State Level Research

• Notable Minnesota Research Projects
  Notable California Research Projects
  Notable Colorado Research Projects

National Level Research

The Future of Charter Schools

References

Charter schools have emerged as one of the most dynamic educational reform initiatives of the nineties. By January 1996, a total of 20 states had enacted charter school laws. Another 20 states considered charter school laws in 1995. Taken together, 40 states have demonstrated a clear interest in the charter idea -- a surprisingly strong trend considering that the first charter school law was passed in Minnesota only five years ago.

Although this is not intended to be a comprehensive review, several charter school research projects are described: some that have revealed lessons learned in the implementation of charter school laws, and others, more national in scope, that were designed to systematically describe existing charter schools and document their impacts.

State Level Research

Now that laws are active in a number of states, research results are becoming available. In three of the states with the oldest charter school laws (Minnesota, California, and Colorado), studies were developed to describe the range of challenges, barriers, and benefits encountered in the chartering process. A few of these studies and their key findings are described below.

Notable Minnesota Research Projects

Susan Urahn and Dan Stewart of the Minnesota House of Representatives' Research Department released a study in December 1994 that examined their state's charter school law. The research team surveyed school boards and parents, interviewed superintendents, visited schools, and conducted document analyses. They also examined the types of proposals offered and approved, the concerns and benefits raised by stakeholders, the outcomes specified in contracts, and the problems encountered.

Primary problem areas that the report identified for new charter schools were transportation, location and financing of facilities, special education, and relationships with the sponsoring district. The report raised a number of policy implications, many of which have been dealt with legislatively since the report was written. However, most are valid for other states with expansive laws:

• Freedom from regulation, though beneficial, can create unintended side effects. For example, questions arose over the applicability of laws regulating such things as meetings and elections.

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• Accountability is not easy. While charter schools must meet student outcomes defined in their charter based on agreed-upon assessment methods, review of the contracts showed that some outcomes and assessments could be improved. Also, researchers noted that the resources needed to adequately evaluate outcomes may deter districts from sponsoring charter schools.

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• Business experience is important. Lack of business acumen by charter school organizers led to some difficulties because planning placed little emphasis on day-to-day administration. Therefore, charter schools should be viewed, and treated, not only as educational enterprises but also as businesses.

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• Lack of start-up funding may hinder charter schools. This lack has previously been filled by grant funding, but as more charters are approved this source is diminished.

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• Absence of facilities funding may become a bigger problem. Charter schools are often housed in old school buildings rented at low cost from districts. At some point these old buildings will require major repairs. Alternative facilities are often too costly or not appropriate as schools.

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• Certain transportation requirements may be counterproductive. In Minnesota, sponsoring districts must transport their resident students who are enrolled in charter schools, but the charter schools themselves could not receive transportation funding. Therefore, charter schools were forced to conform to district bus schedules, which effectively eliminated their control over the school day and calendar year.

In 1995, the Minnesota legislature authorized and allocated $75,000 in funding for the State Board of Education to conduct a year-long evaluation of Minnesota charter schools. The Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of Minnesota was contracted to conduct the study. Its focus will be on student achievement and the effects of charters on the educational system.

Notable California Research Projects

A May 1994 report by Marcella Dianda and Ronald Corwin of Southwest Regional Laboratory (SWRL) was based on surveys of 33 charter schools and their sponsors after the first year implementation. Data provided information about schools, parents, students, and the experience of becoming chartered. Researchers also proposed reasons for the law's limited use during its first year and provided recommendations for change. Some of their key findings are presented below:

• The most common reason for seeking charter status was freedom from specific state/district regulations and union contracts. Other reasons included control over curriculum and instruction, and the ability to implement specific educational changes.

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• Charter schools reported superintendents to be the most supportive members of sponsoring districts, while district office personnel were the least supportive. School board support in metropolitan areas was low, while in rural areas it was high. Overall, schools that sought more autonomy from the district received the least district support.

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• Freedom from state codes and regulations was beneficial, but district regulations and union contracts (negotiable elements under the law) were still obstacles.

