Download or read book Choices and Challenges written by Priscilla Wohlstetter and published by Harvard Education Press. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As charter schools enter their third decade, research in this key sector remains overwhelmingly contradictory and confused. Many studies are narrowly focused; some do not meet the standards for high-quality academic research. In this definitive work, Wohlstetter and her colleagues isolate and distill the high-quality research on charter schools to identify the contextual and operational factors that influence these schools’ performances. The authors examine the track record of the charter sector in light of the wide range of goals set for these schools in state authorizing legislation—at the classroom level, the level of the school community, and system-wide. In particular, they show how the evolution of the charter movement has shaped research questions and findings. By highlighting what we know about the conditions for success in charter schools, the authors make a significant contribution to current debates in policy and practice, both within the charter sector and in the larger landscape of public education.

Download or read book Charter School Operations and Performance written by Ron Zimmer and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 1999-06-30 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzes an array of issues pertaining to accessibility, student achievement, governance, and operation of charter schools in California. Four specific research questions were investigated: (1) What population of students attends charter schools? (2) Is student achievement higher in charter schools than in conventional public schools? (3) What oversight and support do the chartering authorities provide? (4) How do charter schools differ from their conventional public school counterparts in terms of their operation, including finances, academic achievement, and staffing?

Download or read book How Are California s Charter Schools Performing written by EdSource, Inc., Palo Alto, CA. and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report begins with a discussion of why performance comparisons between charter and noncharter schools can be complicated. It also summarizes the most recent data from California's assessment and accountability systems, comparing types of charter schools and looking at them within the context of the larger system. An overview of the often contradictory findings from prominent research studies illustrate how different experts address the comparison of academic performance among charter school students versus their peers in the regular system. This report also adds to that ongoing discussion with a new EdSource analysis that approaches the issue somewhat differently. Taken together, the information in this report raises questions Californians should be asking about the state's charter schools and their performance, and it illuminates some reasons why clear answers are so elusive.

Download or read book California Charter Oversight written by Rebecca E. Blanton and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study was mandated by SB537 (Simitian, Chapter 650, Stats. of 2007, codified at Ed. Code Section 47613), which requires the California Research Bureau (CRB) to prepare and submit to the Legislature a report on the key elements and actual costs of charter school oversight. Charter schools are public schools that are operated by entities other than the traditional school district. They are publicly funded, mandated to accept any student who applies, and cannot discriminate based on race, religion, sex, or geographic location. Charter schools are exempted from significant portions of the California Education Code, but are overseen by charter school authorizers. An authorizer is an entity--most often a school district--that approves the formation of a charter school and regularly reviews its academic and financial performance. Authorizers have the power to close underperforming charter schools. Both authorizers and charter schools receive state funds for their operations. Charter schools educate approximately six percent of all California students. Charter authorizers oversee the performance of these schools and are responsible for ensuring that low-performing schools are either improved or closed. Under the direction of the Legislature, CRB examined the relationship between charter authorizers and charter schools, with a special emphasis on financial arrangements that would increase the opportunity for oversight beyond the legislatively mandated oversight activities. Additionally, the Legislature requested that CRB determine if the current funding formula for charter oversight provides sufficient reimbursement for authorizer activities. Finally, CRB addressed the Legislature's request to review best practices for charter school oversight and make recommendations on improving oversight in California. This report presents four key findings. First, the author and her colleagues found that during their study period, authorizers varied widely in both the services they performed and the amounts they charged charter schools for oversight. While some authorizers reported that petition review accounted for less than $1,000 in costs, other authorizers reported petition reviews costing upwards of $112,500. Second, they uncovered no correlation between activities performed for oversight and cost of oversight among study participants. A majority of the respondents had not adopted guidelines to determine what activities or services should be paid for with money received for charter school oversight. Third, few respondents to their survey reported formally accounting for staff time and costs expended conducting charter school oversight. Hence they are unable to provide the Legislature with a meaningful estimate of the true costs of or sufficiency of funding for authorizers' charter school oversight. They found that authorizers ranged from zero to 17 full-time employees dedicated to oversight. While 61 of the 72 respondents were able to provide an estimate on expenditures to revenue ratios, only 16 authorizers reported accounting for their actual oversight costs. Fourth, they found that, while professionally-accepted standards for charter school oversight have begun to emerge, California charter authorizers vary in their adherence to these standards. Several staff at authorizing agencies CRB staff spoke with stated their agency had to "reinvent the wheel" when it came to establishing oversight practices and standards. While some authorizers utilize established professional standards, others create their own unique forms of oversight. SB537 requires CRB to make policy recommendations about the structure and function of charter school oversight. The lack of good information about the costs and revenues including the use of California Education Code section 47613 funding has limited the author's and her colleagues' ability to provide concrete guidance to the Legislature in some areas. Their recommendations are based on current, professionally-accepted standards in charter school authorization and the results of their survey findings. These are: (1) Make charters or charter petitions available to the public; (2) Improve oversight accounting for authorizer reimbursement funds; (3) Define reimbursable oversight activities under California Education Code section 47613; and (4) Use multiple metrics to evaluate charter school performance. Appended are: (1) Advisory Panel; (2) Charter School Authorizer Survey Tool; (3) State Funding Allotments for Oversight Activity; (4) Significant CA Charter School Legislation; (5) Aligned General Oversight Standards; (6) National Consensus Panel on Charter School Academic Quality/National Consensus Panel on Charter School Operational Quality; (7) NACSA Financial Red Flags; (8) Charter School Transparency Laws; (9) Additional Authorizing Experts; (10) Data Overview; and (11) Works Cited. (Contains 15 tables, 18 figures and 2 equations.) [For "California Charter Oversight: Key Elements and Actual Costs. CRB Briefly Stated," see ED528996.

