Understanding the Aspiring Educator: A Narrative (Re)examination of the Apprenticeship of Observation

We assess whether the organizational culture of traditional public schools shapes their response to competition from charter schools in Arizona, which has a high level of charter school competition. We focus on traditional public elementary schools from 1995 to 1998, when charter schools were introduced in this state. We explore this topic by segmenting a sample of 81 traditional public elementary schools into two groups: those with high levels of principal–teacher collaboration just prior to charter competition, and a second group with low prior collaboration levels. We find that threatened entry increased teacher curriculum control for district schools with high principal–teacher collaboration but had no impact for schools with low collaboration. In contrast, actual charter entry did not influence teacher curriculum control for either high or low collaboration schools. These results suggest that organizational culture can modulate the impact of threatened entry on traditional public schools, although the statistical impacts are modest.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the 7th grade reading performance among a random sample of urban public school academies (charter schools) in Wayne County, Michigan, compared with a random sample of traditional urban public schools within the same geographic area. This study was conducted using the fall 2012 Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) reading test scores, as reported by the Michigan Department of Education. A total of 11 public charter schools were selected and represented 15% of the total public charters in Wayne County that serviced middle school aged children. The 11 randomly selected Traditional Public Schools used for the comparison represented 10% of these traditional public schools that were located within a 5-mile radius of the public charter schools. Contingency tables were constructed (type of school vs. reading proficiency) and the data was analyzed using the nonparametric chisquare test for independence. According to the data, the traditional public schools had a higher percentage of grade 7 students who were proficient readers when compared with the public charter schools (30.7% vs. 18.6%, respectively). The difference, however, was not statistically significant and the null hypothesis was not rejected. These results suggested that the public charter schools were not outperforming traditional public schools in grade 7 reading proficiency.

Student enrollment and transfer patterns between the traditional public and charter school sectors help shape the role of charter schools in the broader educational ecosystem, especially as related to the enrollment and segregation of low-income students, English learners, students of color, and students in special education. We examine patterns of student transfer between traditional public schools and charter schools among four of Texas’s largest charter networks, which cumulatively make up over one-third of Texas charter students. We find that these schools serve fewer special education students than traditional public schools, but a greater share of low-income and English learners. Transfers between sectors contribute to enrollment gaps in special education and other classifications, but the findings do not apply uniformly across charter districts, student enrollment classifications, or grade levels. These findings highlight nuanced enrollment patterns between the charter sector and traditional public schools, suggesting that differences in student characteristics between sectors likely stem from a range of sources. Policymakers should acknowledge this nuance, consider alternatives to blanket enrollment regulation policies, and conduct similar analyses of enrollment patterns among charter districts.

Background While chronic absenteeism hurts all students, one particularly vulnerable group, students with disabilities (SWDs), has received little attention in research or policy. Particularly troubling is the dearth of research into the patterns of absences for SWDs and GENs who attend school together in urban school systems, given relatively higher absenteeism when compared to suburban and rural districts. Research Questions First, how do rates of chronic absenteeism compare between SWDs and students without disabilities (GENs) attending the same schools (hereafter traditional schools)? Second, are there differences between SWDs who are educated in “GEN-majority” classrooms and those educated in “SWD-majority” classrooms? Finally, do these patterns differ for students with different disabilities? Subjects Our study consists of GENs and SWDs in grades 1–6 who attended a traditional NYC public school between 2006 and 2012. Our sample includes 653,736 students across 37,867 classrooms, and 1,148 public elementary schools. Measures include race/ethnicity, gender, age, foreign-born status, limited English proficiency, free/reduced price lunch eligibility, grade level, classroom ID, school ID, the number of days each student was absent, and the total number of school days each student was registered in the district. For SWDs, the data include indicators for the thirteen disability classifications defined under IDEA and a primary assigned special education setting. Research Design We begin with a baseline model, where being chronically absent (i.e., missing 10% or more of the school year) is regressed on an indicator for being a SWD, controlling for grade and year. We build on this model by first including demographic control variables, then school fixed effects, and finally classroom fixed effects. We then explore this model for differences by type of classroom setting as well as by type of disability. Findings Chronic absenteeism is considerably higher for SWDs than GENs in traditional schools, and there is important heterogeneity by disability classifications. Specifically, students with emotional disturbances exhibit extremely high rates of chronic absenteeism and the largest group of SWDs, students with learning disabilities, have quite high rates as well. Further, SWDs in GEN-majority classrooms are less likely to be chronically absent than those in SWD-majority classrooms, again with variation by disability. Conclusions As the nationwide trend of providing SWDs with more education in GEN-majority classrooms continues to press forward, our study shows that increasingly GEN-majority settings are associated with fewer absences for SWDs. And while school attendance, among other non-achievement outcomes, are not the primary focus of IDEA, our findings point to how some school settings might be beneficial to some but put others at risk.

