Examining Variation Within the Charter School Sector: Academic Achievement in Urban and Suburban Charter Schools

• In Event: School Choice Policies Shaping Neighborhoods, School Locations, and "Destinies"

Abstract

The advent of a new breed of charter schools, located in predominantly suburban locales and serving affluent families, challenges the oft-heard claim among advocates that charter schools can reduce educational inequalities by providing a higher quality learning environment for disadvantaged students otherwise stuck in a failing traditional public schools. These suburban charter schools attract families by providing unique educational programs not provided by traditional public schools (Altenhofen et al., 2016). Thus, rather than serving disadvantaged families with children in failing public schools, these charter schools serve families with means who desire the freedom to choose schools that reflect their particular cultural and educational values.
In this research project, we set out to answer two key research questions: (1) What are the impacts of California's urban and suburban charter middle and high schools on students' academic achievement? (2) Are there significant differences in performance between suburban and urban charter school students? Thus, the purpose of this study is to determine the effect of charter school attendance on student achievement outcomes in California, to examine how achievement outcomes vary across charter schools, and to relate the variation to charter school contexts and characteristics. California’s larger size with its numerous and diverse communities offers a more fertile urban-suburban context for the study of geographically differentiated charter school impacts.
We propose to use propensity score matching and fixed effects models for longitudinal data. The data for this study come from the California State Office of Education. Our data include almost all charter students in the state. Charter students are grouped into cells defined by academic achievement and demographic characteristics. In addition, for each charter school student in the treatment group, we match a student in the control group who is similar demographically and from the same geographic area. Finally, we match the charter students in each cell to the sample of traditional public school students with the same characteristics.
Our findings illustrate that when the impact of charter schools in general is studied for students in different subgroups, we see that nearly every group of students experiences greater growth in charter schools (.034 SD increase in their math and ELA test score gains) than they would have otherwise realized in their local TPS. However, the impacts of charter schools on test score gains are less favorable in high income-areas (suburbs) than in non-urban areas (.077 SD decrease in their math and ELA test score gains). This finding is in line with our theoretical expectation that suburban charter schools do not improve academic achievement relative to the matched comparison groups of traditional public schools. Thus, school performance outcomes are different across charter schools (suburban vs. non-suburban charters).
It is worth noting that the charter school effect heterogeneity documented here is relevant to the ongoing debate over charter expansion, particularly in suburban areas. This study adds to the existing literature by examining the effects of charter schools on the neighborhoods in which they operate.

Authors

• Charisse Atibagos Gulosino, University of Memphis

• Jonah Liebert