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Full-Text Articles in Education
Charter School Closing Inequities: Do Automatic Closure Laws Target Black Charter Entrepreneurs And Black Students?, Ian Kingbury, Martha Bradley-Dorsey, Robert Maranto
Charter School Closing Inequities: Do Automatic Closure Laws Target Black Charter Entrepreneurs And Black Students?, Ian Kingbury, Martha Bradley-Dorsey, Robert Maranto
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Charter schools can have their charters rescinded if they fail to meet performance metrics, which are often specified in the charter. In some states, however, charters must meet inflexible, standardized performance standards to survive. Through the lens of public choice theory, we hypothesize that charters that were established by African Americans and those which serve more African American students are more likely to close, and that state-imposed standardized closure rules exacerbate these inequities. Analyses using charter petitions (n=925) and National Center for Education Statistics data since 2010 (n=5,548), tend to confirm hypotheses: The percentage of African American students and having …
A Good Investment: The Updated Productivity Of Public Charter Schools In Eight U.S. Cities, Corey Deangelis, Patrick J, Wolf, Larry Maloney, Jay May
A Good Investment: The Updated Productivity Of Public Charter Schools In Eight U.S. Cities, Corey Deangelis, Patrick J, Wolf, Larry Maloney, Jay May
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
In 2015-16, the United states spent over $660 billion on its public education system in hopes of providing children with greater opportunities to excel academically and to improve their life trajectories. While public education dollars have risen at a relatively fast pace historically, future challenges, including underfunded pension liabilities, suggest policymakers should economize wherever possible. Meanwhile, the number of public charter schools has increased exponentially. from 1991 to 2018, charter school legislation passed in 44 states and the nation’s capital, and student enrollment in charters increased to around 3.2 million. Since educational resources are limited, we examine which types of …
What Leads To Successful School Choice Programs? A Review Of The Theories And Evidence, Corey A. Deangelis, Heidi Holmes Erickson
What Leads To Successful School Choice Programs? A Review Of The Theories And Evidence, Corey A. Deangelis, Heidi Holmes Erickson
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
There is a large body of thorough research showing many positive benefits of school choice. However, many questions remain on how school choice works. Rigorous school choice experiments can only determine if access to school choice programs alters student outcomes; they cannot confidently identify the specific mechanisms that mediate various outcomes. Two commonly theorized mechanisms in school choice programs that lead to positive outcomes are (1) an increased access to higher-quality schools and (2) an improved match between schools and students. We examine the existing empirical evidence and the theoretical arguments for these two primary mechanisms. While there is evidence …
You Can’T Always Get What You Want: Using “Broken Lotteries” To Check The Validity Of Charter School Evaluations Using Matching Designs, Leesa M. Foreman, Kaitlin P. Anderson, Gary W. Ritter, Patrick J. Wolf
You Can’T Always Get What You Want: Using “Broken Lotteries” To Check The Validity Of Charter School Evaluations Using Matching Designs, Leesa M. Foreman, Kaitlin P. Anderson, Gary W. Ritter, Patrick J. Wolf
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
We consider situations in which public charter school lotteries are neither universally conducted nor consistently documented. Such lotteries produce “broken” Randomized Control Trials, but provide opportunities to assess the internal validity of quasi-experimental research designs. Here, we present the results of a statewide charter school evaluation using a broad-based student matching evaluation design, and run two additional analyses using the charter application wait-lists as robustness checks. Our additional models, which address concerns of self-selection by using only charter applicants as matched comparison students, yield similar effect estimates and thus provide support for the use of matching designs in charter school …
Educational Attainment Effects Of Public And Private School Choice, Leesa M. Foreman
Educational Attainment Effects Of Public And Private School Choice, Leesa M. Foreman
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
The two fastest growing school choice options are charter schools and private school voucher programs (independently, as tax credit scholarships, and as part of educational savings accounts). Most of the research assessing the effects of these programs focuses on student achievement. I review the literature to determine the impact public and private school choice programs are having on high school completion, college enrollment, and college persistence which, ultimately, may be different and of greater consequence than test scores. Furthermore, as educational attainment affects earnings and other life outcomes, those findings are reported when available. In sum, of the 12 studies …
The Wisconsin Role In The School Choice Movement, John F. Witte, Patrick J. Wolf
The Wisconsin Role In The School Choice Movement, John F. Witte, Patrick J. Wolf
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson led a Midwestern policy revolution in the late 1980s and early 1990s centered on providing parents with more school choices. Since those early years, school choice in the forms of private school vouchers, public charter schools, and public school open enrollment have spread across almost all of the country. Longitudinal evaluations of the effects of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), the voucher program initiated by Governor Thompson, indicate that student achievement outcomes were not consistently affected by vouchers but other vital student outcomes, including educational attainment, civic values, criminal proclivities as well as parent and …
School Choice: The Personal And The Political, James V. Shuls
School Choice: The Personal And The Political, James V. Shuls
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Enrollment in school choice programs is growing, so is overall support for school choice. Many have analyzed what demographic characteristics impact attitudes towards school choice. This paper adds to the literature by exploring the interaction between personal decisions regarding school choice and broader support for school choice programs. Focus groups were conducted in St. Louis and Kansas City with 35 parents of school age children. Participant responses indicate that school choice programs illicit mixed emotions from parents. Most participants personally support school choice and exercise choice themselves by sending their children to magnet, charter, or private schools. At the same …
No Excuses Charter Schools: A Meta-Analysis Of The Experimental Evidence On Student Achievement, Albert Cheng, Collin Hitt, Brian Kisida, Jonathan N. Mills
No Excuses Charter Schools: A Meta-Analysis Of The Experimental Evidence On Student Achievement, Albert Cheng, Collin Hitt, Brian Kisida, Jonathan N. Mills
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
While charter schools differ widely in philosophy and pedagogical views, the United States’s most famous urban charter schools typically use the No Excuses approach. Enrolling mainly poor and minority students, these schools feature high academic standards, strict disciplinary codes, extended instructional time, and targeted supports for low-performing students. The strenuous and regimented style is controversial amongst some scholars, but others contend that the No Excuses approach is needed to rapidly close the achievement gap. We conduct the first meta-analysis of the achievement impacts of No Excuses charter schools. Focusing on experimental studies, we find that No Excuses charter schools significantly …