scholarly journals Understanding Charter School Evaluation: A Synthesis of the Literature on CREDO’s VCR Method for Stakeholders

2021 ◽  
pp. 105678792110434
Author(s):  
Alanna Bjorklund-Young ◽  
Angela R. Watson ◽  
Al Passarella
Keyword(s):  
Charter Schools ◽  
Charter School ◽  
Evaluation Methods ◽  
Reliable Information ◽  
School Evaluation ◽  
School Students ◽  
Education Outcomes ◽  
Virtual Control ◽  
Matching Techniques

Increased charter school demand creates a critical need for reliable information on outcomes. Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) has a series of influential reports on charter schools using the virtual control record (VCR) method. However, the VCR method has been criticized and the validity of CREDO’s findings challenged, leading to confusion among stakeholders. In this paper, we synthesize charter school evaluation literature, explain CREDO’s methods as well as other evaluation methods, and consider the limitations of matching in this context. We find that, while the matching techniques are imperfect, they provide necessary information on the greatest percentage of charter school students.

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.

Collaborations: Partnerships Create Success for Charter School Students

2018 ◽  
Vol 105 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-56
Author(s):  
David M. Hedgecoth
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Charter School ◽  
Chamber Orchestra ◽  
Music Instruction ◽  
School Students ◽  
School Of Music ◽  
Public Charter Schools

A unique partnership between public charter schools, a civic chamber orchestra, and university school of music has brought music instruction to middle school students in central Ohio. This collaborative endeavor can serve as a model for charter schools administrators wishing to expand their curricular offerings to include music and other arts instruction.

Urban Charter Schools

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manya Whitaker
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Standardized Testing ◽  
Charter School ◽  
Low Income ◽  
College Enrollment ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Students ◽  
Urban Charter Schools

Urban charter schools are public schools located in major metropolitan areas with high population densities. The majority of urban charter school students identify as Black or Latinx and often live in under-resourced communities. Urban charter schools are touted as high-quality educational options in the school choice market, yet debates about the merits of charter schools versus traditional public schools yield mixed results that substantiate arguments on both sides of the political aisle. However, even high-performing urban charter schools have a bad reputation as mechanisms of school segregation and cogs in the school-to-prison pipeline. Higher than average test scores and graduation and college enrollment rates do little to mollify those who complain about severe discipline, racial segregation, unqualified teachers, teacher attrition, rigid scheduling, and a narrow curriculum. Urban charter schools’ emphasis on standardized testing and college preparation may overlook the culturally relevant educational experiences that low-income, racially diverse students need to compete with their wealthier, White peers. As such, education reformers have offered a myriad of suggestions to improve urban charter schools. Most prominently is the need to racially and economically desegregate urban charter schools to enhance the social and material resources that supplement students’ learning. This includes increasing teacher diversity, which research demonstrates minimizes the frequency of suspensions and expulsions of racial minority students. Urban charter school teachers should also be knowledgeable about the sociocultural landscape of the community in which their school exists so that they understand how students’ out of school lives affect their learning processes. Finally, curricular revisions are necessary to support students’ post-high school goals beyond college enrollment. Enacting such reforms would facilitate equitable, rather than equal, learning opportunities that may help narrow racial and economic achievement gaps in the United States.

To Charter or Not to Charter: What Questions Should We Ask, and What Will the Answers Tell Us?

2014 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Brighouse ◽  
Gina Schouten
Keyword(s):  
Charter Schools ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
School Board ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
Charter School ◽  
School Performance ◽  
Board Member ◽  
New School ◽  
School Board Member

In this essay, Harry Brighouse and Gina Schouten outline four standards for judging whether to support the chartering of a new school within a given jurisdiction. The authors pose the following questions to a hypothetical school board member: Will the school increase equality of opportunity? Will it benefit the least-advantaged students in the jurisdiction? Will it improve the preparation of democratically competent citizens? Will it improve the quality of the daily, lived experience of the students? Brighouse and Schouten suggest that most of the evidence concerning charter school performance focuses on just the students within the schools, without addressing a charter school's effect on students who do not attend. They argue that a full evaluation requires both kinds of evidence and that these questions are the four standards that should guide both the decision maker and researchers gathering evidence on the effects of charter schools.

