SOME CHARTER SCHOOLS SPEND MORE PER PUPIL THAN SIMILAR DISTRICT SCHOOLS

 

Mixed results but KIPP schools spend substantially more per pupil than district schools in the same city and serving similar populations

Comment

Policymakers have long pursued more cost effective, scalable alternatives for delivering elementary and secondary education. The elusive goal is identifying how to reform educational systems so that children will consistently achieve more academically—at a lesser cost. According to a new report  ‘ A frequently heard reform claim of this sort is that charter schools deliver higher performance at a lower cost. While the test score side of this question has been addressed by a great number of studies (with generally mixed findings), the cost side of the question has received far less attention.’

The description of the Research by Bruce D. Baker, Ken Libby,  and Kathryn Wiley is as follows:

‘This study evaluates the cost claim by comparing the per-pupil spending of charter schools operated by major charter management organizations (CMOs) in New York City, Texas and Ohio with district schools. In each context, we assemble three-year panel data sets including information on school level spending per pupil, school size, grade ranges and student populations served for both charter schools and district schools. For charter schools we use both government (and authorizer) reports of spending, and spending as reported on IRS non-profit financial filings (IRS 990).  We compare the spending of charters to that of district schools of similar size, serving the same grade levels and similar student populations. Overall, charter spending variation is large as is the spending of traditional public schools. Comparative spending between the two sectors is mixed, with many high profile charter network schools outspending similar district schools in New York City and Texas, but other charter network schools spending less than similar district schools, particularly in Ohio.  We find that in New York City, KIPP, Achievement First and Uncommon Schools charter schools spend substantially more ($2,000 to $4,300 per pupil) than similar district schools. Given that the average spending per pupil was around $12,000 to $14,000 citywide, a nearly $4,000 difference in spending amounts to an increase of some 30%. In Ohio, charters across the board spend less than district schools in the same city. And in Texas, some charter chains such as KIPP spend substantially more per pupil than district schools in the same city and serving similar populations, around 30 to 50% more in some cities (and at the middle school level) based on state reported current expenditures, and 50 to 100% more based on IRS filings. Even in New York where we have the highest degree of confidence in the match between our IRS data and Annual Financial Report Data, we remain unconvinced that we are accounting fully for all charter school expenditures.’

Spending by the major Charter Organisations- Comparing Charter School and Local Public District Financial Resources  New York, Ohio and Texas-   Bruce D. Baker, Rutgers University Ken Libby and Kathryn Wiley University of Colorado; May 2012; National Education Policy Center

http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/rb-charterspending_0.pdf

LEARNING FROM CHARTER MANAGEMENT ORGANISATIONS (US)

LEARNING FROM CHARTER MANAGEMENT ORGANISATIONS (US)

High Expectations for student behaviour and Intensive teacher coaching and monitoring

Comment 

The National Study of CMO Effectiveness is a four-year study designed to assess the impact of CMOs on student achievement and to identify CMO structures and practices that are most effective in raising achievement. Earlier reports from the study documented substantial variation in CMOs’ student achievement impacts and in CMOs’ use of particular educational strategies and practices.  The last report from the study found that the most effective CMOs tend to emphasize two practices in particular: high expectations for student behaviour and intensive teacher coaching and monitoring. This report provides a more in-depth description of these two promising CMO practices, drawing on surveys and interviews with staff in high-performing CMOs that emphasize one or both practices.  However, CMO leaders say that high expectations for student behaviour and intensive teacher coaching should not be considered “silver bullets.” These leaders suggest that these practices are more effective when coordinated or implemented in conjunction with other strategies, such as:

 Recruitment and training of strong school leaders who can monitor and improve instruction, hold teachers accountable, and set the tone for student behaviour and school culture

Commitment to college-going expectations and academic supports for all students, regardless of background

Development of strong data systems, time set aside for teachers to analyse and discuss data, and an expectation that teachers will regularly adjust instruction based on evidence

Formulation of school- or system-wide instructional goals and frameworks to guide teacher, coach, and principal action

Development of strong, trusting relationships between school staff and students

Provision of resources (such as handbooks and online lesson plans) from the central office to inform teacher practice

Cultivation of commitments from parents to reinforce school actions

Learning from Charter School Management Organizations:   Strategies for Student Behaviour and Teacher Coaching Robin Lake, Melissa Bowen, Allison Demeritt  Center on Reinventing Public Education  Moira McCullough, Joshua Haimson,  Brian Gill  Mathematica Policy Research  March 2012

http://www.crpe.org/cs/crpe/download/csr_files/pub_CMO_Strategies_Mar12.pdf

CHARTER SCHOOL SURVEY IN MILWAUKEE-MIXED RESULTS

 

Milwaukee Independent Charter Schools Study:  Report on One Year of Student Growth

Not much difference in performance between Charters and Public schools

Comment

Supporters of Charter schools see the potential of high-quality charter schools to help transform the education system by raising achievement levels, closing achievement gaps, providing competitive pressure to traditional public schools and stimulating greater innovation.