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• Schools that pushed for and obtained legal autonomy were less likely than more dependent charter schools to report good relationships with their sponsors or the teachers union. (By law, California charter schools can gain legal autonomy with consent from their sponsoring district, but in reality most schools agreed to less than total autonomy.)

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• Most schools were covered by local collective bargaining, with more than one-fourth waiving certain provisions, such as those regarding teacher evaluation. Newly created schools were not as likely to bargain with districts.

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• In more than half the reporting schools, parents were required to sign contracts guaranteeing their participation. The equity issue inherent in this arrangement was the subject of a paper by Henry Becker, Kathryn Nakagawa, and Ron Corwin (Parent Involvement Contracts in California's Charter Schools: Strategy for Educational Improvement or Method of Exclusion?) published by SWRL in April 1995.

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• Charter schools serving low academic achievers were more often located in metropolitan rather than rural areas. Overall, however, metropolitan schools served a broad cross-section of students: gifted, low achievers, low income, limited English proficient, and minority students were all drawn to charter schools.

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• One-third of district respondents planned to disseminate the effective practices used in the charter schools, but whether the districts would encourage new charter schools will depend on whether they conclude the schools can improve education or dovetail with other reform efforts in the district. One-fourth of the charter schools surveyed felt that districts relaxed some policies due to their presence.

SWRL released another report in January 1996 titled, Freedom and Innovation in California's Charter Schools. This study expanded the original survey to 53 charter schools and added 46 comparison district schools that students might otherwise attend. Also, another 63 charter schools out-of-state were surveyed.

Amy Wells of UCLA, and graduate students Cynthia Grutzik, Dolores Bernal, and Diane Hirshberg, conducted a study of California charter schools focusing on equity and access. Their preliminary overview of charter school resources and access was presented at the 1995 American Educational Research Association conference. Community resources were assessed through census tract data on income, race/ethnicity, and education in three school districts with the most chartering activity. Access was examined in a review of charter proposal language describing admissions criteria, parent involvement requirements, racial balance efforts, transportation, and services for special-needs students. Acknowledging that census tracts do not represent the schools' service areas, the authors suggested that charters were initiated and implemented in primarily white communities with higher-than-county-average income and education levels. After reviewing 20 proposals, they also suggested that parent involvement requirements may limit access to certain families. More in-depth study is planned.

The Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR) in Berkeley has studied the California Charter Law and provided technical assistance to charter schools with funding from the state's business roundtable. In 1995, IPAR released a policy research report titled Making Charters Work, which drew from a phone survey of California charter schools, legislative analysis, and ongoing contact with a majority of the state's charter schools. Currently, IPAR's Eric Premack is working on descriptive summaries of all California charter schools. These summaries will include enrollment figures and race/ethnic makeup of schools. Each charter school description will also provide an overview of the school and its distinguishing features, obstacles encountered, founders' concerns, and assessment data (where available). Comparisons will be made to district and state enrollment characteristics. This report is scheduled to be completed in March 1996.

Notable Colorado Research Project

In March 1995, Joy Fitzgerald of the Colorado Children's Campaign released a report that covered implementation issues, provided descriptive information about the charters that were granted, reported anecdotal evidence of secondary effects, and suggested changes to the law. Some key findings follow:

• The appeals process was widely used, giving charter applicants recourse when a district denied an application. At the time of the report, 23 appeals had been heard, of which five were remanded to the district and three were subsequently approved. A proposal for the Thurgood Marshall Middle School, however, was denied twice by the Denver Public School District. After the second denial the State Board ordered the district to approve, but the case has not yet been resolved. A thorough discussion of the Thurgood Marshall School's ongoing efforts can be found in Education Week (Hill, D. October 4, 1995).

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• In addition to the above-mentioned charter school denial, which led to a lawsuit, Fitzgerald's report described another lawsuit. This suit was filed in federal district court by parents in Pueblo who contended that two existing public schools had been closed in favor of opening a new charter school. The parents charged that charter schools were unconstitutional because they created large disparities spending, took away funds from public schools, and would most adversely affect Hispanic students who remained in the public schools. The federal district court dismissed the suit after finding the school closures and charter school approval to be independent actions.