The Effects of Residential Mobility on the Education Outcomes of Urban Middle School Students and the Moderating Potential of Civic Engagement

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 570-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Voight ◽  
Regina Giraldo-García ◽  
Marybeth Shinn
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Residential Mobility ◽  
Afterschool Programs ◽  
School Students ◽  
School Factors ◽  
Urban Middle School ◽  
Education Outcomes ◽  
Urban Middle School Students

Residential mobility is associated with negative education outcomes for urban students, but there is little empirical evidence for school factors that may ameliorate these effects. One such factor may be civic engagement at school. This study analyzed data from 2,000 urban middle school students to examine the interplay of residential mobility, education outcomes, and school civic engagement. Findings show that students who change residences have lower academic achievement and rates of attendance and that mobile students who are leaders in school groups and attend afterschool programs have more positive education outcomes compared with their mobile peers who are uninvolved.

scholarly journals High Expense: Disability Severity and Charter School Attendance in Arizona

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony M. Garcy
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Charter School ◽  
Linear Models ◽  
School Attendance ◽  
Special Education Students ◽  
Education Students ◽  
School Year ◽  
Education Agency ◽  
Student Disabilities

Much of the literature related to the skimming or cropping of students by charter schools has ignored special education students. This article examines the relationship between the severity of student disabilities and their likelihood of having attended an Arizona charter school in the 2002-2003 school year. After adjusting for student traits, local education agency characteristics, and the mix of available special education services, a multilevel logistic regression analysis suggests that students who had more severe and thus more expensive disabilities were less likely to attend an Arizona charter school. Findings from an ancillary set of hierarchical linear models suggested that special education students enrolled in charter schools were less expensive on average than similar traditional public-school special education students.

Online Stratifcation: How Academic Performance Indicators Relate to Choices between Cyber Charter Schools

2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Bryan A. Mann ◽  
Stephen Kotok
Keyword(s):  
Academic Performance ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Charter School ◽  
Performance Indicators ◽  
School Policy ◽  
Enrollment Patterns ◽  
Choice Sets ◽  
Charter School Policy ◽  
Cyber Charter School

Background/Context A primary argument that supports charter school policy assumes students favor schools with high academic performance ratings, leading to systemic school improvement. Previous research challenges this assumption but has limited generalizability because geographic and enrollment constraints limit student choice sets. Purpose/Objective This study examines student enrollment patterns within cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania, a state where elected policymakers tend to view choice as a means for school improvement. Cyber charter schools are advantageous to study in this context because they have fewer enrollment barriers, helping researchers account for constraints found in previous studies. Research Design Using consecutive years of student-level enrollment data, we use descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression analyses to answer the following questions: Is a particular cyber charter school more popular if it displays relatively higher performance on academic indicators? To what extent do enrollments in the highest performing cyber charter school relate to the demographics of students and school environments that they left? Findings/Results The findings suggest that despite the more accessible choice sets inherent in the cyber charter school sector, academic performance indicators still are not linked to popularity within the sector. Enrollment clustering persists along student demographics and feeder district traits. Conclusions/Recommendations These findings suggest that even in the cyber charter school sector where key enrollment restrictions are removed, inequitable enrollment patterns persist. These findings continue to challenge basic assumptions used in school choice policy framing. Policymakers should consider this evidence when and if they design and implement charter school policy, creating policy that accounts for inequitable enrollments that occur under current policy logic.

A Spatial Analysis on Charter School Access in the New York Metropolitan Area

2021 ◽  
Vol 123 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Jin Lee ◽  
Christopher A. Lubienski
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Charter School ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
Spatial Accessibility ◽  
Equal Opportunities ◽  
Spatial Access ◽  
Spatial Lag ◽  
School Access ◽  
Location Strategies

Background Extant literature has consistently indicated that access to charter school markets is shaped by social geography. Given interest in location shown by charter schools and parents, estimating potential spatial access to charter schools has become instrumental in understanding equal opportunities for charter school enrollment in metropolitan areas with preexisting residential segregation. Purpose By considering the increasing significance of sociogeography, this article asks whether students have equal opportunities for potential spatial access to charter schools across communities and how disparities in charter school access are related to housing patterns. Setting This study focuses on 122 charter schools in the New York metropolitan region, a highly segregated metropolitan area in the United States where charter schools are a primary component of education reform. Research Design The first part of this study illustrates patterns of spatial accessibility of the area's charter schools, within a 20-minute commuting time, to students aged 5–13 years by employing the enhanced two-step floating catchment area method using a Gaussian function. The next part of the study tests the hypothesis that students are able to access charter schools equitably and irrespective of their place of residence. The spatial lag regression model is used to compare distributions of potential spatial accessibility with 15 demographic and socioeconomic variables. Findings Even after controlling for disproportionate population sizes by census tract, the potential need for charter schools is matched inequitably with the supply of educational service providers. The spatial lag regression results indicate that children in areas less accessible to charter schools within a convenient travel period tend to be exposed to communities with more populations of color, higher unemployed groups, and less expensive housing. Conclusions The findings offer empirical evidence that access to charter school differs depending on demographic and socioeconomic attributes, in significant combination with geography, illuminating charter school location strategies in real-world contexts. Though charter schools have been promoted as a vehicle to offer significant equity advantages across politically designed and strictly operated school attendance boundaries, charter schools in metropolitan New York exercise a distinct and profound form of pseudo-zoning by use of location strategies to exclude certain children who may be considered less desirable.

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