Trends in Public Charter Schools’ Instructional Delivery and Focus

During the spring of 2012, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) conducted its first national public charter school survey. The survey asked public charter school leaders to respond to questions on school waitlists, curriculum, facilities and a variety of other operational elements. A primary goal of the survey was to collect information that would help to better understand the wide range of instructional strategies public charter schools use.

With 6,000 autonomous charter schools operating nationwide, the responses to our first national survey demonstrate that public charter schools are a varied bunch. Our new report analyzes the survey responses to provide new details about emerging trends and differences in the instructional delivery strategies and focus of public charter schools. Top trends identified by the survey include:

• Almost three-quarters (71.8 percent) of the respondents use a combination of off-the-shelf and customized curriculum;
• Over half (57.7 percent) of respondents from charter schools that enroll students in grades 9 through 12 described their schools as having a “college-prep” instructional focus;
• Half (49.3 percent) of the respondents indicated an extended school day to increase instructional learning time; and
• Nearly half (48.8 percent) of the respondents from charter schools that enroll students in grades 9 through 12 said their students take classes at local universities or colleges.

The survey asked public charter schools to select their instructional focus from a list of 44 options, including a write-in option, and two out of five public charter schools (40.5 percent) respondents indicated a college-prep instructional focus. Based on the many approaches that schools use to implement a “college-prep” instructional focus, we asked charter school leaders tell us in their own words how they use different instructional methods to achieve their school’s mission. For example, The Intergenerational School in Cleveland, Ohio, pairs students with adult and senior citizen mentors to let the generations learn from each other, while the Paulo Freire Freedom School, a charter middle school in Tucson, Arizona, adopted project-based learning to impart knowledge through experiences that are authentic and engaging. These are just two of the many innovative approaches that public charter schools use to make a difference in the lives of children. You can also check out blogs from a virtual school in Hawaii, a Japanese immersion charter in Oregon, a wellness-focused charter in New York, and a service-learning school in Pennsylvania.

Whether through a customized curriculum or extended learning time, public charter schools are innovating to meet their students’ needs. Charter schools use their autonomy to select instructional focuses that run the gamut: from career-based to vocational and from traditional to project-based learning.

Public Charter School Facilities Trends

More Positive Evidence about Performance of Public Charter Schools in Boston

Over the last several years, there has been a lot of positive news about the performance of public charter schools in Boston. A 2009 study found very large achievement impacts for students attending public charter middle and high schools compared with traditional public schools. For example, middle school students attending public charter schools made gains in mathematics equivalent to moving from the 50th to the 69th percentile in student performance. A study released earlier this year by CREDO found that students attending public charter schools in Boston gained an entire additional year of learning in both math and reading for each year attending a charter school, compared with similar students in traditional public schools.

A new study, Charter Schools and the Road to College Readiness: The Effects on College Preparation, Attendance and Choice, examines the impact of public charter schools on additional high school and college performance metrics, including Advanced Placement (AP) test taking and scores, SAT test taking and scores, high school graduation rates, and college enrollment and choices. The study uses a randomized lottery-based research design to compare students who won lotteries to attend charter schools with students who lost lotteries and attended traditional public schools. The results indicate that students attending public charter schools not only do well on standardized tests, but are more likely to take AP tests and pass the exam (see figure below), receive higher SAT scores, and pass the Massachusetts high school exit exam required for graduation. The last finding boosts the ability of many charter school students to qualify for state-sponsored college scholarships.
 

One of the more interesting findings from the study is that students who attend public charter schools are more likely to attend four-year colleges than two-year colleges (see figure below). The authors plan to continue to monitor this cohort of students to examine college graduation rates, as well as workforce indicators like employment and earnings.

There have been far too few studies on the impact of public charter schools on high school and college outcomes—which will have great effect on the lives of students attending charter schools. Often data are scarce or hard to use in rigorous studies, but analyses like the ones in this study are a great contribution to the research base on public charter schools. Hopefully additional studies will replicate these analyses in other states and cities.

New Analysis Indicates that Public Charter Schools Do Not Lead to Increased Segregation

Charter School Research: What Do We Know, Where Are the Gaps, and What Should Be the Focus?

While the emerging story from recent research on student outcomes in public charter schools indicates largely positive impacts on students, there are many areas of further research needed to better understand the instructional, governance, operational , and policy conditions that contribute to why some public charters create better opportunities for learning than others. To inspire new research, NAPCS organized a session at the recent American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference to review the empirical research on public charter schools, identify gaps in the research base that warrant further investigation, discuss available data resources for pursuing new strands of charter school research, and propose priority areas for new research. The session brought together prominent researchers with diverse perspectives in the field of charter school research.

