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1.
This article identifies supporters and opponents of charter schools at all levels of government and describes their motivations and behaviors. It is explained that state and local support for charter schools is most often determined by educational needs and material incentives. Different political contexts produce different charter school policies. For example, charter school legislation in Michigan was designed to increase competition among public schools. Legislation in Georgia served to deregulate public education after a period of increased state centralization. The article concludes that there is no cohesive state or local charter political pattern, given the variations in charter schools and their contexts. It remains unclear whether national charter school advocates have enough influence to expand the number of charter schools significantly. Local policymakers in areas with few educational pressures, such as some suburban communities, may resist change. Charter schools could end up as a marginal reform that impacts small numbers of students in urban centers, or continue their impressive growth, but it is state and local politics that will decide.  相似文献   

2.
ABSTRACT

Reforms using market-style mechanisms of parental choice and competition between schools are intended to leverage change by compelling schools to diversify options and increase effectiveness. Yet, some research challenges those assumptions, suggesting that schools in competitive climates are more likely to focus on image management to attract a more desirable student intake than to engage in substantive innovations to improve student outcomes. This analysis examines school responses to competition in two local education markets representing a mix of public (including charter) and private school types. School promotional signals to consumers are studied in order to understand school perceptions and responses to underlying competitive incentive structures-incentives that reformers intended to encourage programmatic improvement and diversification of options along a horizontal axis of diverse consumer preferences. A review of marketing materials demonstrates that many schools are instead adopting marketing strategies designed to attract “better” students-often from schools considered to be successful, rather than from the failing schools reformers had targeted. These patterns of vertical differentiation suggest that schools may be acting in ways that reflect contradictory incentives shaping how schools engage the marketplace.  相似文献   

3.
Some economic guidelines for design of a charter school district   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  
As the number of charter schools has grown nationally, there is increasing discussion of the consolidation of such schools into charter districts in which all schools would be charter schools from which parents would have the freedom to choose the school that they wished their student to attend. A major question is how such a charter school district would be organized to support its schools and who would perform the different functions required. It is argued that three economic guidelines need to be an important determinant of the solution to this question: the presence of economies of scale; transaction costs; and externalities. The article describes the application of these guidelines to the formation of a charter school district and suggests the different possibilities for addressing a range of important roles by schools, their districts and intermediate organizations and markets.  相似文献   

4.
Given state cuts to US public education, overcrowding and underfunding in urban district schools continue to grow. Yet, how parents understand the role of state disinvestment on underfunded and overcrowded public schools remains relatively unexamined. Drawing from an ethnographic study of school choice in Arizona, I explore how a group of white parents from diverse income and educational levels, who exited their child from a district school to enroll in a charter school, articulated state disinvestment in their everyday lives. Findings show that parents blamed local schools for what were largely the effects of state disinvestment. In particular, parents connected underfunding and overcrowding with a lack of district responsiveness to individual concerns to express the view that dire conditions were a personal and not a collective problem. Concurrent with the view that they were ‘were forced to choose’ a charter school due to a lack of district responsiveness, parents developed the belief that choice makes education more equal, especially for students who don’t ‘fit in’ to the district school. In total, findings highlight how technologies of choice enter into local cultural and material struggles to transform the relationship between parents and schools from a social to an economic one.  相似文献   

5.
Character education has always played a role in the purpose of schools. Most US states have a statement about character education as a part of the mission of the schools. This research studied how character education was perceived by participants in regards to school mission statements/philosophies, school atmosphere and curriculum in a Catholic school, a Quaker school and a public school. Using interviews and observations, the public school and two private schools approaches to character education were explored. Character education explicitly connected and applied from the mission statement manifested more fully in the school culture.  相似文献   

6.
The American experiment with charter schools advanced on dual impulses of increasing opportunities for disadvantaged students and unleashing market competition. While critics see these independently managed schools as a form of privatisation, proponents contend that they are public schools because of funding and accountability arrangements and potential benefits, and believe that the economic logic around these schools will produce equitable educational opportunities. This analysis considers how charters are or are not instances of privatisation in education, showing that the marketised environment they are intended to nurture serves as a route for profit-seeking strategies. In reviewing the research on charter school organisational behaviour and outcomes in marketised environments, I find evidence of de facto privatisation in function if not in form. As charter schools often act like profit-seeking entities, but fail to achieve expected academic and equity outcomes, the concluding discussion considers how these schools are placed between conflicting goals, and serve as entry points for private organisations seeking to penetrate the publicly funded education sector. I conclude that perhaps their most important role is in serving as a vehicle for privatising public policy—diminishing the public while enhancing the position and influence of private interests and organisations in education policymaking.  相似文献   

