Did Race to the Top Increase the Number of Charter Schools?

• In Event: 49.055 - Context Matters: How Social, Legal, and Professional Settings Affect Charter Schools and School Choice

Abstract

Race to the Top is a $4.35 billion United States Department of Education contest created to spur innovation and reforms in state and local district K-12 education. The primary purpose of the program was to incentive policy changes preferred by the Obama Administration. Focusing on a prominent component of the program, increasing the number of charter schools, this paper uses a difference in difference estimation strategy to examine the impact of the program on state charter school policy. The evidence is mixed, but most of it suggests that Race to the Top rewarded states for their past track records in charter policy and thus had little impact on future behavior.

Authors

• Charisse Atibagos Gulosino, University of Memphis

• Jonah Liebert, Teachers College, Columbia University