Exploration
individual charter schools often do not have adequate information about their disaggregated performance in individual sectors (e.g. grade levels and subject matter). Similarly, charter schools do not have suitable internal tools for evaluating value-added over time.
The following are excerpts reprinted from a report of the National Research & Development Center on School Choice. This study was supported by the National Research and Development Center on School Choice, Competition, and Achievement, which is funded by the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (R305A040043). To access the full report, please visit the center Web site at: http://www.nrdcsc.org.
Assessing Charter School Performance in Illinois: An Error-Band Analysis Excerpts from a paper by Francis X. Shen, Harvard University and Kenneth K. Wong, Brown University
Adopting the “error band” approach intro duced by Standard and Poor’s, this paper evaluates charter school performance in Illinois over the last five years. This paper, the result of research by the National Research and Development Center on School Choice, Competition, and Achievement (“the Center”), is instructive not only on the substantive questions of charter school performance, but also on the benefits of strong partnership between researchers and charter practitioners. By bridging the research-practice divide, this paper provides guidance to policymakers in the schoolhouse and the statehouse. Our primary findings related to charter school performance in Illinois are: •
Charter elementary performance improves over time, with longer running charters beating statistical expectations for their value-added to student achievement.
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Charter high school performance is distributed roughly the same as traditional public schools, with most charters neither above nor below statistical expectations.
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Charter school performance varies significantly by school, subject matter, and grade level. Charters generally perform better in reading, than in math.
• Charter school science achievement in both elementary and secondary grades remains low, relative to other subject matters. Illustration by Gordon Studer
As the national charter school movement nears its fifteenth anniversary, there appears to be a growing consensus amongst charter school researchers that evaluation of the charter movement is best carried out by analyzing the performance of individual charter schools. Buddin & Zimmer (2005) are echoing many when they conclude that, “it may be very difficult to develop universal conclusions about charter schools nationally as charter school performance varies from state-to-state, charter type to charter type, and even charter school to charter school.”1 Rather than asking, “Are charter schools working?” the better question is: Which charter schools are effective, which charter schools are not, and what explains the differences between the two? At the same time as charter school researchers are focusing their attention on school-level success and failure, charter school operators continue to search for better ways to effectively use the mountains of data provided by their state and district accountability offices. For many years, policy experts have suggested strategies that provide roadmaps for charter schools to use statewide accountability data in their operations.2 With limited resources, however, charter schools often do not have the resources to carry out the types of data analysis that are required to sort through the many layers of performance data. To use an analogy, in the charter school “marketplace”
Recognizing charter operator’s need for better school-level performance evaluation, as well as the research trend toward schoollevel analysis, we believe the time is right for increased partnership between researchers and charter practitioners. As this paper will illustrate, such partnerships can be of great benefit to both parties. Charter school operators can gain a better understanding of how the various segments of their operations are performing, and how this performance has changed over time. Researchers can look to the expanded analysis on overall charter school performance to see how charters as a whole are performing.
Chicago International Charter School Performance When we focus on the performance of the Chicago International Charter School (CICS) we find that in each year the CICS has consistently been in the error band region (aligned with statistical expectations). In 2005, the CICS showed signs of increase outperformance as it outperformed in overall PSAE composite, grade 8 reading, grade 11 reading, and grade 11 science (CICS Error Band Summary). When looking at valueadded over time, the CICS has consistently outperformed, especially in the four-year gain scores (2001 to 2005, Error Band Summary). As we discuss in the final section of the paper, identifying these positive outcomes leads naturally to the question: what is it that successful charter schools are doing that less successful counterparts are not?
1
uddin, Richard and Ron Zimmer. 2005. “A Closer Look B at Charter School Student Achievement,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Vol. 24, No. 2, Spring 2005, p. 369.
2
arly examples include: Hassell, Bryan and Paul E Herdman. 2000. Charter School Accountability: A Guide to Issues and Options for Charter Authorizers, Annie E. Casey Foundation; and, Nahas, Jennifer & Roblyn Bringham. 2000. Charter School Accountability Action Guide, Massachusetts Charter School Resource Center.
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