The first evaluations of charter school achievement seemed to suggest that charter schools performed no better than traditional public schools, on average. The Charter Schools Dust-Up, a meta-analysis of early charter schools studies, found that students in charter schools scored about the same or sometimes worse on standardized tests compared to students in traditional public schools (Carnoy et al. 2005). However, more recent reviews of panel studies evaluating charter school achievement contain findings which suggest results are more mixed and more positive (in favour of Charters) than the findings for example  of Carnoy et al. (2005). The problem with the Charter movement generally is the variation in the quality of Charter schools-some are very good indded – the KIPP Chain etc-others are clearly no better in terms of performance than public schools. (Although it is worth remembering that Charter schools tend to be in the most disadvantaged areas and have, for the most part, less per capita funding than the average public school)  Supporters  posit that giving charter schools more flexibility over such practices  as hiring teachers, budgeting school funds, and selecting curricula will lead to these positive outcomes (Finn, Manno and Vanourek 2001; Payne and Knowles 2009). Further, through a system of accountability, they expect to reduce the number of low-quality charter schools that are not able to meet the standards they agreed to in their charters (basically contracts). Indeed there has been a major push to tighten up vetting procedures and contracts in states-with each state having its own charter laws.

In addition charter school have proved popular with parents, particularly from minority communities.

The aim of this particular evaluation was to assess the effectiveness of independent charter schools in promoting two desirable student outcomes: student achievement growth and educational attainment.  This report provides findings comparing the first year of achievement growth (2006 to 2007) of students attending independent charters to the achievement growth of a group of matched comparison students attending  Milwaukee Public Schools.  The report states ‘Using regression models that produce the most precise estimates of 2007  achievement, our comparisons of students in our sample of independent  Milwaukee charters to matched MPS students exhibit few significant effects of attending a charter school on achievement growth in either maths or  reading.  The exception is in one of our three models for mathematics gains.  When we control for prior achievement, and not for student characteristics or switching schools, students in charter schools gain approximately .105 standard deviations more in maths achievement than students in MPS.  Further analysis reveals that the positive impact of independent charter schools on average in maths is concentrated primarily at the lower end of the achievement distribution; these schools were estimated to improve the maths achievement of students at the 25th percentile of the achievement  distribution by .109 standard deviations. There are no differences in any models in reading. There are differences, however, when we disaggregate the charter impacts  by charter school type. Conversion independent charters, schools which converted from private schools, hold an advantage in math and reading achievement.  Prior to controlling for both student characteristics and  if students switched schools, students in conversion charters make .170  standard deviations greater gains in math achievement compared to similar  students in MPS schools. Once controlling for student characteristics and school switching, the effect is reduced to .114 standard deviations.   Similarly, in reading, students in conversion charters make .124 standard deviations more gains than MPS students without controlling for student  characteristics and switching schools. By adding these factors the effect is reduced to .054 standard deviations. At the same time, students in non -conversion, independent charter schools, schools which began as new charter schools or start-ups, achieve gains that are no different from their  counterparts in MPS.’  School switching the report noted  has a  negative impact on student achievement gains .

Again both pro and anti -charter campaigners  will  draw some comfort from this survey. It  is hard to argue though that charters are damaging pupils prospects in Milwaukee.

John F. Witte; Patrick J. Wolf; Alicia Dean; Deven Carlson School Choice Demonstration Programme CDP Milwaukee Evaluation ; Report #21 — Version 1.1; December 2010

http://www.uark.edu/ua/der/SCDP/Milwaukee_Eval/Report_21.pdf

CHARTER SCHOOLS -NEW YORK STUDY LOOKS AT WHAT WORKS

CHARTER SCHOOLS -NEW YORK STUDY LOOKS AT WHAT WORKS

Class Size less important than teacher feedback and use of data for improving effectiveness

Comment

According to a Harvard University paper on New York Charter schools- Getting Beneath the Veil of Effective Schools: Evidence from New York City (November 2011)- evidence on the efficacy of market-based reforms, such as school choice or school vouchers on the one hand and   reforms seeking to manipulate key educational inputs  on the other, have, at best,  had a modest impact on student achievement . Indeed, the data suggest that increasing resource-based inputs may actually lower school effectiveness.

The authors look in detail at 35 New York Charter schools. Charters  were created in the USA  to,  firstly,  serve as an escape hatch for students in failing schools, so most are in disadvantaged areas, and, secondly to use their relative freedom to incubate best practices to be infused into traditional public schools.

Consistent with the second mission, charter schools employ a wide variety of educational strategies and operations, providing dramatic variability in school inputs.

This paper collects data on the inner-workings charter schools and correlate these data with credible estimates of each school’s effectiveness.

The authors find that traditionally collected input measures – class size, per pupil expenditure, the fraction of teachers with no certification, and the fraction of teachers with an advanced degree – are not correlated with school effectiveness. In stark contrast, they  show that an index of five policies suggested by over forty years of qualitative research – frequent teacher feedback, the use of data to guide instruction, high-dosage tutoring, increased instructional time, and high expectations – explains approximately 50 percent of the variation in school effectiveness. The results, they claim,  are robust to controls for three alternative theories of schooling: a model emphasizing the provision of wrap-around services, a model focused on teacher selection and retention, and the “No Excuses” model of education. They conclude by showing that ‘ our index provides similar results in a separate sample of charter schools. Moreover, we show that these variables continue to be statistically important after accounting for alternative models of schooling, and a host of other explanatory variables, and are predictive in a different sample of schools.’