Penny Wohlstetter, Joanna Smith, and Caitlin Farrell kicked of the session by presenting central findings from their new book, Choices & Challenges, a comprehensive review of charter school research. The table below summarizes the focus of existing research and shows that several of the most critical areas for evaluating charter success (governance, school leadership, authorizing, and charter school finances) have received less attention from researchers.

 
Source: Wohlstetter, Priscilla, Joanna Smith, & Caitlin C. Farrell. (2013). Choices & Challenges: Charter School Performance in Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

After discussing the holes in existing research, the session shifted to several publicly available data resources that researchers could use to expand the scope of research on charter schools. Jack Buckley, Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, presented data available from the U.S. Department of Education, including EdFacts, NAEP, the Common Core of Data, the Schools and Staffing Survey, Civil Rights Data Collection, and several longitudinal surveys (ELS, HSLS, ECLS, and NHES). Joni Pearlman discussed the National Charter School Resource Center’s National Authorizer - Charter School Catalog. I presented on NAPCS’ Public Charter School Dashboard and the Model Law Rankings Database. And finally, Gary Miron presented information on his annual report, Profiles of For-Profit and Nonprofit Education Management Organizations.

Tricia Maas (Center for Reinventing Public Education) concluded the conversation by presenting a proposed research agenda with suggestions for prioritizing new research on charter schools based on the identified gaps and available resources.

Overall, the session had great attendance and a healthy question and answer portion at the end. I am hopeful that the session will inspire researchers to tackle pending research questions and present at next year’s AERA conference.

Public Charter Schools Rank Among Top Public High Schools in the Nation

The rankings are in!  Every year, U.S. News & World Report, the Washington Post, and Newsweek rank public high schools across the nation. Despite public charter schools making up only 6 percent of public high schools nationwide, they have been historically well represented on these lists, and 2013 is no exception. 

The table below presents the public charter schools that were ranked in the top 100 on at least one of the lists, as well as the public charter schools ranked in Newsweek’s top 25 Transformative Schools list. Five public charter schools were listed in the top 100 on the three major lists: Peak to Peak Charter School, Signature School Incorporated, Uplift Education – North Hills Preparatory High School, Westlake Academy, and the American Indian Public High School, which was also ranked as the second best Transformative School in the nation.

The U.S. News & World Report’s Best High Schools list had 28 public charter schools in the top 100, up from 17 last year. The report also ranked three public charters in the top 10. The Washington Post’s Most Challenging High Schools list also put 28 public charter schools in their top 100, and four in their top 10. In Newsweek’s America’s Best high Schools list, there were 13 public charter schools in the top 100, with two BASIS charter schools reaching their top 10.

Newsweek also came out with their Transformative High Schools list, which takes students’ socioeconomic status into account by looking at schools that serve a high percentage of students who receive free- or reduced-price lunches. Sixteen public charter schools were on the list, making up 64 percent of the nation’s top 25 Transformative schools. All top five schools were public charter schools.

Methodology

The U.S. News & World Report Best High Schools list evaluates over 21,000 public high schools in the country. Their ranking is based on students’ performance on state-mandated assessments, minority and economically disadvantaged student performance, and Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) exam results to determine preparedness for college-level work.

The Washington Post’s Challenge Index is calculated by the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and Advanced International Certificate of Education (AICE) tests given at a school in 2012, divided by the number of graduates that year. Also included are the percentage of students who come from families that qualify for lunch subsidies and the percentage of graduates who passed at least one college-level test during their high school career, indicators called equity and excellence for the Challenge Index.

Newsweek's America’s Best High Schools ranks schools based on six components: graduation rate (25 percent), college acceptance rate (25 percent), AP/IB/AICE tests taken per student (25 percent), average SAT/ACT scores (10 percent), average AP/IB/AICE scores (10 percent), and percent of students enrolled in at least one AP/IB/AICE course (5 percent). Their ranking system focuses on high schools that have proven to be the most effective in turning out college-ready grads.  

Newsweek’s Transformative Schools ranking used the Newsweek's America's Best High Schools score and multiplied it by the percentage of students who are eligible for free- or reduced-price lunches, a leading indicator of socioeconomic status. The overall ranking for each school is based on the graduation rate, college-bound rate of grads, AP participation, and test scores.

CRPE Releases New Report on Emerging Topics in Public Charter School Sector

Today, the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) released the seventh edition of Hopes, Fears, & Reality: A Balanced Look at American Charter Schools (HFR). The HFR report series consistently provides interesting research and commentary on emerging topics in the public charter school sector.  Past HFR reports have focused on collaboration efforts between traditional school districts and charter schools (2011) and lessons that can be learned from high-performing charter schools (2009). Framed within the context of the public charter sector at 20 years, growing political support for public charter schools, and tight fiscal conditions, this year’s HFR explores the themes of growth and innovation.

