A Study of the Effects of Charter Schools on Student Achievement, Attendance, and Selected Mitigating Factors in a Midwestern State’s Midsize Urban School Districts

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (9) ◽  
pp. 1265-1290
Author(s):  
Frederick C. Clarke ◽  
Walter L. Burt
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Urban School ◽  
Urban School Districts ◽  
Socioeconomic Background ◽  
Student Outcome ◽  
Attendance Rates ◽  
School Students ◽  
Traditional Public Schools

Charter schools in urban environments have been scrutinized for their effectiveness. This study attempted to determine whether students attending Midwestern urban charter schools outperformed students in traditional schools on the state’s accountability system over a 5-year time period. Using a quasi-experimental research design, data were collected from 31 Midwestern urban school districts, along with data from 88 adjacent contiguous charter schools during the 2008 to 2012 school years. Findings in this study suggest that students who transferred from traditional public schools to charter schools did not outperform academically as their corresponding counterparts in mathematics and reading, and had lower attendance rates, over the first three consecutive years of their attendance. In the succeeding 2 years, however, charter school students outperformed traditional students in both reading and mathematics, and had greater attendance rates, than students attending traditional public schools. The study also found that a student’s ethnic and socioeconomic background had a significant influence on student outcome measures.

Fiscal Impacts of Charter Schools: Lessons from New York

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Bifulco ◽  
Randall Reback
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Charter School ◽  
Financing Policies ◽  
Traditional Public Schools ◽  
Excess Costs ◽  
Fiscal Impacts ◽  
School Financing

This brief argues that charter school programs can have direct fiscal impacts on school districts for two reasons. First, operating two systems of public schools under separate governance arrangements can create excess costs. Second, charter school financing policies can distribute resources to or away from districts. Using the city school districts of Albany and Buffalo in New York, we demonstrate how fiscal impacts on local school districts can be estimated. We find that charter schools have had fiscal impacts on these two school districts. Finally, we argue that charter schools policies should seek to minimize any avoidable excess costs created by charter schools and ensure that the burden of any unavoidable excess costs is equitably distributed across traditional public schools, charter schools, and the state. We offer concrete policy recommendations that may help to achieve these objectives.

scholarly journals Choice without Equity: Charter School Segregation

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erica Frankenberg ◽  
Genevieve Siegel-Hawley ◽  
Jia Wang
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Charter School ◽  
White Students ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
School Enrollment ◽  
School Level ◽  
School Segregation ◽  
School Students ◽  
Traditional Public Schools

The political popularity of charter schools is unmistakable. This article explores the relationship between charter schools and segregation across the country, in 40 states, the District of Columbia, and several dozen metropolitan areas with large enrollments of charter school students in 2007-08. The descriptive analysis of the charter school enrollment is aimed at understanding the enrollment and characteristics of charter school students and the extent to which charter school students are segregated, including how charter school segregation compare to students in traditional public schools.  This article examines these questions at different levels, aggregating school-level enrollment to explore patterns among metropolitan areas, states, and the nation using three national datasets.  Our findings suggest that charters currently isolate students by race and class. This analysis of recent data finds that charter schools are more racially isolated than traditional public schools in virtually every state and large metropolitan area in the nation.  In some regions, white students are over-represented in charter schools while in other charter schools, minority students have little exposure to white students.  Data about the extent to which charter schools serve low-income and English learner students is incomplete, but suggest that a substantial share of charter schools may not enroll such students. As charters represent an increasing share of our public schools, they influence the level of segregation experienced by all of our nation’s school children. After two decades, the promise of charter schools to use choice to foster integration and equality in American education has not yet been realized.

scholarly journals Heroin and nonmedical prescription opioid use among high school students in urban school districts

2019 ◽  
Vol 205 ◽  
pp. 107664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abenaa A. Jones ◽  
Kristin E. Schneider ◽  
Sherri-Chanelle Brighthaupt ◽  
Julie K. Johnson ◽  
Sabriya L. Linton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Urban School ◽  
Urban School Districts ◽  
Prescription Opioid ◽  
Opioid Use ◽  
School Students ◽  
Prescription Opioid Use

scholarly journals Charter Schools and Student Achievement in Florida

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim R. Sass
Keyword(s):  
Student Achievement ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
School Quality ◽  
School Students ◽  
Public School Students ◽  
Traditional Public Schools ◽  
Traditional Public School

I utilize longitudinal data covering all public school students in Florida to study the performance of charter schools and their competitive impact on traditional public schools. Controlling for student-level fixed effects, I find achievement initially is lower in charters. However, by their fifth year of operation new charter schools reach a par with the average traditional public school in math and produce higher reading achievement scores than their traditional public school counterparts. Among charters, those targeting at-risk and special education students demonstrate lower student achievement, while charter schools managed by for-profit entities peform no differently on average than charters run by nonprofits. Controlling for preexisting traditional public school quality, competition from charter schools is associated with modest increases in math scores and unchanged reading scores in nearby traditional public schools.

scholarly journals Building Productive Relationships: District Leaders’ Advice to Researchers

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Harrison ◽  
Kristen Davidson ◽  
Caitlin Farrell
Keyword(s):  
School Districts ◽  
Urban School ◽  
Urban School Districts ◽  
District Leaders ◽  
Educational Improvement

Expectations for the role of research in educational improvement are high. Meeting these expectations requires productive relationships between researchers and practitioners. Few studies, however, have systematically explored the ways researchers can build stronger, more productive relationships with practitioners. This study seeks to identify such strategies by examining district leaders’ views of how researchers might work with practitioners in more effective, beneficial, and collaborative ways. Through an analysis of 147 interviews with 80 district leaders in three urban school districts, we identify several key pieces of advice highlighted by district leaders for researchers. For researchers, these findings reveal potential strategies for shaping the design, conduct, and communication of their research in order to ensure its usefulness for practitioners. 

scholarly journals Locating Chicago’s charter schools: A socio-spatial analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer C. LaFleur
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Geographic Location ◽  
The Body ◽  
High Poverty ◽  
Census Tracts ◽  
The Public ◽  
Traditional Public Schools ◽  
Per Pupil Expenditures ◽  
Gis Software

This project contributes to the body of research examining the implications of the geographic location of charter schools for student access, especially in high-poverty communities. Using geographic information systems (GIS) software, this paper uses data from the U.S. Census American Community Survey to identify the socioeconomic characteristics of the census tracts in which Chicago’s charter schools tend to locate. Echoing the findings of other researchers who have examined charter school locational patterns, the present analyses found evidence of a “ceiling effect” by which many charter schools appear to locate in Chicago’s higher-needs census tracts, broadly cast, but avoid locating directly within those that are highest-need. The findings suggest that because Chicago’s charter schools face per-pupil expenditures that are often up to 20% less than those of traditional public schools, they may strategically leverage location to help shape student enrollment. By frequently locating near, but not directly within highest-need communities, charter schools may find it easier to attract a quorum of relatively higher achieving students who are less expensive to educate, therefore increasing their chances of meeting academic benchmarks and retaining their charters. By extending the findings of other researchers to the context of Chicago—where charters represent an ever-increasing share of the public school market—the present analyses may inform future revisions to the policies governing the authorization of charter schools in Chicago, with the goal of increasing access for highest-need students. 

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