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• On the positive side, Fitzgerald's report identified areas where the charter school goal of innovation was being realized. Innovations were found not only in instruction but also in parent involvement, budgeting, accountability, governance, and (with the help of the waiver process) management.

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• Charter schools applied for numerous waivers. (Instead of a "superwaiver" from most education codes, Colorado charter schools must apply for individual waivers.) The most common waiver requests involved:

• (1) Teacher evaluations: Under state code, evaluations must be conducted by a licensed administrator. Charter schools sought waivers from this regulation because they did not always have licensed administrators on staff. Instead, they involved parents, staff, and governing board members in the evaluation process.

  (2) Administrative license requirements: Waivers were sought when charter schools chose alternative management structures without a traditional principal.

  (3) The Teacher Employment, Compensation, and Dismissal Act: When waived, charter school teachers signed annual contracts, in which salary and benefit packages were negotiated with the charter school's governing board.

  (4) Teacher license requirements: Waivers were sought to allow charter schools to hire teachers with other types of work experience.

National Level Research

The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) organized the first nationwide effort to compile a variety of charter school experiences. The results were reported in January 1995 and focused on four areas: 1) number of charter schools approved and programming they offered, 2) autonomy of charter schools and influences on autonomy, 3) accountability systems in place for charter schools, and 4) administration of federal programs in charter schools.

GAO staff reviewed proposals and charters to learn about their instructional programs, administrative and financial relationships with districts, and accountability systems. Legislative analyses examined the differences between state laws. Interviews were conducted to learn about individual schools, relationships between schools and districts, and the experiences of schools, districts, and states in disbursing federal program funds.

• The GAO found great diversity in the methods used to assess students and the specificity of outcomes described in charters. The report questioned whether adequate baseline data were being collected to evaluate changes in student performance, and whether data would be reported in such a way that the progress of different demographic groups could be tracked. It also questioned requirements that charter schools use standardized norm-referenced tests, especially those schools that targeted low-achieving students.

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• The GAO suggested that new means of administering federal programs were needed because many charter schools were not tied to a school district, the usual local anchor for federal program administration. Although some states treated charter schools as local education authorities, state administration for Title I still holds districts liable. As of the GAO report, many states had still not resolved this missing linkage in administering federal programs.

In July 1995, Alex Medler of the Education Commission of the States (ECS) and Joe Nathan of the Center for School Change surveyed 110 charter schools and described them in terms of: grade levels served, school size, and facility type; subject focus or target student population; intra- and interdistrict enrollment; start-up funding and sources; reasons for seeking charter status; business and community partnerships; contracts for services and teacher qualifications; assessment tools used; and technical assistance needed.

ECS is continuing to explore charter schools with a Danforth Foundation grant. Louann Bierlein of the Louisiana Educational Policy Research Center at Louisiana State University recently examined ethnic/racial composition and other demographic information on children in charter schools. Impacts that charter schools are having on the educational system are also documented. ECS published her findings in February 1996.

Chester Finn and Bruno Manno of the Educational Excellence Network at Hudson Institute together with Bierlein are conducting a two-year study of approximately 35 charter schools in Arizona, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Minnesota. The goals of this project, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, are to identify policy and practical issues in implementation and to inform policy makers and practitioners of solutions and strategies. Their first year report was released in January 1996.

Mark Buechler of the Indiana Education Policy Center at Indiana University released a January 1996 report, Charter Schools: Legislation and Results after Four Years. This report discusses trends in legislation and contains a chapter devoted to charter schools in operation. It also describes schools in terms of size, student population, and educational approaches, and it presents data on parent involvement, student achievement, barriers encountered, and early evidence of the effects of charter schools on other schools. The report's prima focus is national, but one chapter is devoted to a history of charter school bills in Indiana.

Marc Dean Millot of Rand Corporation has conducted four different studies analyzing charter school laws. His most recent effort is titled, Creating a Market for Public Schools: Lessons Learned from Early Implementation of the Massachusetts Charter School Statute. It will be released sometime in Spring 1996.