The authors state ‘While there are important caveats to the conclusion that these five policies can explain significant variation in school effectiveness, our results suggest a model of schooling that may have general application. The key next step is to inject these strategies into traditional public schools and assess whether they have a causal effect on student achievement.

Getting Beneath the Veil of Effective Schools: Evidence from New York City

Will Dobbie; Harvard University; Roland G. Fryer, Jr.; Harvard University and NBER

http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/effective_schools.pdf

SCHOOL CHOICE AND COMPETITION

SCHOOL CHOICE AND COMPETITION

Do parents want choice?

And what effect does competition have?

Comment

The issue of choice and competition in the state education system is a focus for continuing and often ill-tempered debate, generating more heat than light.

A recent survey has sparked off another round of exchanges.  More than eight in 10 people think parents should send their children to the nearest state school, according to findings from the first survey to gauge Britons’ attitudes to school choice in detail. The new data, released from the British Social Attitudes Survey, shows that 63 per cent take this view outright, with a further 22 per cent saying they would agree if the quality of different schools and their social mix of pupils was more equal. The survey asked around 2,000 members of the British public about a parent’s ‘right to choose’ and found that attitudes were ambivalent and to some extent contradictory. While a large majority favoured children attending the local state school, there was also broad support for the concept of choice, with 68 per cent agreeing that parents should have a basic right to choose their child’s school and 50 per cent agreeing that parents have a duty to choose ‘the best possible’ school for their child, even if other schools in the local area might suffer. Dr Sonia Exley of the London School of Economics and Political Science, who led the Economic and Social Research Council-funded study, said the apparent difference showed that parents do not necessarily want to have to make choices over schools. She said: “People do believe that they ought to have a ‘right to choose’, particularly where they are not happy with their local school. However, public feeling also seems to be that if schools were of an equal and acceptable standard then choice wouldn’t be necessary.” “Parents don’t necessarily want to have to make active choices in order to secure a good school for their child; they just want their nearest school to be good enough. Government promotion of choice as an agenda diverts attention away from the bigger issue of why this isn’t the case.” She is probably right in her assessment. In an ideal world people don’t want to have to choose-ideally they want a good school on their doorstep which they can get their child into..  so no real surprise there then. But rather too many parents don’t manage this as things stand.

In terms of priorities, only four per cent think that making sure ‘parents have a lot of choice about the kind of school their child goes to’ should be the number one concern for schools. When it comes to choosing a secondary school, seven in ten (69 per cent) do believe that parents ought to put the needs and interests of their own child first. However, six in ten (60 per cent) also believe that parents ought to balance this concern against the needs and interests of other children. Hence, the contradictory responses. My bet is that when push comes to shove and they are confronted with the need to make a real choice rather than answering a pollsters question, nine out of ten parents will do what they believe to be  is in their child’s’ best interests and other considerations  barely feature on their radar.

This survey  doesn’t actually tell us very much.  Its all in the abstract. Of course  parents would like a good local school.  But there is a pretty feeble logic behind the ‘finding’ that parents would prefer that their local school- and every local school- was great, and the implication that this in some way undermines the concept of choice. For choice to be meaningful you should be able to choose to send your child to a school that is not your local school. Not all schools are the same, nor are children, and parents should have a say in how their children are educated-all of which should lead one to the inescapable conclusion that in principle and practice-choice is a good thing. The choice in too many instances now is- take it our leave it. As one leading educator observed the sub-text behind the anti-choice position is that we should just trust the professionals and stop asking awkward questions. The direction of travel though in politics is pro-choice in public services, and for services to be much more responsive to consumer’s needs.

While governments may have an obvious interest in promoting and financing the market for education, it does not necessarily follow that the public sector must have a role, or indeed a monopoly role, as some unions and politicians  believe,  in providing that education. Indeed, in many countries, including developing countries, there are other providers of education, such as church schools, home schools, and private schools, both for-profit and not-for-profit .In many of the poorest regions parents seek education for children not in  the state sector but from the private sector (see footnote)

As Stephen Gibbons, Stephen Machin and Olmo Silva have established there are two main economic arguments for moving from a neighbourhood-based school system – in which pupils attend their local school – to a system based on parental choice.  The first is about allocation: more choice allows better matching of pupils with schools according to personal tastes and pedagogical needs. If every parent can find a school that educates their child at least as effectively as under a neighbourhood based system, then average achievement must improve.

The second argument is about teaching technology: if families are free to choose, then the mechanisms of market discipline will ensure that schools offer high standards. For this to work, school finances (and headteachers’ incentives) must be linked to school popularity via pupil numbers: unpopular schools must lose pupils and money while popular schools gain pupils and additional funding. So schools must innovate and adapt to meet parental demand for ‘quality’ or shrink and ultimately close.

Does it really matter who runs the ‘good’  local school.?  It shouldn’t matter providing it operates in a regulated environment and   within a robust, transparent  accountability framework  .