We describe the levels, trends, and patterns of school closure and restructuring in the United States from 1991 to 2019 across all sectors using a near census of K–12 schools. Focusing on the years with the best available data, 2014–18, we find that the annual closure rate of charter, private, and traditional public schools (TPSs) were 5.1, 2.9, and 0.9 percent, respectively. The annual restructuring rates are 2.0 percent for charter schools and 0.6 percent for TPSs. Regression analysis shows that these differences in closure and restructuring rates by sector drop slightly after controlling for student and school characteristics. The strongest predictor of increased closures is low student enrollment, especially in private schools. In charter and traditional public schools, achievement measures predict closure and restructuring nearly as strongly as enrollment. While racial and income composition are weaker predictors of closure/restructuring, that they predict at all, after controlling for many other factors, raises some equity concerns. We also discuss ways in which the forces behind closure/restructuring may be difficult to uncover with this type of quantitative analysis.

The authors examine the influence of teacher and administrator representation by race and ethnicity on disciplinary tools and standardized test scores within traditional public elementary schools and charter schools. The authors argue that school officials within charter schools will be less likely to consider race and ethnicity when making schooling decisions because of their attention to the culture and norms within charter schools. As a result, the authors expect that the translation from passive to active representation will be more difficult in charter schools than in traditional elementary schools. Using data from Georgia, the authors analyze this question empirically and find a statistically significant influence of representation among teachers on disciplinary tools and test scores and a more limited influence of administrative representation on standardized tests. Findings also support the central research question of this study, that is, whether the effects of racial and ethnic representation appear more limited among charter schools than traditional public schools.

Many nations allow private entities to manage publicly funded schools and grant them greater flexibility than traditional public schools. However, isolating the causal effect of attending these privately managed public schools relative to attending traditional public schools is difficult because students who attend privately managed schools may differ in unobservable ways from those who do not. This paper estimates the causal effect on academic outcomes in Trinidad and Tobago as a result of attending privately managed public secondary schools (assisted schools) relative to traditional public secondary schools. In Trinidad and Tobago, students are assigned to secondary schools based on an algorithm that created exogenous variation in school attendance, allowing us to remove self-selection bias. Despite large differences in teacher quality and peer quality across these school types, we find little evidence of any relative benefit in attending an assisted school between the ages of 10 and 15 in terms of dropout rates or examination performance at age 15.

At What Cost? The Charter School Model and the Human Right to Education

The meteoric rise in charter schools has several implications for traditional public schools and their students. One understudied implication is the geographic competition for students. Given traditional public school boundaries are often fixed while charter school boundaries are more flexible, charter schools can draw students away from existing traditional public schools, and we have very little information about how distance matters in the competition for students. Because of this, traditional public schools and school districts have little ability to plan for enrollment changes in the face of charter school growth. Our paper uses data on enrollments and demographics in all charter and traditional public schools in Los Angeles from 2000 to 2013 to better understand these dynamics. We find that traditional public school enrollments clearly decline with competition from nearby charter schools. However, we also observe that charter schools tend to locate where traditional public school enrollments are on the decline. Competition is more relevant for elementary schools at short distances—within about 1 mi appears to be where the associations between charter school enrollments and TPS enrollment declines are the strongest. For middle and high schools, those connections are apparent within 2 to 6 mi in some models.

Charter schools have grown in popularity, as both citizens and government officials search for ways to improve public education in America. Much of the research on charter schools focuses on academic performance comparisons between charter schools and traditional public schools. Far less attention has been devoted to whether the presence of charter schools creates marketlike environments that bring about systemic improvements in public education. This study examines the extent to which charter schools stimulate performance gains in traditional public schools. The results show that charter schools contribute to modest overall performance improvements for students enrolled in traditional public schools. Charter schools help bring about stronger performance gains for low‐income students enrolled in traditional public schools. The presence of charter schools also affects how financial and programmatic resources are allocated in traditional public schools.

