Public Impact

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • What We Do
  • Media
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
Innovation. Excellence. Service. Impact.
  • Opportunity Culture
  • Teachers & Principals
    • Teacher Leadership
    • Recruit, Select, and Keep Education Talent
    • Competencies of High Performers
    • Evaluating Teacher and Leader Performance
    • Teacher and Leader Compensation
    • Professional Development for Educators
  • Turnarounds
    • Turnarounds Within Schools
    • Restarts by Charter Operators
    • Innovation Zones
  • Funding
    • School Funding
  • Charters
    • Charter School Authorizing
    • Scaling Up Quality
    • Restarts in Failing Schools
    • High Market Share Cities
    • State and Federal Charter School Policy
    • Help for Charter Schools
    • Serving Students with Highest Needs
  • More Topics
    • Big Ideas for Education
    • Entrepreneurship in K-12
    • Parents and Community
    • Philanthropy in Education
    • Special Populations
    • Technology in Schools
    • Assessment and Data

High Stakes: Public Impact’s National Study of Charter School Accountability

This website presents results and information from a two-year national charter school accountability study conducted by researchers from Public Impact with funding from the Smith Richardson Foundation.

Background

The study asks the question: “How are Charter Schools Being Held Accountable for Results?” To answer this question we looked at 50 charter school “decisions” from around the country.

For the purposes of this study we defined charter school “decisions” as definitive action taken by a sponsoring agency on the legal status of a charter. A sponsoring agency, or charter school authorizer, is an agency authorized by a particular state’s charter school law to charter a school by negotiating a contract that holds the school accountable to agreed upon expectations. These agreed upon contracts have a term of expiration – usually 3 to 5 years under the first contract. In theory, if charter schools meet the expectations set for student success and maintain good school-business practices, the charter will be renewed for another period of time. At the same time, there is a looming threat of closure. If these schools do not meet academic expectations or mismanage the school, the charter can be revoked in the midst of the term, or not renewed at the charter’s expiration date. The three types of “decisions” we focused on are Renewal, Revocation, or Nonrenewal.

This two-year project was designed to investigate the very basis of the charter school concept by asking several key research questions:

  1. To what extent are authorizers setting clear, measurable expectations that charter schools must meet in order to attain renewal or avoid revocation?
  2. To what extent are authorizers gathering information that allows them to determine whether schools are meeting these expectations?
  3. To what extent are authorizers making decisions based on a comparison of actual performance with expectations?
  4. To the extent that authorizers are facing challenges related to questions 1 through 3, what are the sources of these challenges?
  5. What practical recommendations emerge from these findings for authorizers and state policy-makers?

Click here for more information about the research design. From this site, you can access the study’s principal products:

“High-Stakes”: Findings from a National Study of Life-or-Death Decisions by Charter School Authorizers” [pdf]: a paper summarizing findings and offering analysis of 50 high-stakes charter school decisions from around the country.

Starting Fresh: A New Strategy for Responding to Chronically Low-Performing Schools [pdf]

Public Impact®

Public Impact, LLC
Chapel Hill, NC
919-240-7955

Public Impact encourages the free use, reproduction, and distribution of our materials, but we require attribution. If you adapt the materials, you must include on every page “Adapted from PublicImpact.com; Copyright Public Impact” in the font size specified here.

Materials may not be sold, leased, licensed, or otherwise distributed for compensation. See our Terms of Use page or contact us for more information.

Public Impact is certified as a living wage employer by Orange County Living Wage.

Search

Subscribe

Sign Up for E-News!
 


 
Read Back Issues of our
E-Newsletter

 
Subscribe to our blog with RSS

Follow

New from Public Impact

Employment Opportunities—Coordinators and Interns
Public Impact is seeking candidates for coordinators and interns.

Learning in Real Time—How Charter Schools Served Students During Covid-19 Closures
Profiles highlight how charter schools were able to respond quickly to school closures during the pandemic and continue to serve their students well.

Building an Effective Staff—Profiles of Leaders of Color
Three-part series looks at how being a person of color affected the ways in which successful charter school leaders built schools where students, families, and staff learn, grow, and thrive.

Engaging Families—Profiles of Leaders of Color
Three-part series looks at how being a person of color affected the ways in which successful charter school leaders built schools where students, families, and staff learn, grow, and thrive.

Building a Strong School Culture—Profiles of Leaders of Color
Three-part series looks at how being a person of color affected the ways in which successful charter school leaders built schools where students, families, and staff learn, grow, and thrive.

The Impact of School Restarts—Lessons from Four Indianapolis Schools
Report analyzes how enrollment, demographic, and student performance data changed following the restarts of four charter schools in Indianapolis, IN.

Learning from Project L.I.F.T.—Legacy of a Public-Private School Turnaround Initiative
Report examines successes, challenges, and lessons from a private-public district turnaround initiative.

Public Impact, LLC | 919-240-7955 | Terms of Use | © Public Impact 2000-2021 | Wordpress website design by LeGa Design Group