A Study of the Effects of Charter Schools on Student Achievement, Attendance, and Selected Mitigating Factors in a Midwestern State’s Midsize Urban School Districts

• Published in: Education and urban society Vol. 51; no. 9; pp. 1265 - 1290
• Main Authors: Clarke, Frederick C., Burt, Walter L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.12.2019; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Academic achievement; Accountability; Attendance; Charter Schools; Elementary School Students; Ethnicity; Gender Differences; Grade 4; Grade 5; Grade 6; Grade 7; Grade 8; Longitudinal Studies; Mathematics; Mathematics Achievement; Poverty; Public Schools; Quasi-experimental methods; Reading Achievement; Research design; School attendance; School District Size; School districts; School Effectiveness; Socioeconomic status; Students; Traditional Schools; Transfer Students; Urban areas; Urban Schools; charter schools; accountability; urban education
• ISSN: 0013-1245; 1552-3535
• DOI: 10.1177/0013124518785015

Charter schools in urban environments have been scrutinized for their effectiveness. This study attempted to determine whether students attending Midwestern urban charter schools outperformed students in traditional schools on the state’s accountability system over a 5-year time period. Using a quasi-experimental research design, data were collected from 31 Midwestern urban school districts, along with data from 88 adjacent contiguous charter schools during the 2008 to 2012 school years. Findings in this study suggest that students who transferred from traditional public schools to charter schools did not outperform academically as their corresponding counterparts in mathematics and reading, and had lower attendance rates, over the first three consecutive years of their attendance. In the succeeding 2 years, however, charter school students outperformed traditional students in both reading and mathematics, and had greater attendance rates, than students attending traditional public schools. The study also found that a student’s ethnic and socioeconomic background had a significant influence on student outcome measures.