Resource Allocation in Charter and Non-Charter Public Schools in the Appleton Area School District, Wisconsin

• Main Author: Mills, Sandra R
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest LLC 2012
• Subjects: Access to Computers; Charter Schools; Comparative Analysis; Demography; Disabilities; Educational Change; Educational Finance; Elementary Secondary Education; Interviews; Language Proficiency; Public Schools; Resource Allocation; School Districts; Socioeconomic Status; Success; Surveys; Teacher Salaries; Teacher Student Ratio; Teaching Experience; Wisconsin; Wisconsin
• ISBN: 1267338547; 9781267338549

Reform of public schooling has been at the forefront of the national debate over education for more than 25 years. One prominent reform initiative, school chartering, was selected for the study that examined whether a selected school district allocated comparable resources for charter and non-charter schools. The study used the Odden et al. "School Expenditure Model" (2003) to assess resource use patterns for seven matched pairs of charter and non-charter schools. Several sources were used to collect data: (a) surveys, (b) interviews, (c) district and state reports. Seven charter school study sites were selected using the purposive sampling method. The rationale for the selection of the non-charter study schools was based on the closest possible match to the charter schools on three demographic characteristics asserted by the Wisconsin DPI to be the strongest contributors to successful K-12 schools and most likely to impact school funding: economic status, level of English proficiency, and disability. Paired schools were compared for levels of funding allocation. Findings indicated a difference in resource expenditure allocations between charter and non-charter schools in several categories: (a) average teacher salary: charter schools had a lower average teacher salary, $49,907, than non-charter schools, $58,272; (b) computer-student ratio: charter schools have less computer availability, 1:4.47, and non-charter 1:7.91; (c) average years of teaching experience: charter schools, 11 years, and non-charter schools, 16 years; (d) core teacher-student ratio: charter schools have five fewer students per teacher than the non-charter schools; (e) elective and specialist, pupil support, and extra help teacher-student ratio: the data show that charter schools have less of these staff than non-charter schools but because of data collection limitations the differences are probably less than indicated because in many cases charter school students were provided services by non-charter school staff that could not be sorted out in the staff allocations. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]