Do Authorizer Evaluations Predict New Charter Schools’ Success?

• In Event: Pathways to Success: Charter School Structures, Curricula, and Student Outcomes

Abstract

Charter school authorizers strongly shape the landscape of education through their decisions of which charter applications to accept. Despite their important role, relatively little is known about the authorization process and its effectiveness. In this study, we examine how authorizers’ ratings of applications predict various measures of charter school success. Data from North Carolina reveals that their evaluations are predictive of schools’ opening on time and student growth in math achievement, especially during the initial years following school opening. However, there were few intuitive and significant relationships between external evaluators’ ratings of individual domains of the application and success, suggesting that their professional judgment was at least as important as the written application.

Authors

• Adam Kho, University of Kentucky

• Shelby Leigh Smith, University of Southern California

• Douglas L. Lauen, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill