Traditional Public Schools Research Articles

Academic Success and College Readiness: A Study of Predominantly Hispanic Students in South Texas High Schools

<p><em>The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a significant difference between Early College High School students, ECHS students within a traditional high school, and traditional public high school students in south Texas as pertaining to college readiness. End of Course tests scores for English classes in grades nine and ten were tested. The population comprised of students from a 98% Hispanic and low socio-economic education region. In the state of Texas, EOC scores determine college readiness. Results revealed the ECHS stand-alone model had a significant difference in English EOC scores among the three models. </em></p>

The charter school debate

Everyone seems to have an opinion about charter schools, whether they know anything about them or not. And many don't: one study found that almost half of those surveyed did not even know that charter schools are public schools. President Obama has weighed in, supporting charter schools and urging increased funding for the charter school movement. Because there is substantial public money associated with charter schools, sometimes at the expense of traditional public schools and their unionized teachers, few states have been able to avoid pitched battles between those favoring charter schools and those against them.

A Review of the Empirical Research on Private School Choice

Parents in the United States have had the legal right to choose the school their child attends for a long time. Traditionally, parental school choice took the form of families moving to a neighborhood with good public schools or self-financing private schooling. Contemporary education policies allow parents in many areas to choose from among public schools in neighboring districts, public magnet schools, public charter schools, private schools through the use of a voucher or tax-credit scholarship, virtual schools, or even homeschooling. The newest form of school choice is education savings accounts (ESAs), which make a portion of the funds that a state spends on children in public schools available to their parents in spending accounts that they can use to customize their children's education. Opponents claim that expanding private school choice yields no additional benefits to participants and generates significant harms to the students “left behind” in traditional public schools. A review of the empirical research on private school choice finds evidence that private school choice delivers some benefits to participating students—particularly in the area of educational attainment—and tends to help, albeit to a limited degree, the achievement of students who remain in public schools.

Exploring quality programs for English language learners in charter schools: A framework to guide future research

Although there has been a great deal of debate about the effectiveness of charter schools in the research literature, there has been surprisingly little attention paid to English language learners (ELLs) in charter schools. Moreover, the charter school research has predominantly focused on whether or not charter schools are effective rather than how or why high-performing charter schools work, particularly for ELLs. We contend that researchers must expand their focus beyond access and achievement and begin to grapple with questions related to the quality of programs for ELLs in charter schools. To meet an emerging need in the field, we synthesize several strands of existing research—related to charter schools, school improvement, and ELLs in traditional public schools—to propose a five-component framework that describes essential elements of quality programs for ELLs in charter schools. We conclude with a discussion of implications of our framework for research, policy, and practice.

Rethinking School Choice: Educational Options, Control, and Sovereignty in Indian Country

ABSTRACTDespite the plethora of schooling options in Indigenous communities, the public policy debate, research, and discourse on school choice is almost entirely absent a specific engagement with how school choice intersects issues relevant to American Indian youth and tribal nations. This article suggests that Indian Country is an important and unique context for understanding the meaning and processes of school choice because of the government-to-government relationship between tribal nations and the federal government, the sovereign status of tribal nations, the nation-building goals of tribes, and the muddled history of schooling options within Native communities. We offer an alternative way of conceptualizing “school choice” that is more applicable to Indigenous communities and that has yet to be articulated in the literature. First, while schooling options have existed in Indian Country for much longer than has been the case in other communities, the presence of schooling options has not historically been centered upon offering youth and families choices. Instead, it has been about control—control of the schooling offered to Indigenous youth, and therefore, control of youth and communities themselves. Second, while school choice policies focus on autonomy as an important governance principle to prompt change in traditional public school systems, sovereignty has and remains the most salient governance issue within Indigenous communities.

A Bargain Half Fulfilled

Public charter schools (PCS) are thought to succeed because they have greater autonomy and are held more accountable than traditional public schools (TPS). Though teachers are central to this expectation, there is little evidence about whether teachers in PCS enjoy more autonomy and are held more accountable than teachers in TPS. Also, it is unclear what the franchising of the PCS sector—the growth of schools run by educational management organizations (EMOs)—means for teacher autonomy and accountability. Using nationally representative survey data, this article compares teachers’ perceptions of autonomy and accountability in PCS and TPS and in EMO-run and non-EMO-run PCS. It shows that teachers in PCS reported greater autonomy than teachers in TPS; similarly, teachers in non-EMO-run schools indicated greater autonomy than teachers in EMO-run schools. However, there were no differences in perceptions of accountability across these different school types.