The federal Charter Schools Program was created through Title X of the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA), which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Title X funding is designated for implementation and initial development of charter schools. Although $15 million was authorized for the program, Congress allocated only $5.4 million in 1995. Ninety percent of these funds were designated for a state grant program to help charter schools defray start-up costs. The other ten percent were designated for a national evaluation and other national activities.

In the first year, the national activity money ($536,000) was earmarked for the four-year charter school evaluation study awarded to RPP, International, a Berkeley, California based policy research center. RPP heads the study's research consortium which consists of the University of Minnesota's Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement and the Institute for Responsive Education, a Boston based non-profit research group.

The RPP study will involve 50 charter schools, of which 30 will be selected in the first year, and 20 will be added the second. Researchers will conduct an annual telephone survey of all charter schools, achievement testing at a matched sample of charter schools and regular public schools, case studies, and an intensive study of a few charter schools in order to explore policy issues affecting them. The first-year report will be available in November 1996.

In addition to the efforts described above, professors and graduate students across the country are also beginning to study many aspects of charter schools. Projects should begin to surface in greater numbers now that many more laws are operational. An increasing number of policy papers and discussions of charter schools are also appearing in academic journals (e.g., Raywid, 1995; Wohlstetter & Anderson, 1994; Wohlstetter, Wenning, & Briggs, 1995).

The Future of Charter Schools

Political tides, no doubt, will bring much to bear on the future of the charter school movement. Of the 20 states that considered, but did not pass, charter school legislation in 1995, most will probably resurface with bills in 1996.

Clearly, the next five years will prove pivotal in determining the future of charter schools. Will enthusiasm fizzle in favor of other reforms, or will charter school momentum continue to build? Hopefully, new policy decisions affecting the status of charter schools will be informed by a growing body of research.

Note: The research projects featured represent many, but not all, of the major charter school-related research conducted or currently in progress. Please note also that only research highlights are presented, not complete findings. Readers are encouraged to obtain the full reports cited to gain a more thorough understanding of the research literature.

Excerpted from "Charter Schools: The Reform and The Research," Policy Brief, March 1996, by Lori Mulholland, Senior Research Specialist, Morrison Instute for Public Policy, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.

References

Berman, P., Diamond, L., & Premack, E. (1995). Making charters work. Berkeley, CA: The Institute for Policy Analysis and Research.
Bierlein, L.A., & Bateman, M. (1995). Opposition forces and education reform: Will charter schools succeed? Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University.
Buechler, M. (1996). Charter schools: Legislation and results after four years. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Education Policy Center.
Dianda, M. R., & Corwin, R. G. (1994). Vision and reality: A first-year look at California's charter schools. Los Alamitos, CA: Southwest Regional Laboratory.
Fitzgerald, J. (1995). Charter schools in Colorado. Denver: Colorado Children's Campaign.
Grutzik, C., Bernal, D., Hirshberg, D., & Wells, A. (1995, April). Resources and access in California charter schools: A preliminary overview. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.
Hill, D. (October 4, 1995). Charter champion. Education Week, pp. 23, 26-29.
Kolderie, T. (1995). The charter idea: Update and prospects, Fall '95. Public Services Redesign Project. Saint Paul, MN: Center for Policy Studies.
Lindsay, D. (November 29, 1995). Laws of the land: Are charters an idea whose time has come and gone? Education Week, special report, pp. 8-11.
Medler, A., & Nathan, J. (1995). Charter schools: A survey of approved charter schools. Denver: Education Commission of the States.
Raywid, M. (1995, March). The struggles and joys of trailblazing: A tale of two charter schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(7), 555-560.
Urahn, S., & Stewart, D. (1994). Minnesota charter schools: A research report. Research Department, Minnesota House of Representatives.
U.S. General Accounting Office (1995). Charter schools: New models for public schools provide opportunities and challenges. Washington DC: Author.
Wohlstetter, P., & Anderson, L. (1994, January). What can U.S. charter schools learn from England's grant-maintained schools? Phi Delta Kappan, pp.486-491.
Wohlstetter, P., Wenning, R., and Briggs, K. (1995). Charter schools in the United States: The question of autonomy. Educational Policy, 9(4), 331-358.