Download or read book Smarter Choices Better Education written by Commission on California State Government Organization and Economy and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Effects of Charter Schools on the Academic Achievement of California Students written by Baxter R. Boeh-Sobon and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charter schools are a national controversy, and have been since they were first adopted in the early 1990s. Yet in nearly thirty years in operation, only half of the country knows what a charter school is, and perhaps more important, if they are effective. With the current administration putting school choice on a national platform, it is more important now more than ever to under charter schools. This study asks, in terms of academic achievement, do charter schools perform as well as traditional public schools? Using school-level panel data from the California Department of Education's Academic Performance Index, this study uses fixed-effects analysis to test this question. This study finds that charter schools perform at the same levels as traditional public schools, and potentially even slightly better. This study also examines demographic and socioeconomic indicators, and their relationship to academic achievement. I identified a number of policy recommendations aimed at improving charter school, reducing funding disparities between charters and traditional schools, and ensuring underserved California's have the opportunity to benefit from a fulfilling education.

Download or read book Taking Measure of Charter Schools written by Julian R. Betts and published by R&L Education. This book was released on 2010-05-16 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book breaks new ground on how policymakers and journalists can fairly assess charter school performance. The editors and authors show how good approaches to charter school assessment would also work for regular public schools, which is important because of the requirements of No Child Left Behind.

Download or read book California Charter Schools Serving Low SES Students written by Simeon Peter Slovacek and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Making Sense of Charter Schools written by Ron W. Zimmer and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The debate over charter schools often appears to be driven by theory and ideology, with little information on how the reform itself is affecting students. This occasional paper adds clarity to the debate by consolidating the results from the RAND Corporation2s comprehensive assessment of charter schools. A key feature of this assessment has been the use of individual student-level data to track students from school to school over time and to measure their test scores in traditional and charter schools. The analysis dispels many of the arguments from charter proponents or critics. The results show that test scores for charter school students are keeping pace with comparable students in traditional public schools. Similarly, minority students are performing no better in charter than in traditional classrooms, so charters are not affecting the achievement gap for these students. Charter proponents have also expected that competition from charters would improve the performance of traditional public schools, but the evidence does not support this contention. On a more positive note, charter schools have achieved comparable test score results with fewer public resources and have emphasized non-core subjects more than have traditional schools. In addition, the evidence shows that charter schools have not created 3white enclaves4 or 3skimmed4 high-quality students from traditional public schools, as critics feared. Finally, we discovered that school level operations varied considerably between charter and traditional schools, but these operational differences had little effect on student achievement.

Download or read book The Urban Challenge in Education written by Joseph Scollo and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-11-03 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the advent of charter schools in the United States, the face of public education has changed in this country. From its early beginning in Minnesota to its exponential growth in California the charter school movement has generated much controversy. It has been praised for its accomplishments, and criticized for its creaming of students. Over 130,000 students attend nearly 250 charter schools in the city of Los Angeles. This book presents an in-depth look at seventeen of those schools – urban schools that are making a difference in the lives of the students and families they serve. Readers will encounter a group of dedicated educational pioneers who are committed and passionate about their schools. These are people who have sacrificed much, and put their lives on hold to develop and implement schools that meet the needs of all students regardless of economic circumstance or background. From people who have mortgaged their homes toattain financing for their dream, to some that have changed careers to improve the quality of education for children and young adults.