Regulating “big data education” in Europe: lessons learned from the US

European schools are increasingly relying on vendors to collect, process, analyse, and even make decisions based on a considerable amount of student data through big data tools and methods. Consequently, portions of school’s power are gradually shifting from traditional public schools to the hands of for-profit organisations. This article discusses the current and forthcoming European Union (EU) data protection regime with respect to the protection of student rights from the potential risk of outsourcing student data utilisation in Kindergarten12th grade (K-12) educational systems. The article identifies what lessons can be drawn from recent developments in the United States (US) “student data affair”. These lessons can provide a new perspective for designing a balanced policy for regulating the shift in school’s power.

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

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.

Music Programs in Charter and Traditional Schools

Since the arrival of the first charter school in Minnesota in 1991, charter schools have become one of the largest movements in educational reform. In recent years, research has emerged that has compared the effectiveness of charter schools with their traditional school counterparts. The purpose of this study was to compare the extent of music offerings between charter schools and traditional public schools in the same urban district and geographic location within the city. Results indicated that while all schools in the sample offered significantly less music than national averages, significantly more charter schools offered music during the school day. Charter schools were more likely to offer traditional music (band, choir, orchestra) as electives. Schools with music programs, regardless of school type, had higher test scores and higher attendance rates even when controlling for differences in socioeconomic status between music and non music schools. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for the charter school movement, arts education policy, and suggestions for future research.

Examining the oral language competency of children from Korean immigrant families in English-only and dual language immersion schools

In this study, we examined the bilingual language development among Korean American first-graders in two southern California cities and explored the opportunities for language use available to them in various spaces: at school (one dual language immersion school and one traditional English-only public school), at home, and in the community. Data collected over 15 months included three oral language proficiency assessments in Korean and English; interviews with parents and children; and fieldnotes based on observations at home, at school, and during extracurricular activities. All of the children, regardless of school setting, showed increases in English proficiency; however, their Korean development varied. We found that English opportunities were widely accessible for all of the participants; however, opportunities to use Korean were starkly different between the two cities. The families who resided in communities with few Korean resources needed more financial and temporal resources to attain regular exposure to Korean, which suggests that supporting the development of a less-commonly spoken heritage language in the United States (e.g. Korean) may not be accessible to all immigrant families. Finally, we found that for children in the developmental stages of bilingualism, purposeful and deliberate instruction (particularly in vocabulary and grammar) and diverse opportunities to practice both languages are continuously needed.

Charter School Teacher Job Satisfaction

We examine whether working conditions in charter schools and traditional public schools lead to different levels of job satisfaction among teachers. We distinguish among charter schools managed by for-profit education management organizations (EMOs) and non-profit charter management organizations (CMOs) and stand-alone charter schools. We investigate our research question using data from the School and Staffing Survey. We find that teachers in charter schools are less satisfied with their jobs than teachers in traditional public schools. We also find that teachers in EMO-managed schools appear less satisfied than those in stand-alone charter schools. Our analyses suggest that lower salaries and limited union memberships help drive these lower levels of satisfaction, particularly among stand-alone charter schools and charter schools managed by EMOs.

Research Design Meets Market Design: Using Centralized Assignment for Impact Evaluation

A growing number of school districts use centralized assignment mechanisms to allocate school seats in a manner that reflects student preferences and school priorities. Many of these assignment schemes use lotteries to ration seats when schools are oversubscribed. The resulting random assignment opens the door to credible quasi-experimental research designs for the evaluation of school effectiveness. Yet the question of how best to separate the lottery-generated variation integral to such designs from non-random preferences and priorities remains open. This paper develops easily-implemented empirical strategies that fully exploit the random assignment embedded in a wide class of mechanisms, while also revealing why seats are randomized at one school but not another. We use these methods to evaluate charter schools in Denver, one of a growing number of districts that combine charter and traditional public schools in a unified assignment system. The resulting estimates show large achievement gains from charter school attendance. Our approach generates efficiency gains over ad hoc methods, such as those that focus on schools ranked first, while also identifying a more representative average causal effect. We also show how to use centralized assignment mechanisms to identify causal effects in models with multiple school sectors.

School Choice Decision Making Among Suburban, High-Income Parents

Parents’ decision making about whether to send their children to a traditional public or charter schools has been studied mostly in urban, low-income areas. Few studies have focused on the decisions of high-income, suburban families. In a sample of Core Knowledge charter schools in a predominantly White and socioeconomically advantaged set of suburbs in Denver, Colorado, we are able to examine both the closed- and open-ended responses of parents who reported the importance of various factors in the decision-making process. Similar to findings from urban, low-income areas, we find that parents rely on their social networks in choosing schools and report the importance of effective teachers, distance to school, and academic quality, which our open-ended responses reveal means different things to different parents. Contrasting previous research, we also find that high-income parents “do their research” on schools to which they are applying.

