Education: Better research needed on the impact of charter schools

Science

Volumn 335, Issue 6065, 2012, Pages 171-172

  Betts, Julian R ^a,b   Atkinson, Richard C ^c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^b PUBLIC POLICY INSTITUTE OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CURRICULUM; EDUCATION; EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; IDENTIFICATION METHOD; RESEARCH WORK;

CHARTER SCHOOL; GOVERNMENT; HUMAN; ORGANIZATION; POLICE; PRIORITY JOURNAL; RESEARCH; REVIEW; SCHOOL; UNITED STATES;

UNITED STATES;

EID: 84855849501     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: 10959203     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.1205418     Document Type: Review

References (18)

1. B. H. Obama, Remarks by the President to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on a Complete and Competitive American Education (Office of the Press Secretary, White House, 10 March 2009).
2. J. R. Betts, Y. E. Tang, The Effect of Charter Schools on Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Literature (National Charter School Research Project, Center on Reinventing Public Education, Bothell, WA, 2011); www.crpe.org/cs/crpe/download/csr-files/pub-NCSRP-BettsTang-Oct11.pdf.
3. For an example of how simple comparison of test scores between charter and traditional public schools reflects initial student achievement but not actual gains in performance, see (4).
4. J. R. Betts, Y. E. Tang, A. C. Zau, in Taking Measure of Charter Schools: Better Assessments, Better Policymaking, Better Schools, J. R. Betts and P. T. Hill, Eds. (Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2010), chap. 2.
5. A. Abdulkadiroglu et al., Informing the Debate: Comparing Boston's Charter, Pilot and Traditional Schools (The Boston Foundation, Boston, 2009); www.tbf.org/uploadedFiles/tbforg/Utility-Navigation/Multimedia-Library/Reports/ InformingTheDebate-Final.pdf.
6. J. D. Angrist, S. M. Dynarski, T. J. Kane, P. A. Pathak, C. R. Walters, Am. Econ. Rev. Pap. Proc. 100(2), 1 (2010).
7. W. Dobbie, R. Fryer Jr., Are High Quality Schools Enough to Close the Achievement Gap? Evidence from a Social Experiment in Harlem [Working Paper 15473, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge, MA, 2009].
8. C. M. Hoxby, S. Murarka, J. Kang, How New York City's Charter Schools Affect Achievement, August 2009 Report (Charter Schools Evaluation Project, Cambridge and New York, 2009); www.nber.org/~schools/charterschoolseval/how-NYC- charter-schools-affect-achievement-sept2009.pdf.
9. C. M. Hoxby, S. Murarka, New York City's Charter Schools Overall Report (NBER, Cambridge, MA, 2007); www.nber.org/~schools/charterschoolseval/.
10. P. Gleason, M. Clark, C. C. Tuttle, E. Dwoyer, The Evaluation of Charter School Impacts: Final Report (NCEE 2010-4029, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, Washington, DC, 2010); http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/ 20104029/pdf/20104029.pdf.
11. C. M. Hoxby, J. E. Rockoff, Findings from the City of Big Shoulders (Education Next, Cambridge, MA, 2005); http://educationnext.org/files/ ednext20054-52.pdf.
12. L. McClure, B. Strick, R. Jacob-Almeida, C. Reicher, The Preuss School at UCSD: School Characteristics and Students' Achievement (The Center for Research on Educational Equity, Assessment and Teaching Excellence, Univ. of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, 2005); http://create.ucsd.edu/-files/publications/ PreussReportDecember2005.pdf.
13. R. J. Lake, Ed., Hopes, Fears and Reality: A Balanced Look at Charter Schools in 2008 (National Charter School Research Project, Center For Reinventing Public Education, Univ. of Washington, Bothell, WA, 2008), p. vi; www.crpe.org/cs/crpe/view/csr-pubs/255.
14. E. A. Hanushek, J. F. Kain, S. G. Rivkin, G. F. Branch, Charter school quality and parental decision making with school choice. J. Public Econ. 91, 823 (2007).
15. Both lottery-based and nonexperimental estimates for Boston are provided in (5). In three of four cases, the nonexperimental estimate is lower than the corresponding lottery-based estimate. Lottery-based estimates for New York City are provided in (8). A nonexperimental replication of the New York City results is provided in (16), and the authors obtain the same estimate for math but an estimate for reading that is two-thirds of the lottery-based estimate. An attempt to replicate the lottery-based results in (12) without lottery data yields similar results, but only if each student's past achievement is controlled for (4).
16. Center for Research on Educational Outcomes, Charter School Performance in New York City (Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA, 2010); http://credo.stanford. edu/reports/NYC%202009%20-CREDO.pdf.
17. P. J. McEwan, R. B. Olsen, in Taking Measure of Charter Schools: Better Assessments, Better Policymaking, Better Schools, J. R. Betts and P. T. Hill, Eds. (Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2010), chap. 6.
18. J. R. Betts, Taking Measure of Charter Schools: Better Assessments, Better Policymaking, Better Schools, J. R. Betts and P. T. Hill, Eds. (Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2010), chap. 4.