Education reformers believe that the only way to ensure the standards of all schools improve ,so that you are more likely to get a good school on your doorstep than you are now, is to introduce  real competition, and this in turn improves choice.  Critics, however, say that at best evidence is mixed about the effects of choice and competition on schools and educational outcomes and it has unacceptable consequences in that it exacerbates social divisions and segregation and you end up with sink schools(although arguably we end up with sink schools anyway under the current system).  Reformers will counter saying  that competition works but only when the playing field is level, the market is fair and transparent, resources truly follow the pupil (the consumer), with a separation between funding and provision and schools are allowed to fail. Often systems that introduce competition only do so on a partial basis and don’t satisfy these criteria. So the so called ‘competition’ has a limited effect on outcomes because it is heavily circumscribed and  what you then  have is  a hybrid system, neither one thing nor the other.  School competition in a wholly private market is straightforward to understand and apply. Parents choose a school based on price and quality, and schools are incentivised to make themselves attractive to parents so that they can survive and make a profit.  By contrast, as Rebecca Allen and Simon  Burgess have pointed out government-funded schools have often operated on a very different basis, with administrators assigning pupils to schools, and schools having in effect little incentive to use resources efficiently since they cannot retain surpluses. Elements of competition can be introduced into this environment, however, through the separation of funding and provision. Parents choose schools and schools receive funding for each pupil they attract. The idea is for popular schools to grow and unpopular schools to close, so mimicking the effects of true competition. This market-like, or quasi-market, mechanism combines some elements of market competition and some bureaucratic elements (Glennerster, 1991; Le Grand, 1991)

So the international evidence, according at least to Rebecca Allen and Simon Burgess,   is mixed on the effects of competition. Indeed UK evidence, they claim, suggests that there is at the very best a weak and small positive effect of competition on student outcomes.

However, the picture internationally, according to World Banks leading education economist, Harry Patrinos, is that involving the private sector (when he talks about the private sector we are talking about for profit and not for profits) can improve school performance – through competition, accountability and autonomy – as well as expand access. However, he also notes that without strong systems of accountability, private schools with public funding aren’t likely to produce large gains. The best results, he concludes, come where competition is enhanced through choice, disadvantaged areas are targeted and there is plenty of autonomy at school level.

So if competition can drive up standards – why  doesn’t  it appear to have had much effect in some instances. The answer probably, as I have touched on, lies    in the nature  quality and  extent of that competition.  How much real competition is there?  Is success rewarded and failure punished? Does funding actually  follow the pupil etc.? If these  conditions are satisfied , competition  should   raise standards in poorly performing schools.

True competition, of course, requires a measure of deregulation which would go well beyond the reforms envisaged by this Coalition government. And deregulation is risky for politicians as it has a price attached to it. Some schools will fail.  And risk averse politicians will have to take the flak.  This is what Rebecca Allen and Simon Burgess have to say about it:  ‘Radical deregulatory reforms are intuitively appealing, and may produce important long-term benefits that increase levels of parental satisfaction with the schooling system.  However, it is important to note that they are very risky since some ‘innovations’ would necessarily fail.  Therefore, to enable market-based reforms to work in England, society would have to come to terms with greater levels of school failure than exist under a tightly regulated system.  And policy makers would need to work to ensure that critical regulatory measures are in place to ensure that the life chances are not damaged for children who happen to find themselves in failing schools.’  Those who want to introduce much more competition into the market are aware that   competition has to be regulated.  How much regulation and ensuring that  regulation   protects the most disadvantaged are , of course, contentious issues.   But we know that markets don’t work well when they are unregulated . Indeed evidence suggests that independent or autonomous schools work best when they are well regulated. It is  possible to harness the strengths of the private sector and the positive effects of competition  within an enabling environment that  protects equity.

And what do Gibbons, Machin and Silva say about schools competing? ’Although there seem to be no general benefits from competition at the primary level – it seems weakly linked to worse performance – we do find some evidence that schools running their own admission systems and characterised by more autonomous governance structures  have higher educational standards in  more competitive markets. And pupils do seem to do better if their secondary school is in an urban environment and not geographically isolated from other schools. On the downside, we have also uncovered evidence that school competition increases inequality, with high and low-ability pupils more segregated in schools that face more competition. This suggests that whatever performance advantages it offers, further expansion of market mechanisms in education may come at the cost of increased social polarisation’

The fact is that evidence across the world (acc  studies from OECD  and World Bank Group)does suggest that competition and school choice, within a properly regulated environment, help improve outcomes. Market mechanisms   can force educational “producers” to deliver services closer to what their clients really want and competition can drive improvement. But there are political risks attached. Competition means, as we have said, that some schools will fail and blame for this failure will probably fall not on the schools themselves, (although it may be justified)  but on the policy and the politicians who have championed the policy. There is also a danger that such reforms have the potential to create increased polarisation unless, that is, they are properly regulated. It is also true that some sections of the population are better than others at using choice to benefit their children. So the greater capacity by some groups to take advantage of choice can potentially widen social divisions.  But on this latter point you don’t deny people choice  simply because some people, who can choose, don’t, or indeed  make the wrong choice ie one that doesn’t in an objective sense benefit their interests . You try to support those  who may not have the capacity to choose and help nudge them, if need be in the right direction. The political and social risks though may explain, to some extent, why real competition in state education is still very much the exception rather than the rule.  Most politicians are risk averse, while progress, whether in education or  elsewhere relies on (managed) risk taking.

