools, because they expand choices, facilitate local innovation, and provide incentives for the regular public schools while remaining under public control. Despite their conceptual appeal, evaluating their performance has been hindered by the selective nature of their student populations. This paper investigates the quality of charter schools in Texas in terms of mathematics and reading achievement and finds that, after an initial start-up period, average school quality in the charter sector is not significantly different from that in regular public schools. Perhaps most important, the parental decision to exit a charter school is much more sensitive to education quality than the decision to exit a regular public school, consistent with the notion that the introduction of charter schools substantially reduces the transactions costs of switching schools. Low income charter school families are, however, less sensitive to school quality than higher income families.
Charter School Performance in Texas
We employ a panel of individual student data on math and reading test performance for five cohorts of students in Texas to study the impact of charter school attendance. Student fixed-effects control for selection bias. We also control for school mobility effects and distinguish movement to a charter school from movement within and between traditional public school districts. We find students suffer a significantly larger disruptive impact from the initial move to a charter school than from other school moves. Controlling for the mobility effect, we find that charter schools significantly improve the performance of students in both math and reading, with some evidence that school performance may improve as new charter schools progress beyond their first year in operation.
Journal of Urban Economics, 2008
Texas has been an important player in the emergence of the charter school industry. We test for a competitive effect of charters by looking for changes in student achievement in traditional public schools following charter market penetration. We use an eight-year panel of data on individual student test scores for public schools students in Texas in order to evaluate the achievement impact of charter schools. We control for student background in two ways. We estimate a model which includes campus fixed effects to control for campus demographic and peer group characteristics, and student fixed effects to control directly for student and student family background characteristics. We find a positive and significant effect of charter school penetration on traditional public school student outcomes.
The Growing Segmentation of the Charter School Sector in North Carolina
2015
A defining characteristic of charter schools is that they introduce a strong market element into public education. In this paper, we examine through the lens of a market model the evolution of the charter school sector in North Carolina between 1999 and 2012. We examine trends in the mix of students enrolled in charter schools, the racial imbalance of charter schools, patterns in student match quality by schools' racial composition, and the distributions of test score performance gains compared to those in traditional public schools. In addition, we use student fixed effects models to examine plausibly causal measures of charter school effectiveness. Our findings indicate that charter schools in North Carolina are increasingly serving the interests of relatively able white students in racially imbalanced schools and that despite improvements in the charter school sector over time, charter schools are still no more effective on average than traditional public schools.
Charter School Achievements in Texas: Public versus Charter Schools
International Journal of Educational Reform
This study aimed to investigate the performance of a charter school network, Harmony Public Schools (HPS), in a 3-year longitudinal student-level research study of high school mathematics, reading, and science performance using 2009–2011 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skill student data. Propensity-score-matched public (N = 19) and Harmony (N = 11) schools' performances were compared. We conducted a two-level multivariate analysis of covariance on binary outcomes (pass–no pass) for grades 9–11. HPS performed significantly better at grade 9 and worse at grade 11, with no statistical differences at grade 10 in mathematics. Type of school was not significant at either grade 9 or 10 for reading. For science performances, Harmony charter schools performed better at 10th grade and significantly better at 11th grade. Implications of the findings were discussed as to whether charter schools keep their promises of providing quality education.
Antecedents of Charter School Success
The intent of this study was to examine antecedents of charter school success. Charter school success was operationalized via levels of student achievement on state standardized English achievement tests within the state of California. Specific antecedents examined include (a) teacher credentialing, (b) teacher experience, (c) technology access, (d) student grade level, and (e) student demographics. Drawing from the tenets of competitive market theory, and evolutionary market theory, this study was particularly interested in the extent and manner in which each of the following types of management entities contribute toward charter school success: (a) for-profit educational management organizations; (b) non-profit educational management organizations; and (c) community based organizations. In accordance with competitive market theory, the charter school movement is supported as a means to improve levels of student achievement via competition among charter schools, as well as with traditional public schools. Addressing concerns raised by critics of the charter school movement, this study examined differences between charter schools established by for profit and non-profit management entities, and those established by community based organizations. This study employed a series of hierarchical regressions, logistic regressions, and ANCOVA procedures to examine the relationship between SAL in a charter school and each of the antecedent variables. When controlling for ethnicity and social economic status among the student population of a charter school, the overall model of antecedent variables was not of statistical significance. This study also examined the relationship between each of the antecedent variables with respect to charter schools that were established by each of the three separate management entities, grade level, and each type of charter school. When analyzed in this manner, the regression model was found to be of statistical significance among those charter schools founded by a community based organization, and charter schools converted from a traditional public school. The final chapter in this study discusses these findings with respect to related theory and empirical research on charter schools. The implications that these findings have for the ongoing proliferation of the charter school movement is discussed. Recommendations for future research are addressed.
The Effect of Charter Competition on Traditional Public School Students in Texas
Institutional reforms of the public school system which expand choice, such as vouchers, compete with within-institution reforms, such as reductions in class size, as policies to enhance performance. Choice reform is especially attractive because it has the possibility of increasing educational outcomes without increasing costs. Competition induced by school choice might lead traditional public schools to be more cost efficient while increasing student performance.
Why Do Charter Schools Fail? An Analysis of Charter School Survival in New Jersey
Contemporary Economic Policy, 2014
Charter school competition can only work as a policy to improve public education if schools that do not contribute to this goal are allowed to fail. We estimate survival regressions to assess the effects of various factors on the probability of school failure. We find that students' test scores are the most important determinant of survival: a one standard deviation increase reduces the probability of failure by 76%. Higher expenditures per student and a longer wait list result in smaller, but significant, reductions. Enrollment, average performance in the host district, and student demographics do not significantly affect school survival. (JEL I21, H75) * We wish to thank the co-editor and referees for their detailed comments that substantially improved our paper.
Is Charter School Competition in California Improving the Performance of Traditional Public Schools?
Public Administration Review, 2009
This research examines the effects of charter schools on traditional public schools. A premise of charter school initiatives has been that these schools have direct benefits for students attending these schools and indirect benefits for other students by creating competition for traditional public schools to improve their performance. Using California data, the analysis examines the responses to a survey of principals in a sample of traditional public schools. In addition, the research assesses how charter school competition affects student-level achievement trends in traditional public schools. The survey results showed that public school principals felt little competitive pressure from charters. Similarly, the student achievement analysis showed that charter competition (measured in a variety of ways) was not improving the performance of traditional public schools. pressures, those who remain in traditional public schools (nonchoosers). Despite these arguments, the effect school choice programs, including charter schools, have on choosers has received the lion's share of attention from policymakers, educators, and researchers. For charter schools, much of this research has relied on school-level data (