Are Charter Schools More Autonomous? A National Study Based on Principals' Perceptions

• In Event: 49.049 - Charter Schools: Organizational Issues and Attracting Students

Abstract

The literature review indicated that it is still not clear whether charter schools are more autonomous than traditional public schools and whether principal and school backgrounds have impacts on charter school principals’ decision making. This proposal aims to contribute to this topic through examining principals’ perception. By applying the multivariate multilevel modeling method to the national representative School and Staffing Survey (SASS) 2007-08 public principal data, we found that charter school principals perceived higher decision making power in five out of the seven policy areas. Further analysis will be conducted to detect the influencing factors. The findings have implications for educational researchers, policy makers, and local school administrators.

Authors

• Jiangang Xia, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

• Jianping Shen, Western Michigan University