As a footnote, it is worth noting that in some of the poorest areas of the world, parents living on the margins choose not to use state schools for their children but choose instead private schools. Professor James Tooley has found that in Nigeria, for example, 41% of pupils go to private schools, and these schools outperform state schools. He found this pattern across the developing world. In many of the poorest and remotest areas private schools far outstripped state schools in terms of both the number of pupils  served and in the quality of provision.

The future of competition and  accountability in education  Rebecca Allen (Institute of Education, University of London)  Simon Burgess (Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol)

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publications/other/competition.pdf

CEP research programme by Stephen Gibbons, Stephen Machin and Olmo Silva

The educational impact of parental choice and school competition 2007

http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/CP216.pdf

ARE CHARTERS SUCCESSFUL?

ARE CHARTERS SUCCESSFUL?

Mixed results

But Positive impacts for most disadvantaged

Comment

There is an on-gong debate in the States over whether or not Charter schools, which tend to be small and in disadvantaged areas, are more successful that other local public schools. Charter schools are publicly financed, but are freed from many of the regulations that govern traditional public schools, such as those involving staffing, curriculum, and budget decisions. In late 2010, more than 5,400 charter schools served about 1.7 million students—about 3.5 percent of all public school students—in 40 states and the District of Columbia. The number of charter schools and students is likely to continue to increase in response to the federal Race to the Top program, first introduced in 2009, which gave states incentives to remove caps on charter school growth in order to compete for millions of dollars in federal grants. It is now accepted that some Charter schools and chains of schools perform better than others and States have been tightening up the laws covering Charter schools to ensure a higher quality threshold. This latest report says that ‘previous  research includes student fixed effects analyses across several school districts or states  (see, for example, Sass 2006; Betts et al. 2006; Bifulco and Ladd 2006; Booker et al. 2007;  Hanushek et al. 2007; Ballou et al. 2008; Zimmer et al. 2009) and lottery-based studies that each focused on a single large urban area (Hoxby and Rockoff 2005; Hoxby et al.  2009; Dobbie and Fryer 2009; Abdulkadiroglu et al. 2009; Angrist et al. 2010). The fixed  effects studies have typically found impacts that were insignificant or negative, while the  lottery-based studies have found impacts that were large and positive.’  This paper presents findings from the first national randomized study of the impacts of charter schools on student achievement, which included 36 charter middle schools across 15 states. The paper compares students who applied and were admitted to these schools through randomized admissions lotteries with students who applied and were not admitted.  It finds that, on average, charter middle schools in the study were neither more nor less successful than traditional public schools in improving student achievement. However, impacts  varied significantly across schools and students, with positive impacts for more disadvantaged schools and students and negative impacts for the more advantaged. The report concluded that ‘There was also considerable variation in impacts across schools. Those in urban areas or serving more disadvantaged populations had more positive (or less negative) impacts than those in non-urban areas or serving more advantaged populations. These results  provide rigorous evidence for the patterns suggested by previous studies, which have estimated negative or insignificant impacts for geographically diverse samples of charter schools,  but positive impacts for charter schools in urban areas.’  The report included this caveat ‘It is important to keep in mind that charter schools were not randomly selected for the  study, and the resulting sample is thus not nationally representative. The study included only oversubscribed charter schools that held admissions lotteries, and impacts for these schools may differ from impacts of charter schools that are not oversubscribed.’

It is clear that some Charter schools are better than others and this mixed performance has not helped the Charter brand. The  laxity in laws affecting Charter schools which vary between states, and the lack of due diligence-in other words  checking out the providers and their record before signing them up has been a problem but is now being addressed in many states. It is important that the regulatory regime is sound. Only in such an environment will autonomous schools deliver improved outcomes. This is backed by plenty of international evidence.

To see  Charter Schools at their best , at the cutting edge of reform and innovation,  look no further than the  KIPP chain   currently  setting the benchmarks for public education in the USA.

 

Do Charter Schools Improve Student  Achievement? Evidence from a  National Randomized Study; December 2011; Melissa A. Clark, Philip Gleason,  Christina Clark Tuttle (Mathematica Policy Research);  and Marsha K. Silverberg (U.S. Department  of Education)

http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/pdfs/education/charterschools_WP.pdf

SCHOOL AUTONOMY DOES HELP DRIVE UP STANDARDS- THE EVIDENCE

SCHOOL AUTONOMY DOES HELP DRIVE UP STANDARDS

But autonomy works only within a robust accountability framework

Comment

In 2007 a Sutton Trust report ‘Blairs Education’ found that the degree of autonomy that a school enjoys does have a direct effect on pupils test scores, according to the OECD Pisa report. It stated ‘Independent schools tended to do better than government schools, across a range of countries, even when the social background of pupils is taken into account’. Similarly, government funded private schools tended to do better than  government run schools and   the report concluded that the likely explanation for this was ‘the relative freedom schools enjoy from  government control’

The  later OECD report (Pisa 2009) again found that in countries where schools have greater autonomy over what is taught and how students are assessed, the students tend to perform better.

But accountability and the regulatory regime are important. Autonomous schools must work within an accountability framework to be effective. Autonomous schools operating within an unregulated or poorly regulated system are almost certainly  not,  based on the evidence, the answer to raising standards.

In countries where schools account for their results by posting achievement data publicly, schools that enjoy greater autonomy in resource allocation tend to show better student performance than those with less autonomy.

