The Variation in Charter and Public School Learning Loss Recovery in Indiana

• In Event: Post-Pandemic Changes in School Choice Practices and Policies

Abstract

In recent decades, with the advent of a greater array of school choices, including charter schools, a growing share of students in the United States are pursuing alternative school options. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this trend (Dee, 2023; Dee & Murphy, 2021). Moreover, while it is clear students have generally experienced learning loss during the pandemic (Fahle et al, 2023; Goldhaber et al., 2023; Relyea et al., 2022; Sass and Goldring, 2022), it is unknown if recovery differed between charter and traditional public schools (TPSs) overall and among specific subgroups of students and schools. In this paper, we address this gap in the literature by using statewide, student-level data from the state of Indiana to answer the following questions:

RQ1: To what extent has student achievement changed during and after the pandemic relative to pre-pandemic, and how did this differ by school type?

RQ2: Has the recovery from learning loss across charter and TPS schools varied across student subgroups (e.g., race, free/reduced price lunch status) and school subgroups (by location, organization, charter type)? 

Research is emerging that shows learning loss broadly, but research has not focused on differential learning loss across charter and TPSs and whether either of these sectors has had greater success in ameliorating learning losses, especially for vulnerable students. While the preferred analytical approach would be randomized design using lottery data, lottery data is not available for all schools, which would reduce our inferences and our ability to include the complete set of schools. Instead, we use a doubly robust approach in which we first assign inverse probability weights based on propensity score estimates of the likelihood of TPS students attending charter schools and then estimate the effect using ordinary least squares integrating inverse probability weights. This approach helps to address differences in students enrolling in charter and TPSs while allowing us to be inclusive of all charter schools.  

Authors

• Mark Berends, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Julie Dallavis, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Joseph J Ferrare, University of Washington Bothell
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Adam Kho, University of Kentucky
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Stephen Ponisciak, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Joseph Waddington, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Ron W Zimmer, University of Kentucky
  Presenting Author