The report includes four essays on the following topics:

• Suburban Charter Schools | Jeffrey Henig (Teachers College): “Despite highly publicized instances of inroads into more affluent communities, the center of gravity in the charter school movement remains with minority and low-income populations. Although there are no signs that the center of gravity will move significantly, it is good to be alert to the possibility and begin considering what the implications might be if this were to occur. Market demand is subject to shifts as charters become more familiar and information about them becomes more detailed and better understood. Big changes have already occurred on the supply side, and the growth of larger networks of providers is likely to introduce a range of other changes, including in target audiences. But the greatest volatility may come from the interaction between market forces and the political and policy parameters within which markets operate. These have the potential to shift demand and supply, as well as how they are expressed. And they are susceptible to sharp change.”
• Charter School Incubators | Ethan Gray (CEE-Trust): “Those who frequent education reform conferences often hear how much leaders in city X want to recruit KIPP to their city or funders in city Y want to invest in a replication of YES Prep (in Houston) in their city. But the reality is that for most cities, a CMO replication strategy is unlikely to either be successful or meet the demand in their communities for high-quality seats. Simply put, it is challenging to recruit national CMOs to new markets, and there are far too few CMOs to meet the growing demand. As a result, some enterprising cities have embraced a new strategy for intentionally building the supply of high-quality new schools: charter school incubation.”
• Blended Learning | Michael Horn (Innosight Institute) & Tricia Maas (CRPE): “For years, technology was largely missing from charter schools.... In the last few years, however, that has begun to change. New entrants in the charter school scene are pioneering blended-learning solutions, producing great student results, and looking to scale.”
• Staffing Models and Budget Implications for Blended Learning | Suzanne Simburg (CRPE) & Marguerite Roza (CRPE): “Some new school designs suggest that we can fundamentally alter the basic schooling model so that a given number of students can be taught—and taught well—by fewer teachers, who are leveraged in new ways. Although some tasks require new technology and thus new technology staff, these new school designs are just as much staffing innovations as technological innovations.”

Collectively, the essays touch on the fact that the public charter sector is both maturing and constantly changing as schools determine the most effective strategies to offer quality educational learning opportunities for students.

Public Charter Schools Represented on Newsweek's Best and Transformative High School Rankings

Newsweek has released its 2013 America’s Best High Schools rankings of the 2,000 best public high schools in the nation—and 13 public charter schools are among the top 100. Two BASIS schools are in the top 10 (BASIS Scottsdale #3 and BASIS Tucson North #7), which has been the trend.

Newsweek defines “Best” as high schools that have proven to be the most effective in turning out college-ready grads. The list is based on six components: graduation rate (25 percent), college acceptance rate (25 percent), AP/IB/AICE tests taken per student (25 percent), average SAT/ACT scores (10 percent), average AP/IB/AICE scores (10 percent), and percent of students enrolled in at least one AP/IB/AICE course (5 percent).

Newsweek conducts further breakouts of its Best High Schools, including the “Transformative High Schools” list that factors in the percentage of students who are eligible for free- or reduced-price lunches, a leading indicator of socioeconomic status. Sixteen public charter schools, which is 64 percent of the list, earned the “Transformative” distinction. Public charter schools also held all of the top 5 rankings, and were 80 percent of the top 10 Transformative schools.

The number of public charter schools among those named as the 25 “Transformative High Schools” has grown over the past several years:

• 2011: 5 public charter schools
• 2012: 15 public charter schools
• 2013: 16 public charter schools

Congratulations to these public charter schools, recognized as the best in the nation for college-readiness and closing the achievement gap.


Graduates of the Preuss School UCSD, the #1 ranked “Transformative High School.” Image via The Daily Beast website.

Research Shows Presence of Public Charter Schools Leads to Improvements in Traditional Public Schools

When a public charter school opens in a neighborhood, there are several impacts that are worth consideration: Will the charter school create pressure on neighboring traditional public schools (TPS) to make changes in their organization, instructional strategies, or outreach to families that may lead to improvements in student achievement? New research presented at the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) 38th Annual Conference suggests that traditional public schools do in fact respond to the presence of public charter schools. Yusuke Jinnai, a Ph.D candidate in Economics at the University of Rochester, examined the impact of opening public charter schools on achievement levels for students at a neighboring traditional public school in North Carolina. A few interesting findings from the study:

• Public charter schools generated “a positive and significant direct impact on student achievement” in math and reading at nearby traditional public schools.
• About 25 percent of this direct impact can be explained by low-achieving students switching from traditional public schools to charter schools, leaving higher-performing students at traditional schools.
• The larger portion of the impact was due to direct competitive effects. In other words, the presence of public charter schools encouraged TPS to make improvements for remaining students that lead to increases in student performance.