However, the report found ‘in countries where there are no such accountability arrangements, schools with greater autonomy in resource allocation tend to perform worse. At the country level, the greater the number  of schools that have the responsibility to  define and elaborate their curricula and  assessments, the better the performance  of the entire school system, even after  accounting for national income’.

The World Bank also stresses the importance of autonomy with accountability. The book ‘Making Schools Work New Evidence on Accountability Reforms Barbara Bruns, Dean Filmer, Harry Patrinos; World Bank;2011 drawing on new evidence from 22 rigorous evaluations in 11 countries, examines how strategies to strengthen accountability relationships in school systems have affected schooling outcomes. The authors   provide a succinct review of the rationale and impact evidence for three key lines of reform: (1) policies that use the power of information to strengthen the ability of students and their parents to hold providers accountable for results; (2) policies that promote schools’ autonomy to make key decisions and control resources; and (3) teacher incentives reforms that specifically aim at making teachers more accountable for results.

A report this year from CFBT Education Trust ‘A Thousand Flowers’ looked at schools that are government funded and privately provided, around the world,  and how policy makers and providers operate successfully within  the context of  recent supply-side reforms. The authors found that among the key characteristics for effective systems that host these  private, government funded providers  were ‘accountability structures that set high standards and have the capacity to intervene where there is underperformance’ and ‘ highly autonomous schools with the freedom to innovate’.

So, taking into account evidence from the OECD, World Bank and the CfBT report the bottom line is: Autonomy and accountability go together: greater autonomy in decisions relating to curricula, assessments and resource allocation tend to be associated with better student performance, but this is particularly the case when schools operate within a culture of accountability.

http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/17/43/48910490.pdf

http://wordpress.buckingham.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/blairseducation.pdf

http://www.cfbt.com/evidenceforeducation/pdf/1000%20flowers%20(WEB).pdf

CHARTER SCHOOLS AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Charter Schools-Are held accountable-but some State Charter Laws need revision

Comment

The concept of performance-based accountability, as far as schools are concerned, means that if a school is failing against accepted benchmarks, it should either have a change of leadership or close.

Far too often in this country, in the United States and elsewhere failing schools have, historically, been allowed  to stay open, unreformed to blight the life opportunities of young people, often from  the most disadvantaged  communities .Failure and chronic underperformance has been tolerated by local or municipal authorities. To understand the motives behind supply side reforms here and in the States you have to understand that those advocating  these reforms, whether its  in the form of Charters, Free schools or Academies  are not, for the most part at least, motivated by a desire to ‘privatise’ education.  Instead, its because they want to improve their state education systems, to raise school  performance ,  and  pupil outcomes  and  to  give parents choices, particularly for the most disadvantaged families, who have until now had just one choice, take it or leave it. Either a sink school or no school at all. Parents want choices and there should be a range of different types of schools  catering for a range of different demands. One size does not fit all.

One of the main arguments used against Charter schools in the States is that they are ‘ unaccountable’, in that they are seen to be  outside the direct remit of local democratic control.  But failing public schools that operate under  such ‘ control’ can, and do, remain open year after year. Think of how many of our  local authority schools have continued to operate here, while failing to meet the most basic benchmarks. And if  parents are not happy with their local state school , or the performance of  the local authority supporting these schools they have very few options.

Charter schools  generally operate within a tightly regulated environment and are accountable   through a  very direct route. Because they operate under contract, and have to provide very detailed information, and achieve set outcomes , they close if they fail to perform according to their charter.  And while opponents claim that charter schools are not being held accountable or that only “responsible” charters should remain open, the data on closed charter schools, across the states  strongly suggests that the performance-based accountability inherent in the charter school model  is, broadly  speaking, working— particularly, of course,  in states with  robust and  transparent charter laws. True, some states have more robust laws,  and governing Charters, than others, and it is work in progress for a number of others,   but the direction of travel is pretty sound.  Clearly,  though  much more work needs to be done .

The Center for Education Reform   says of the 40 states (including the District of Columbia) that allow for charter schools, only 13 have strong laws that do not require significant revisions. Their report highlights the key elements in education law that separates reform-minded states from the rest of the pack. ”Too many states have allowed their charter school laws to be watered down under pressure from special interests who feel their monopoly on the education of our children is threatened,” said Jeanne Allen, president of The Center for Education Reform (CER).

The strongest criticism of Charter schools, and the Charter school movement more generally, is that while there are many excellent providers there are a significant minority that are not up to the mark, and this has tarnished the Charter brand .Not all Charter schools succeed. In fact around 12% fail. But it is now clear that  both the Charter School movement and the  States  who welcome Charter schools,   understand the crucial need for  robust ,initial vetting  procedures and due diligence. Tightening up  local charter laws  reduces significantly the risk of failure. But you can never provide  absolute  guarantees against failure.  If you over- regulate, of course, and seek to remove all risk, you threaten innovation, experimentation and progress, which charter schools seek to foment.

