Evaluation of the Impact of Charter School Strategies

Contractor: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

Key Staff:
Phil Gleason
Paul Hill (consultant, University of Washington)

Research Questions:

• What are the impacts of charter schools on student achievement, other indicators of performance, and parent and student satisfaction?
• To what extent does the degree of autonomy or policy environment under which charter schools operate seem to influence their effectiveness?
• In what ways are charter schools and the sending regular public schools different? What role do these school factors or characteristics play in determining student outcomes?

Design: NCEE is conducting the first large-scale randomized controlled trial of charter schools. Two cohorts of oversubscribed charter middle schools were selected to meet the study's data needs and to reflect variation in the policy environment, for a total of about 40 participating schools.

Among applicants to each charter school, about 30 students in the entry grade, have been randomly assigned to be admitted to the school or to one of their own choosing (the control group). Schools were recruited in early 2005 and in early 2006, although the student admission lotteries conducted in the subsequent spring in these schools determined whether the schools had sufficient oversubscription to participate in the study. For both cohorts, two years of data will be collected and will include student records, annual test scores, and surveys of students, principals, and parents.

Duration: 6.5 years (September 2003–March 2010).

Reports: The final report on this study will be announced on http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/.

Current Status: (August 2008) The charter schools have been recruited and random assignment of student applicants and baseline data collection completed. Surveys of principals, parents, and students as well as collection of school records, will continue through early 2009.