Protocol for a Systematic Review: “No Excuses” Charter Schools for Increasing Math and Literacy Achievement in Primary and Secondary Education: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis

Protocol for a Systematic Review: “No Excuses” Charter Schools for Increasing Math and Literacy Achievement in Primary and Secondary Education: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis

Work Environments and Labor Markets

Purpose: Knowledge about principals’ leadership roles in charter schools’ success has become more important as the number of charter schools increases and as we have learned more about the influence of principal leadership on school effectiveness. To contribute to the limited empirical literature on the principal labor market, this study explores the reasons for the disparity of turnover rates between charter school principals and their counterparts in traditional public schools (TPSs). It focuses on the differential distributions of observable factors, including principal characteristics, principal leadership practices, school contexts, and working conditions. It also examines how the associations between these observables and the likelihood of principal turnover differ between these two types of schools. Research Methods/Approach: This study uses data on a nationally representative sample of principals from the Schools and Staffing Survey in the 2007-2008 school year and its following-year Principal Follow-up Survey. The main analytic strategies include logit models and the Fairlie nonlinear decomposition technique. Findings: A statistically significant difference in charter–TPS principal turnover rates was confirmed. The explanatory variables collectively explained about 49% of the charter–TPS turnover gap: Principal characteristics explained 3%, principal leadership quality explained 4%, school contexts explained 2%, and working conditions explained 28%. Moreover, relative to TPS peers, three factors have stronger associations with the likelihood of charter school principal turnover: principal leadership quality, barriers to the dismissal of poor-performing or incompetent teachers, and salary. Implications for Research and Practice: This is one of first few studies that empirically explore the charter school principal workforce and labor market movements. Findings are practically informative for retaining principals in charter schools.

Education Reform and School District Leadership: Did Initial Charter Penetration Influence Superintendent Salaries in Arizona?

Past works have assessed the “ripple effects” of charter campuses on nearby traditional public schools, but none have explored these effects on local school district leadership variables such as superintendent salaries. We examine the initial impact of elementary school (K-8) charter school competition on the salaries of Arizona district superintendents during 1995–99. Using first-difference regressions, the 1995–97 results, while tentative, find a complex array of impacts, with charter competition reducing pay raises only for highly vulnerable superintendents. However, these nuanced salary changes are replaced during 1997–99 by larger, more uniform system-wide pay increases. Finally, 1995–99 results partly replicate those from 1995–97. Implications for assessing the responsiveness of school districts to charter competition are discussed.

Different location or different map? Investigating charter school teachers' professional identities

This paper explores how novice charter school teachers' professional identities were shaped by their histories, views of teachers and teaching, preparation, and teaching experiences. Participants tended to view teaching in traditional public schools as lacking cache and rigor. Constructing a professional identity as highly skilled, dedicated, and deserving of stature, participants sought institutions they felt were aligned with this identity—charter schools. While participants' initially perceived their charters as structured and coherent, over time they struggled to hold multiple identities (e.g., parent and teacher) and later questioned the sustainability, intensity, and efficacy of their and their colleagues' efforts.

Educational choice and marketization in Hong Kong: the case of direct subsidy scheme schools

Direct subsidy scheme (DSS) schools are a product of Hong Kong’s market-oriented educational reform, mirroring global reform that champions parental choice and school marketization. Such schools have greater autonomy in matters of curricula, staffing, and student admission. Although advocates of the DSS credit it with increasing educational diversity and competition, little empirical is available to back up such claim. In this study, we use data from the Program for International Student Assessment to compare student achievements in DSS schools with those in traditional public schools. We find that while DSS students’ test scores in math, reading, and science have improved significantly over time, though the variation is much greater. Changes in mean performance have been anchored by a substantial change in student composition. DSS schools have a higher proportion of students with high socioeconomic status than with medium and low socioeconomic status. DSS schools also amplify the effects that family background have on student achievement. These findings raise concerns that the DSS approach favors a small minority of students.

Racial Discipline Disproportionality in Montessori and Traditional Public Schools: A Comparative Study Using the Relative Rate Index

<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>

Research Design Meets Market Design: Using Centralized Assignment for Impact Evaluation

A growing number of school districts use centralized assignment mechanisms to allocate school seats in a manner that reflects student preferences and school priorities. Many of these assignment schemes use lotteries to ration seats when schools are oversubscribed. The resulting random assignment opens the door to credible quasi-experimental research designs for the evaluation of school effectiveness. Yet the question of how best to separate the lottery-generated variation integral to such designs from non-random preferences and priorities remains open. This paper develops easily-implemented empirical strategies that fully exploit the random assignment embedded in the widely-used deferred acceptance mechanism and its variants. We use these methods to evaluate charter schools in Denver, one of a growing number of districts that integrate charter and traditional public schools in a unified assignment system. The resulting estimates show large achievement gains from charter school attendance. Our approach expands the scope for impact evaluation by maximizing the number of students and schools that can be studied using random assignment. We also show how to use DA to identify causal effects in models with multiple school sectors.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.