7.
The first charter school law was passed in Minnesota in 1991 and with it, a new school reform movement began. After two decades, 41 states and Washington D.C. have adopted charter legislation. This special issue provides an opportunity for scholars to reflect upon the promises and limitations of charter schools and to offer policy advice for those in a position to influence future reforms. Together, the papers within this special issue examine the achievement effects of charter schools, their cost effectiveness, the competitive pressure created by charter schools, the degree to which charter schools are innovative and how some of the operational and policy features of charter schools may affect outcomes.  相似文献   

8.
Critical consciousness refers to the ways in which individuals come to understand and challenge oppressive social forces. Philosopher-educator Paulo Freire argued that critical curiosity—an eagerness to learn more about and develop a deep understanding of issues of social justice—serves as an important catalyst to critical consciousness development. Yet, relatively little scholarship has considered how to foster critical curiosity in adolescents. The present qualitative study analyzed semi-structured interviews with 60 adolescents attending five Northeastern urban charter high schools with mission statements focused on fostering students' engagement in social action. Specifically, the study considered these students' perceptions of the impact of their respective schools' social engagement programming upon their critical curiosity. The interviews were analyzed using a flexible inductive/deductive approach drawn from the thematic analysis approach to qualitative analysis. The findings of this study indicate that students had a variety of conceptions of what stimulates their critical curiosity, including relevance, exposure to new perspectives, and receiving new, surprising information. Alignment with Freire's conceptions of critical curiosity and current curiosity scholarship, implications for educators, limitations, and future directions are discussed.  相似文献   

9.
ABSTRACT

Fifteen years ago charter schools were considered a radical addition to the public education landscape. Today they present a viable educational choice in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Much has been written about charter schools, their purpose, effectiveness, and future. However, to date, much of the dialogue has focused on ideology and methodology resulting in a discussion framed as “charter vs. noncharter.” Overlooked have been the more substantive issues that would provide a more accurate framework for studying charter schools. We propose that the education policy and research communities need to identify the critical variables in the charter schools sector that affect both student outcomes and education policy. One such major variable is the legal status of a charter school, that is, its identity as a local education agency (LEA) or as part of an existing LEA and the charter school's linkage to other parts of the public education system that flows from that identity. Differentiating charter schools according to their legal status will allow stakeholders to categorize these schools in a manner that succinctly captures critical differences. doi:10.1300/J467v01n03_11  相似文献   

10.
ABSTRACT

The author examined how local charter school educators respond to the accountability measures being imposed on them. Encouraged by early indications of increased test scores, state and federal policymakers continue to support accountability as an effective means to improve schools. Surprisingly, there has been little research on local educators’ experiences with and responses to such reforms. This lack of research is striking because teachers, principals, and superintendents are directly responsible for the implementation of accountability mandates, including administering tests, teaching to the state standards, and implementing state-approved curriculum packages. In an effort to understand teachers’ and administrators’ experiences with public school accountability, the author explores how educators in 4 charter schools in Michigan understand recent accountability mandates with respect to school reform.  相似文献   

11.
Few studies have investigated what occurs inside charter schools with respect to instructional leadership, teaching, and learning. To address this gap in the literature, this case study examines two major issues: how the principals at four charter schools enact instructional leadership in their respective schools, and what barriers the principals encounter when enacting instructional leadership at their school sites. The results highlight three main categories of instructional leadership practices: developing a school mission, managing curriculum and instruction, and promoting school climate and culture. In addition, the data reveal that while the principals attempted to engage in instructional leadership, they encountered barriers related to budgeting and staffing. The paper broadens the scholarly understanding of instructional leadership in schools with high levels of autonomy.  相似文献   

12.
Market reforms in education are part of the educational policy landscape in many countries. Central to arguments for market reforms is the idea that competition and choice will spur changes in schools to be more innovative, which in turn will lead to better student outcomes. We define innovation in terms of a practice's relative prevalence in a local district context. A charter school is innovative in its use of a practice if the traditional public schools in its local school district are not using that practice. We explore factors based on arguments for charter schools that may affect a charter schools’ propensity toward innovation to explain variation in levels of innovation across charter schools. We find that, on the whole, charter schools do not fulfill their promise of innovation. Teacher tenure is the most notable exception. Parental involvement is the only characteristic of charter schools that significantly predicts variation in levels of organizational innovativeness.  相似文献   