The Centre for Education Reform has, helpfully, provided a state-by-state analysis of closed charter schools. Previous reports haven’t provided a full enough picture,only a national overview of the data. Through this in-depth look at each state’s closed charter schools it is evident that strong state laws ensure accountability. The report found, perhaps unexpectedly, that those states with multiple and independent  authorizers provided stronger, more objective oversight to ensure the successful charter  schools remained open and those that failed to perform were closed. The research shows that accountability is lost in states with weak charter laws and poor processes to vet schools  and those that are poor in collecting t student assessment data. The state-by-state pages within the report offer a clear picture of the states whose charter schools are making the grade and those where there is room for improvement. Knowing where charter schools are achieving and the reasons why charter schools have closed is important to understanding what makes a school successful. But it is nonsense to suggest that the charter model means reduced accountability. These schools are responsible ,through a contract, to local democratic authorities, so there is both direct,  contractual accountability underpinned by  democratic accountability.

http://www.edreform.com/shopcer/index.cfm?fuseaction=details&pid=1000055&back=home&ShopCat=1

http://www.edreform.com/Issues/Charter_Connection/

USA -PRO CHOICE EDUCATION AGENDA -UP DATE

Pro- choice agenda  in the united states

Up-Date

Comment

With a new pro-choice, pro-market think tank launching in the UK next month, what is the current state of play on pro- choice reforms in the United States?

Economist Milton Friedman claimed, years ago, that it costs less to educate a child with a voucher or privately funded tax credit scholarship than to send him or her to a public school. “Support for free choice of schools has been growing rapidly and cannot be held back indefinitely by the vested interests of the unions and educational bureaucracy,” Friedman wrote in The Post in 1995. “I sense that we are on the verge of a breakthrough in one state or another, which will then sweep like a wildfire through the rest of the country as it demonstrates its effectiveness.” He was actually wrong in his prediction because he underestimated the opposition to the pro-choice agenda from Unions, some local politicians and education boards. Teachers’ groups say voucher programmes only divert money away from cash-starved public school districts. And critics question the wisdom of spending taxpayer dollars on private schools, which don’t have to report test scores or student achievement data.

However, the pro-choice agenda was born out frustration at the number of poorly performing schools, particularly in disadvantaged city areas, where low income parents    were finding their children trapped in conventional  public schools that were  failing to educate students at basic levels, year after year. US politicians and parents could see that the US education system was losing ground to others in international league tables too. School choice advocates believe that all children should have the opportunity to go to better schools ,through access to private schools via opportunity  scholarships (most commonly called school vouchers), special needs scholarship programmes,  and scholarship tax credit programs.

In voucher programmes, education dollars “follow the child,” and parents select private schools and receive state-funded scholarships to pay tuition. Tax credits programmes allow  companies and individuals  to  get tax credits for donating to nonprofit organizations that provide  scholarships for children to attend private schools. Charters are autonomous  public schools, run by educators, members of the  community, universities, or other bodies that are permitted, under their charter,  to  innovate and develop specialized educational programs for students. States with strong charter school laws allow these schools to operate with considerable autonomy, so that they can avoid heavy bureaucracy. Not all States, though,  have strong Charter school laws which has allowed a few poor performers to slip through the quality assurance net.

The country’s first modern voucher programme opened in Milwaukee in 1990. Florida launched one of the country’s first statewide voucher programmes in 1999, which serves special needs students.

Before this year, school voucher and scholarship tax credit programs were operating in 12 states and Washington, D.C., serving nearly 200,000 children, according to the Alliance for School Choice.

Robert Enlow the president and chief executive of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice gives a run down on his blog what has been happening in the States.

Since January this year there have been 18 voucher, tax credit and education savings account programmes  that have been adopted by state legislatures, Congress and one local school board.

Vouchers: Indiana passed the nation’s most extensive voucher programme this spring, offering vouchers to middle-class families earning up to $61,000 with no cap on the number awarded after three years. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed an expansion of the Milwaukee voucher programme this summer. That programme, the nation’s oldest, now will include vouchers for middle-class families earning up to $67,000; a similar program was enacted for Racine.

 Ohio has quadrupled the number of vouchers available to students stuck in failing schools by 2013.

Arizona adopted Education Savings Accounts, a voucher-type programme to cover education costs for special needs children. And Congress reinstated a popular voucher programme for low-income families in the District of Columbia.

Tax credits: Corporations or individuals may donate to scholarship-granting organizations to gain a credit on taxes due in their state. These scholarships help children attend private schools. This year a new tax credit program was enacted in Oklahoma while existing ones were expanded in Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Iowa. Florida  lawmakers for example  in 2010 changed the educational landscape by expanding  the state’s scholarship tax credit program from $118 million to $140 million. The amount of money that can be raised for scholarship organizations and donated by individuals and companies varies by state.

 

Other private choice: In Louisiana, parents who send their children to private schools will be able to write up to $5,000 of tuition per child off their state income taxes, thanks to legislation passed this summer. In Indiana, parents who do the same or spend money home schooling their children will be able to write off up to $1,000 of any educational expenses off their taxes. North Carolina parents of special needs students will earn a tax credit up to $6,000 for educational expenses for their children. All this to encourage more educational options for families.

Charter schools, of course, continue to expand, with high profile take up in Washington DC and New York where they have been central to reforms. The mayor Michael Bloomberg says that the city has  narrowed the gap in high school graduation rates between the races. And the evidence backs that up. While 46.5 percent of all students graduated in four years in 2005, in 2010 almost two thirds – 65.1 percent – did. Black and Latino students remain less likely to graduate than their white and Asian counterparts, but the gap between groups has narrowed over the past five years: from a 23.89 percentage point difference between blacks and white in 2005 to a 17.6 point gap in 2010.

