Education Reform: Charter Schools

This Associated Press article describes the ongoing controversy over a charter school accused of promoting the Islamic religion. Citing issues such as dress codes, prayer times, and religious instruction, the ACLU believes that this charter school does not deserve government funds due to...

This article focuses on the growing issue of charter school unionization. According to the New York Times, many charter school teachers are pushing to join teachers' unions in order to gain more financial benefits, while also restricting the heavy work load that often plagues them. However...

"These schools showed the highest percentage of students scoring at grade level or better, despite having a high number of children living in poverty. Poverty has a high correlation to low student achievement."

Skeptical of the charter school movement, Andrew Coulson fears that charter schools will eventually assimilate and become as regulated as their public school counterparts. Coulson believes that eagerness over the school choice movement could cause many in alternative education institutions to head toward charter schools, thus giving the government a foothold to gain even more of a monopoly...

"The number of charter schools in California has increased steadily since 1992, when California first authorized charter schools."

"Tradeoffs are an incurable part of reality. Unfortunately, many school choice supporters like to believe that there are no tradeoffs between school choice policies; public and private school choice, targeted or restricted, big or small, voucher or tax credits, it’s all choice and it’s all good. But some good things are better than others. And most things have some mix of positive and negative...

"In most public school systems in America, students attend the school for which their neighborhood is zoned. But in the five years since Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has created a school system unlike any other in the country. 'We used Katrina as an opportunity to build—not rebuild, but build—a new school system,' says Paul Vallas, the outgoing superintendent of...

"As a whole, charters serve a somewhat different population of students than noncharter schools.

Charters serve greater proportions of African American and white students and smaller percentages of Asian and Hispanic students."

According to Jay Greene, school choice proponents who sacrificed vouchers in hopes of satisfying teachers' unions are now facing pressure to sacrifice charter schools. With research demonstrating that unionized charter schools are less effective than non-unionized, Greene contends that...

"These schools showed the highest percentage of students scoring at grade level or better, despite having a high number of children living in poverty. Poverty has a high correlation to low student achievement."

The above chart presents the variety of curriculum choices that charter schools have to choose from. These curriculum choices are different from what many public schools offer, and they often have a more traditional education philosophy underlying them.

Abstract:
"Students in charter schools that have been in operation longer are more likely to have a proficiency advantage over their peers in the matched regular public school. In reading, the advantage is 2.5 percent for a charter school that has been operating 1 to 4 years, 5.2 percent for a school operating 5 to 8 years, and 10.1 percent for a school...

This chart shows the rise in student achievement in the city of New Orleans, before and after hurricane Katrina in 2005. In the aftermath of the hurricane, New Orleans instituted broad educational reform, leading the way with a huge expansion of charter schools, which resulted in a massive increase in student achievement.

In a study designed to examine the facts about funding in charter schools vs. public schools, Speakman and Hassel determined that a majority of charter schools end up short changed. The above chart shows how much money states allot for each student in public schools and charter schools, and then shows the monetary difference between the two.

The charter schools surveyed in The Center for Education Reform's 2002 report demonstrate that many serve underprivileged students. According to this chart, over 40% of charter schools have more than 60% of their student population belonging to minority groups and on free/reduced lunches, as well as being at risk or former school dropouts.

"Charter schools—public schools that are exempt from many of the procedural regulations that apply to regular public schools—are a widespread but poorly-studied form of education reform. With nearly 2,700 charter schools now educating more than 684,000 children nationwide, policymakers and parents need to know how the education charter schools provide compares to that provided by regular...

This piece takes a look at a little researched facet of charter schools: funding issues. Sensing that funding issues were at the core of disagreements and controversies between charter schools and traditional public schools, Speakman and Hassel set out to see which of...

In this article Michael Antonucci argues that the support teachers' unions seem to have for charter schools is simply a facade. Antonucci documents the agenda to bring charter schools under the authority of unions, claiming that unions try to "regulate, steer, rank and organize" them...

"This study presents new findings comparing public and private high schools using top-quality data from the Education Longitudinal Study (ELS), a long-term research project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. The ELS project tracks individual data on thousands of students, allowing researchers to conduct much better analyses than are possible with school...

Jeanne Allen says that, "Of the over 4,000 public charter schools ever opened, 436 have been closed for failing to perform on some level...." With that in mind, this report follows up on the closed charter schools in order to find the root cause of their failure. Only a handful of the closures were due...

"The most frequently asked questions about school choice are: Do public schools respond constructively to competition induced by school choice, by raising their own productivity? Does students’ achievement rise when they attend voucher or charter schools? Do voucher and charter schools end up with a selection of the better students ('cream-skim')?

Although a charter school advocate himself, Bruno Manno attempts to fairly answer the ten most common arguments lodged against the charter school movement. These arguments deal with everything from accountability issues to equality problems, and while Manno...

"Founded by Ben Chavis in 2006, American Indian Public Charter School is already the fourth highest performing public high school in California. Its students are almost all African American or Hispanic, and poor. The Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) network of public charter schools, the focus of Jay Mathews' book, raises its mostly low-income students from far...

In this video, Dr. Rodriguez answers some of the common questions people ask about charter schools, including funding, facilities, extra-curricular activities, discipline problems, and academic success. A charter school founder himself, Rodriguez believes that while there are some obstacles in charter schooling, the positive effects of charters far outweigh the bad.

"What would New Orleans look like if it were home to the nation's top urban public school system? 

Executive Producer Matt Wisdom and Digital Filmmaker Tim Ryan hope to help convey that vision in a new short Internet documentary about recent successes within New Orleans public charter schools. In addition to an insiders look into what makes public...

This clip from CBS news covers both the positive and negative viewpoints of charter schools. The reporting covers the success of a specific charter high school in Chicago, while also citing talking points and statistics that favor those who disagree with the charter school option and philosophy.

"Before Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2005, Orleans Parish public schools were failing miserably. After the storm shut down the public school system completely, there was little reason to be optimistic.

But then something amazing happened.

The state of Louisiana took control over...

Recognized as a pioneer and advancer of charter school education, the state of Minnesota's legislation is primarily helpful to those wanting to enact effective charter schools in their own states. This particular piece of legislation deals with financial issues, including...

This transcript describes the background and advancement of the Colorado charter school system. While acknowledging that not all charter schools are successful, Colorado's lieutenant governor does seem to be a strong...

"Over the past several years, privately run, publicly funded charter schools have been sold to the American public as an education alternative promising better student achievement, greater parent satisfaction, and more vibrant school communities. But are charter schools delivering on their promise? ... Using an exceptionally rigorous research approach, the authors...

Weinberg discusses the legal issues of operating a charter school with a religious bent. From his examination of the law, he determines that religious charter schools are possible, but have many strings attached to them. This book covers an interesting aspect that many would not believe to be a part of the charter school option.

"The Minnesota Charter School Resource Center helps increase student achievement and graduation rates for children throughout Minnesota. Founded upon work the Center for School Change has done over the past decade, the Minnesota Charter School Resource Center...