13.
This paper seeks to elucidate a specific type of charter school. While much has been written about school choice and the expanding charter school segment, a growing and important number of charter schools do not fit in to the common understanding of these schools. Distinct from many of their counterparts, prestige charter schools have the following two features: elements which foster a reputation similar to that of elite private schools and a student population demographically distinct from local public district schools – whereby the prestige charters serve a disproportionate number of advantaged families. The prestige elements include: founding by advantaged community members; parental involvement; wait lists; popularity with advantaged professionals; high test scores; and niche themes. The authors will show through two in-depth case studies that prestige charter schools work hand-in-hand with gentrification in urban neighborhoods, and result in racial and class segregation and inequality. This paper examines how these charter schools struggle when a rise in prestige coincides with a decline in access for low-income students. The authors recommend that given the current system of school choice, prestige charter schools must use tools and mechanisms to maintain demographic diversity and educational equity which is in the best interest of all children.  相似文献   

14.
Reflecting post-bureaucratic organisation theory, education reformers intended charter schools to empower school-level leaders, most typically principals, with autonomy to pursue clear, student-centred missions. Yet little research explores whether charter school principals have more power than traditional public school counterparts. We summarise the limited literature addressing the issue. Second, we present findings from interviews with nine charter leaders from six US states who have experience in leading both charter and traditional public schools, a unique data set. Both prior research and our findings suggest that generally, leaders feel more likely to be held accountable for results in charter schools than in traditional public schools. Furthermore, without oversight from school boards and central office administrators, charter leaders report having more power over budget and personnel, and more ability to collaborate with teachers. At the same time, standalone charter leaders report needing business support and training, while those from charter management organizations feel free to focus on academic success.  相似文献   

15.
This article concerns gendered dimensions of parental involvement in two US charter schools. Drawing on the narratives of parents who have founded charter schools, and on conversations with school administrators and parents in the main public school district, it presents an analysis of the way parent-teacher interactions are being reframed in the context of school choice. The author argues that in a context in which parents are being asked both to produce and consume new educational programs, parents-practically speaking, mothers-who involve themselves in organizing charter schools run the risk of being seen as stepping out of their roles as consumers and caregivers. The implications of mothers' involvement in charter schools for parent-teacher interactions and for the trajectory of school reform are explored.  相似文献   

16.
This article presents a conceptual framework derived from institutional theory in sociology that offers two competing policy contexts in which charter schools operate—a bureaucratic frame versus a decentralized frame. An analysis of evolving charter school types based on three underlying theories of action is considered. As charter school leaders pursue new and different forms of schooling, they are challenged by well-established bureaucratic rules and norms that define what it means to be a legitimate school. Microlevel institution-building efforts, however, may represent viable alternatives to the institutional order of public education as charter school leaders attempt to achieve scale.  相似文献   

17.
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18.
Cyber and home school charter schools have silently become a prominent part of the charter school movement. These alternative school models differ from conventional schools by relying on parents and the Internet to deliver much of their curriculum and instruction while minimizing the use of personnel and physical facilities. This article examines how recent developments in California and Pennsylvania have resulted in public scrutiny of cyber and home school charters and led to considerable debate and demands for public accountability. Our findings outline the need to modify regulatory frameworks to accommodate cyber and home school charters, the consideration of the differing financial allocations for schools that operate with reduced personnel and facilities, and the division of financial responsibility between state and local educational agencies.  相似文献   

19.
Since their introduction in the 1990s, charter schools have grown from a small-scale experiment to a ubiquitous feature of the public education landscape. The current study uses the legislative removal of a cap on the maximum number of charters in North Carolina as a natural experiment to assess the impacts of charter school growth on teacher quality and student composition in traditional public schools (TPS) at different levels of local market penetration. Using an instrumental variable difference-in-differences approach to account for endogenous charter demand, we find that intensive local charter entry reduces the inflow of new teachers at nearby TPS, leading to a more experienced and credentialed teaching workforce on average. However, we find that the entry of charters serving predominantly White students leads to reductions in average teacher experience, effectiveness, and credentials at nearby TPS. Overall these findings suggest that the composition of the teacher workforce in TPS will continue to change as charter schools further expand, and that the spillover effects of future charter expansion will vary by the types of students served by charters.  相似文献   

20.
Currently, we know very little about the mobility decisions of charter public school teachers and how these compare to the decisions made by traditional public school teachers. In addition, it is unclear whether the teachers who leave charter schools tend to be weaker or stronger than their peers. Using statewide administrative data, I begin to answer these questions by studying the magnitude and nature of teacher turnover in Florida's charter public schools compared with turnover in the state's traditional public schools. It appears that Florida's charter school administrators may be better able to recruit and retain teachers with high academic skills than their traditional counterparts. In addition, the mobility patterns exhibited by Florida's charter school teachers differ from those exhibited by traditional school teachers in important ways, including greater sensitivity to accountability measures and less sensitivity to salary considerations.  相似文献   

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