What keeps Charters going is that, if anything, demand for them is growing, particularly within minority communities. New Orleans is the great test bed, of course, for Charters. Most of its schools were wiped out by Hurricane Katrina and almost all its new schools established since, have Charter status are are  being carefully monitored,   and are, irritatingly for opponents,  showing signs of substantive  progress.

Meanwhile ,many States are tightening up procedures for selecting and vetting  Charter operators, and other accountability measures, as not all have performed as well as  the not for profit KIPP chain, and underperformers  self-evidently  serve to tarnish the image and ‘brand’ of the Charter schools movement  .

Certainly the pro-choice agenda has made strides.  But there is still opposition to these developments and legal challenges are not uncommon.  Joel Klein who reformed New Yorks schools and who moved recently to News International (great timing?) is concerned that the momentum for reform is dropping off. With both himself and Michelle Rhee now out of the frame the ranks of the high profile advocates of the pro-choice agenda look a  bit  depleted.

Bill Gates and his Foundation are providing financial clout behind school reforms particularly in seeking to raise the standards of teaching and to bring in reliable performance measurement to help raise standards. The Quality of teachers, getting rid of poor ones and incentivising good ones is now central to the reform agenda in the States. But there are continuing debates over how performance is measured and whether bonuses work.

So the pro-choice advocates seem to think that the direction of travel is good, but they have much more to do and there is no sign that opponents are willing to give ground.

Note; Budget Cuts hit Education –  Of the 47 states with newly enacted budgets, 38 or more states are making deep, identifiable cuts in K-12 education, higher education, health care, or other key areas in their budgets for fiscal year 2012. Even as states face rising numbers of children enrolled in public schools, students enrolled in universities, the vast majority of states (37 of 44 states for which data are available) plan to spend less on services in 2012 than they spent in 2008 – in some cases, much less. At least 23 states have made identifiable cuts in support for public schools. In many cases, these cuts undermine school finance systems that are intended to reduce disparities between high-wealth and low-wealth school districts, so the largest impacts  are likely to be felt in communities that are least able to compensate for the loss of funds from their own resources. For example Kansas cut the basic funding formula for K-12 schools by $232 per-pupil, bringing this funding nearly 6 percent below fiscal year 2011 budgeted levels. Michigan is  another State cutting its  K-12 education spending, it  by $470 per student.

NEW YORK CHARTER SUCCESS

NEW YORK CHARTER SUCCESS

Hoxby study shows impact of Charter schools on attainment

Comment

The New York State Charter Schools Act of 1998 authorized the establishment of charter schools in New York State. The first year of operation for charter schools in New York City was 1999-00, and twelve schools were operating by 2000-01.  New York City now has over 100 charter schools although still only  educating  around 5% of the student population.

Joel Klein, the former Head of New York schools, has recently been in the UK telling the story of New Yorks success and Charters role in that success and education reforms more generally.  Almost two years ago, a report The New York City Charter Schools Evaluation Project How New York City’s Charter Schools Affect Achievement on New York City charter schools (2009) written by Hoover Institution scholar Caroline Hoxby with co-authors Sonali Murarka and Jenny Kang reported extremely positively on New Yorks  experience of Charter schools and how they were raising attainment.  The most distinctive feature of the study is that charter schools’ effects on achievement are estimated by the best available, “gold standard” method:  lotteries.  94 percent of charter school students in New York City are admitted to a school after having participated in a random lottery for school places.  This is because the city’s charter schools are required to hold lotteries whenever there are more applicants than places, and the charter schools are routinely oversubscribed.  In a lottery-based study like this one, each charter school’s applicants are randomly divided into the “lotteried-in” (who attend charter schools) and the “lotteried-out” (who remain in the regular public schools).  The authors claim that they are comparing like with like, ie apples with apples. They   follow the progress of ‘ lotteried-in’ and ‘ lotteried-out’ students computing the effect that charter schools have on their students’ achievement .

The reports main finding was that:

‘On average, a student who attended a charter school for all of grades kindergarten through eight would close about 86 percent of the “Scarsdale-Harlem achievement gap” [the difference in scores between students in Harlem and those in the affluent NYC suburb] in math, and 66 percent of the achievement gap in English.’

Hoxbys research has shown good charter results in Chicago too.

The Hoxby report   provides very strong causal evidence that, on average, students in oversubscribed NYC charter schools outperformed their regular public school peers in maths and reading.  The Stanford University study was the most comprehensive look at the city’s charter schools to date. Students who win spots in charter schools outgain those who don’t by 5 points in maths and 3.6 points in reading, on state tests in every year from fourth to eighth grades.

Not everyone, though, accepts Hoxby’s research on Charters at face value. Economist Sean Reardon claims to have found a  couple of serious methodological issues with Hoxby’s research design. And one commentator (see blog link below) believes that the reports executive summary is seriously misleading.

http://www.nber.org/~schools/charterschoolseval/how_NYC_charter_schools_affect_achievement_sept2009.pdf

Blog:

http://shankerblog.org/?p=3083