Impact of Charter School Attendance on Student Achievement in Michigan

Proponents of school reform have argued that charter schools and vouchers can provide adequate market pressure to improve the performance of traditional public schools. While the number of charter schools and student enrollment have burgeoned, relatively little attention has been paid to their effects on student achievement. Proponents of charter schools suggest a direct effect on student achievement through the restructuring of teaching and learning processes and an indirect effect through peer effects on learning and through the market forces of competition. Of course, competitive pressures may result in higher achievement in traditional public schools as well. This paper focuses on student achievement in charter schools in Michigan. The analyses presented in the paper suggest that students attending charter schools in Michigan are not reaching the same levels of achievement as students in traditional public schools in the same districts. In order to analyze the effectiveness of charter schools relative to their traditional public school counterparts, we examine the difference in student outcomes, as measured by the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP). The State makes available the MEAP results each year along with limited demographic data that are self-reported by students when they take the tests. We rely mainly on this data set together with additional building- and district-level data that are supplied by local districts and made available on the Michigan Department of Education's (MDE's) website. Five years of MEAP scores - from 1996/97 through 2000/01 - for individual fourth and fifth grade students are analyzed. By pairing charter schools with their "host" (meaning geographically co-located) districts, we attempt to create the local "market" for educational services in which both the charter schools and the public school districts compete. Several models of the difference between test score levels of students attending charter schools versus those from traditional public schools are estimated. In virtually all specifications, each of which controls for student, building, and district characteristics, students attending charter schools have lower test scores than students in traditional public schools. The magnitudes of the results vary by grade, year, and subject matter, but are generally on the order of 3-10 percent. We argue that our estimates of the negative differentials may be biased toward zero because we have not controlled for selection bias.

Using survey data collected from 2,273 teachers in Texas, this study explores differences in school organization that contribute to the experiences (e.g., working conditions, instruction and student engagement in learning, self-efficacy and job satisfaction, and teacher evaluation) of charter school and traditional public school teachers. Researchers used propensity score matching to reduce the impact of selection bias and to produce accurate estimates of the charter-traditional public school differences. Compared with similar teachers in traditional public schools, charter school teachers reported a more supportive teaching environment, higher expectations of students among staff, a greater sense of responsibility for student learning, and higher levels of student engagement in learning. However, they reported, attending fewer professional development trainings focused on instruction and aligned to teaching assignments, fewer opportunities for professional development and collaboration with colleagues, and lower perceived fairness of teacher evaluation. Findings from this study provide valuable insight into the school organization factors that may underlie teacher turnover and represent unmet needs among charter school teachers, and suggest strategic areas of focus for policymakers, charter management organizations, and charter school leaders in addressing teacher retention and student achievement.

This study investigates the way traditional and alternative secondary public school organizations are structured to impact youths. Some studies have found that traditional secondary schools utilize inappropriate and outdated organizational elements and arrangements. Alternative schools with different organizational arrangements have been initiated in public school districts to institute school reform measures. The three goals of this study are to: (1) collate a large share of the literature on the function, social context and organizational characteristics of conventional and alternative secondary public school organizations, (2) explicate a theoretical framework or interrelated set of propositions of organizational principles regarding modern organizations, including secondary schools, and (3) describe and analyze one alternative high school in Colorado. The theoretical exploration of the literature and case study will address the following questions: (1) what organizational models do conventional and alternative high schools utilize? (2) What are the organizational elements of conventional and alternative secondary public schools? (3) What types of conventional and alternative secondary schools exist in urban areas? (4) How do conventional and alternative high school organizations bear up to the charges leveled against secondary education in America? (5) What are the organizational characteristics of the alternative school in Colorado? (6) What type of alternative school is Mountain Open High School (MOHS)? (7) How does MOHS measure up to the charges leveled against American secondary education? (8) How is MOHS similar or dissimilar to public secondary schools reviewed in the literature? Data for the exploration of the organizational characteristics of traditional and alternative secondary public schools include the following sources: (1) consultation with experts in the field, (2) in-depth literature review, and (3) historical and document analysis. Data for the case study include the following sources: (1) in-depth interviews with 13 student volunteers, the principal, and other staff, (2) field observations, and (3) historical and document analysis. The results show that traditional secondary public schools utilize a bureaucratic organizational framework but organizational characteristics of schools vary according to their function and student body composition. Also, alternative secondary schools exist under bureaucratic principles but differ according to their function and organizational arrangements. The case study of MOHS demonstrates one model with instituted school reform measures.

<p class="normal">Research from the past 40 years indicates that African American students are subjected to exclusionary discipline, including suspension and expulsion, at rates two to three times higher than their White peers (Children’s Defense Fund, 1975; Skiba, Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2002). Although this phenomenon has been studied extensively in traditional public schools, rates of racially disproportionate discipline in public Montessori schools have not been examined. The purpose of this study is to examine racial discipline disproportionality in Montessori public elementary schools as compared to traditional elementary schools. The Relative Rate Index (RRI) is used as a measure of racially disproportionate use of out-of-school suspensions (Tobin & Vincent, 2011). Suspension data from the Office of Civil Rights Data Collection was used to generate RRIs for Montessori and traditional elementary schools in a large urban district in the Southeast. While statistically significant levels of racial discipline disproportionality are found in both the Montessori and traditional schools, the effect is substantially less pronounced in Montessori settings. These findings suggest that Montessori schools are not immune to racially disproportionate discipline and should work to incorporate more culturally responsive classroom management techniques. Conversely, the lower levels of racially disproportionate discipline in the Montessori schools suggests that further study of discipline in Montessori environments may provide lessons for traditional schools to promote equitable discipline.</p>