Download or read book How are California s Charter Schools Performing written by Brian C. Edwards and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book School s Choice written by Wagma Mommandi and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Access issues are pivotal to almost all charter school tensions and debates. How well are these schools performing? Are they segregating and stratifying? Are they public and democratic? Are they fairly funded? Can apparent successes be scaled up? Answers to all these core questions hinge on how access to charter schools is shaped. This book describes the incentives and pressures on charter schools to restrict access and examines how charters navigate those pressures, explaining access-restricting practices in relation to the ecosystem within which charter schools are created. It also explains how charters have sometimes responded by resisting the pressures and sometimes by surrendering to them. The text presents analyses of 13 different types of practices around access, each of which shapes the school’s enrollment. The authors conclude by offering recommendations for how states and authorizers can address access-related inequities that arise in the charter sector. School’s Choice provides timely information on critical academic and policy issues that will come into play as charter school policy continues to evolve. Book Features: Examines how charter schools control who gains and retains access.Explores policies and practices that undermine equitable admission and encourage opportunity hoarding.Offers a set of policy recommendations at the state and federal level to address access-related issues.

Download or read book California s Charter Schools written by California. Bureau of State Audits and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Charter Movement written by Jeannine L. English and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1999-08 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The charter school movement is not only an experiment that identifies the best educational methods but also as a tool to achieve change within the educ. systems. California has more than 100 charter schools, and there is tension between their critics and proponents. The authors visited 26 charter schools, including the first, the largest and a mix of urban and rural sites. While the academic results are not clear, charter schools can be judged at least a partial success on the basis of test scores, parental satisfaction, academic innovation, enhanced opportunities for teachers, and increased focus on low-achieving students.

Download or read book Beyond the Charter School Reform written by Amy Stuart Wells and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advocates and opponents of charter schools have made and refuted claims in the absence of data. This report introduces data from real schools into this discussion. It provides an overview of findings form one of the first intensive studies of charter school reform in California, the second state to pass charter school legislation and the state with the second largest number of charter schools. This 2-l/2 year study examined many of the most prominent claims of charter school advocates against the day-to-day experiences of educators, parents, and students in 17 charter schools as well as in nearby public schools in 10 school districts across the state.

Download or read book Assessing California s Charter Schools written by Elizabeth G. Hill and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2008-04 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Charter Schools Indicators written by University of Southern California (USC), Center on Educational Governance (CEG) and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like other public schools, California charter schools are judged primarily by one measure: student test scores. Though necessary, the Academic Performance Index and Average Yearly Progress scores can't assess charter schools' broad dimensions of student learning, program effectiveness and school operations. The state's accountability system requires that all public schools submit mountains of data, but it's not reported in a way that's useful for the schools to evaluate themselves. And charter schools rely on this data to sustain their very existence. The first report of its kind, "Charter Schools Indicators-USC" transforms data submitted to the state for compliance purposes into a tool for school improvement and accountability. USC's Center on Educational Governance built CSI-USC in partnership with the charter school community: state policymakers, charter school authorizers, charter school operators and professional organizations of charter schools. Performance measures are organized into four areas: financial resources and investment, school quality, student performance and academic productivity. The report also updates the profile of the California charter school population. CSI-USC's quality measures use both academic and financial data, existing figures and new measures created expressly for this report. They are presented as indices; each index is composed of a set of individual data elements. Most indices compare charter schools to non-charter public schools. When the data for individual non-charter public schools is not publicly available, comparisons focus on changes in charter school performance over time. An aggregate of school data, CSI-USC is designed for readers to draw their own conclusions. In the next two years, USC's Center on Educational Governance will complete an interactive, searchable Web site of performance data on individual California charter schools. Schools and their stakeholders--policymakers, foundations, corporate partners and researchers--will be able to gauge a school's performance on a given measure and compare that school to all other California public schools on that measure. Overall, a broader array of indicators better captures the value of a school. And as charter schools and their enrollments continue to grow in California, data on their progress is more sought than ever. By examining these school data as a collection, CSI-USC has taken the first crucial step. Appended are: (1) Data Sources and Terms; (2) Creating CSI-USSC; and (3) Index and Data Sources.