Using student-level North Carolina panel data from 1997 to 2005, the study is innovative because it focuses on gaps in grades between charter schools and TPS in North Carolina. Oftentimes, a charter school will open with a single grade level and expand their grade range in subsequent years. Jinnai uses this gap to tease out the direct impact charter schools have on TPS students in overlapping grades and indirect impact on non-overlapping grades. Previous research estimated the impact of charter schools on TPS for all grade levels, regardless of whether charter schools served students in all grade levels.

Jinnai shows that the introduction of charter schools generates a positive and significant direct impact on student achievement: an increase of 0.033 standard deviations in math and 0.017 in reading for neighboring TPS students. While these gains are small in comparison to the impact of experienced teachers or per-pupil expenditure on achievement, they are larger and more accurate than previous competitive-effects studies due to the distinction between direct and indirect impact.

Public charter schools in North Carolina attract lower performing students, but they are showing academic success. In 2010, 77 percent of public charter schools made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). In contrast, 57 percent of traditional public schools made AYP in 2010. With North Carolina lifting their 100-charter school cap in 2011 and receiving 70 new charter applications for the 2014-2015 school year, there is potential for significant learning gains for all public school students.

Jinnai’s new paper debunks the myth that the success of public charter schools comes at the detriment of neighboring traditional public schools. In North Carolina, public charter schools contribute to education reform by serving low-performing students and encouraging high standards of performance for nearby traditional public schools.

Interview with CRPE's Betheny Gross on Blended Learning Model Innovations

Blended learning is an innovative education model that combines online and traditional instruction. The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to study the financial implications of a range of blended learning models. I caught up with Dr. Betheny Gross, CRPE's senior research analyst and research director, to talk about the study.

Q: What is the framework of the study?
A: There are two parts to the study.  One is to continue to develop a classification of blended [learning]. People take different approaches to blended learning. Many of the approaches are similar, but with their own take depending on different theories of action about teaching and learning.

Some people go into blended thinking they need to radically personalize [education] for each student, and the best way we can do that is to harness technology. There are others that think about how best to optimize teachers by maximizing opportunities for kids to have in-depth discussions with teachers who are addressing their specific needs and goals. A way to do that is to have some of the instruction and curriculum happen over technology.

Part of the work we’re doing is thinking through theories of action…what type of school do they imply in terms of teachers and technology, and then costing it out. In our observation of schools that are implementing these models, we’re asking and commenting on questions such as: What does the resource allocation look like? What resources are needed for start-up and for continuation [schools]? How are resources distributed throughout the building? Do traditional revenue structures correspond or not to the way these schools need to structure their resources?

Q: What is the motivation of the study?
A: A lot of people are looking to blended as something that’s a new and a vital piece of our progress in education. They’re seeing it as an opportunity to expand the capacity and productivity of teachers in schools. There’s a lot of energy behind it right now, and a lot of development going on in the field to make sure that there’s good research to support that development.

Q: What do you hope to find out?
A: What we want to understand is how resources are used, and the extent that we see a new distribution of labor and technology for the delivery of instruction. We also want to understand how schools pursuing this work can do it in a sustainable way. This is a challenging question because so many of the schools engaging in blended learning received substantial start-up grants. And we know that there are and can be rather substantial startup or transition costs, especially if it requires a big investment in network and fiber.

Q: What role do public charter schools play in blended learning?
A: Public charter schools are called on to be our innovators, to be our incubators. They have both the incentive and opportunity to really explore these models because of their ability to optimize resources in schools.

I think there are a lot of incentives for charters. It’s not lost on anybody in the charter sector that they have to be very careful with budgets, which tend to be very tight. This is an opportunity to think through how technology can optimize their resources.

With the freedom public charter schools have around resource allocation, they really do have the opportunity to go out and rethink the whole school from top to bottom. They don’t need to have 15 classrooms with a teacher and 30 kids in them. They don’t need to think about [getting] into spend-it-or-lose-it arrangements. They can think about how to structure their spending; how to reconfigure their revenue and expenditure flows; and different ways to structure pay for teachers.

This is all within their reach–they don’t have many of the traditional revenue or expenditure constraints that district schools are now slowly unpacking. Charters can move very quickly. It’s not a surprise that a lot of the schools in our study are public charter schools.

Q: What role do you see blended learning playing in the future of public education?
A: I think it depends on what we find in these early studies, and there are also impact studies going on. I anticipate, although I don’t have any particular evidence to back this up, that we are going to see it more and more. I think that it’s an approach that addresses a lot of resource challenges that we are facing.

I think it’s also an approach that’s very respecting of the fact that kids are brought up interacting with information differently than we did when we were kids. It tries to take advantage of that, and meet kids where they are with how they work with and think through information. And in that sense, it has a lot of great potential.

Q: What is the timeline of the study?
A: The study is a 19 month study starting from last December. An interim report will come out sometime in the fall, and then the final will be out the following summer.



Photo: Dr. Betheny Gross, Senior Research Analyst and Research Director at the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE)