On average, the funding gap between charter schools and traditional schools is 22 percent, or $1,800 per pupil. The average charter school ends up with a total funding shortfall of nearly half a million dollars.
Source: Charter School Funding: Inequity’s Next Frontier
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Virtual School Report, Fall 2006 Issue
This latest quarterly newsletter from Connections Academy focuses on virtual charter school authorizing and recent virtual schooling legislative gains. It also summarizes recent research on K-12 online learning and finds that many studies offer evidence that student academic performance increased in online programs and schools.
Future of Charter Schools and Teachers Unions: Results of a Symposium
This document summarizes the opinions of leaders from both the charter school and teachers union communities expressed at a recent collaborative meeting. Several themes emerged, including moderate members from each group share many of the same ideas about good schooling, but each side thinks the other insists on something that will interfere with quality teaching. The report makes the case that if relations are to improve, three things are needed, including more models of effective union-charter partnerships and better evidence about the charter school teaching force and the impact of chartering on issues that matter to teachers. Finally, it is recommended that both groups engage in confidence-building measures to demonstrate their desire to make progress, not just give the appearance of openness. For the charter community, that could include working for common standards for fair and respectful teacher employment.
Charter Schools Job Board
USCharterSchools.org offers a free regularly-updated charter school job board. Currently, over 200 jobs are posted. Positions range from part-time tutors to classroom teachers to CEOs of charter associations. Job-seekers may also post their resumes for up to 90 days for online viewing.
Big Box: How the Heirs of the Wal-Mart Fortune Have Fueled the Charter School Movement
Although the Walton Family Foundation devotes some resources to traditional school districts, 80 percent of its education funding (some $50 million a year) supports charter schooling. This report documents how the foundation has been instrumental to the expansion of the charter school sector. The foundation has supported hundreds of new individual charter schools, a number of charter school management companies, an array of national, state, and local charter advocacy organizations, numerous technical-assistance organizations, and a wide range of charter school research. The foundation's charter school support has also led many others to fund the charter movement, including Donald Fisher, the founder of the Gap and an active charter school philanthropist who contributes substantially to the KIPP charter school network.
Maintenance Required: Charter Schooling in Michigan
This report on the state of charter schooling in Michigan is the latest in the charter school series begun by the Progressive Policy Institute and carried on by Education Sector. Michigan's charters have seen improvements in academic performance in recent years, and on the most recent state assessments (MEAP), a slightly higher percentage of charter school students in most host districts were proficient on the English language arts (ELA) and math tests in grades 3-8. At the high school level, charter high schools had about the same percentage of students proficient in ELA as host district schools, but a lower percentage of students proficient in math. The author notes the EMO dominance of chartering in the state -- 75% of schools are EMO-affiliated, the highest percentage in the nation -- which has led critics to assert a "corporate" model of schooling.
Charter School Achievement: What We Know (3rd Edition)
This 2006 edition of charter school achievement studies summarizes and evaluates 58 comparative studies of charter school and traditional public school performance. Thirty-three of the studies look at change over time in student or school performance. Of these 33 studies: 16 find that overall gains in charter schools were larger than other public schools; 7 find charter schools' gains higher in certain significant categories of schools; 6 find comparable gains in charter and traditional public schools; and 4 find that charter schools’ overall gains lagged behind. Twenty-five of the studies only look at a snapshot of performance at one or more points in time. Of these 25 studies: 10 show charter schools generally underperforming traditional public schools while the other 15 show comparable, mixed or generally positive results for charter schools.
Wisconsin Charter Schools Conference, April 15-17
The 7th Annual Wisconsin Charter Schools Conference will be held April 15-17 at the Country Springs Hotel in Waukesha. The conference will kick off on Sunday, April 15 with a free Charter Schools Fair. The fair is a celebration of charter schools in Wisconsin that is open to the public from 1 – 4 p.m. Charter schools from across the state will celebrate students' achievements through demonstrations, performances, and displays. The conference continues on Monday and Tuesday with 45 concurrent sessions and presentations from several speakers, including Morgan Brown, Assistant Deputy Secretary of U.S. Department of Education, Janice Ereth, Special Advisor to Children’s Research Center and Todd Ziebarth, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. For more information see the Wisconsin Charter Schools Association website or call 608-661-6946.
14th Annual California Charter Schools Conference, March 27-30 in San Diego, CA
The 14th Annual California Charter Schools Conference will take place March 27-30, 2007 at the Town and Country Resort & Convention Center in San Diego, CA with a focus on "Teaching and Learning in High-Quality Charter Public Schools." The conference will offer sessions that share strategies and best practices that can be utilized to improve student achievement and charter school operations. The schedule for more than 200 breakout sessions and table talks is now available. For more information, send an email to conference@charterassociation.org or call 213.244.1446, ext. 2201.
National Charter Schools Conference, April 24-27, 2007 in Albuquerque, NM
Kevin Johnson, former NBA basketball star and Founder/Chairman of the Board of St. HOPE Academy Charter School & St. HOPE Public Schools (Sacramento, CA) is confirmed as a keynote speaker at the 7th National Charter Schools Conference which will be held April 24 – 27, 2007 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Go to the conference website
to register, make hotel reservations, and find out how to sign up for graduate credits/CEUs or to participate in the Virtual Career Fair. Join over 3,000 of your charter school colleagues in the "Land of Enchantment" to celebrate the 15th anniversary of charter schools and to consider the opportunities of the future! Hosted by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the conference will offer more than 120 breakout sessions, focusing on Quality, Policy, Advocacy and Capacity. For questions, e-mail nationalconference@publiccharters.org or call 206-463-3344.
Charter Schools Against the Odds
This edited volume examines state legislation and policies that restrict charter school expansion (including inequitable funding, lack of authorizer capacity, and caps). Caroline Hoxby reviews how legislative provisions affect the numbers of charter schools and demonstrates that the supply of charter schools is highly responsive to state policy and actions. Eric Osberg examines charter school funding sources and costs. Chester Finn and Paul Hill (who serves as editor of the book) focus on the problems of charter school oversight. Other chapters include the examination of the effects of local conditions on the emergence of new charter schools, the impact of non-profit and for-profit sectors, and how legislation and policy can be altered to create conditions more favorable to charter schools quality and growth. (The book is available for purchase, but full-text PDF versions of each chapter may also be accessed online at no cost.)
Beyond Achievement: Enrollment Consequences of Charter Schools in Michigan
Examining charter schools in Michigan over a five-year period, researchers have found that the state's charters have drawn approximately 20 percent of their population from private schools. The researchers believe that the other 80 percent of students come from district schools. Home schools are not considered as a source due to lack of data. Charter schools are found to be generating significant competitive effects for both traditional district schools as well as for private schools.
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