Evaluating Charter Schools

Harlem Children’s Zone Started by Geoffrey Canada in a 97 block area of Harlem in NYC. Combines high energy “no excuses” type charter schools (Promise Academy) with a web of other community services. 1,300 students attend “Promise Academy” schools, community programs served 8,058 kids and 5,291 adults. Meant to support children from “birth to college.”

Evaluating Charter Schools Schools Extended school day and school year. Saturday school for students needing extra help. Overall, roughly twice as many hours as other comparable students around city. High quality teachers and use “value” added pay incentives. High turnover, but lots of support and feedback. Schools provide medical, dental, mental health services, meals, incentives for achievement. Notably, they aim to provide a “culture of achievement” with no excuses. Widely stated goal (outside and inside of schools) is to send every student to college.

Evaluating Charter Schools Community Programs Baby college early childhood programs, After-school programs (e.g. karate, dance, etc) Family health programs Over 20 programs available to members of the community.

Evaluating Charter Schools Questions of interest: 1. How much do kids benefit from this program relative to other alternatives in the area? 2. Is it the schooling or community services or both that provide benefit? Dobbie and Fryer “Are High Quality Schools Enough to Increase Achievement Among the Poor? Evidence From the Harlem Children’s Zone” What strategy do they use to try to “identify” the impact of the charter school (Promise Academy) in HCZ?

Evaluating Charter Schools Lottery Too many applicants for spaces in schools, so there is a lottery to determine who gets offered a slot. Empirical design is essentially to compare lottery winners to lottery losers in terms of standardized test scores.

Evaluating Charter Schools

Evaluating Harlem Children’s Zone

Evaluating Charter Schools Are effects from the Charter School or the other “community services”? Little evidence that other community services account for much of the impact. Youth who live in Harlem Children Zone (so eligible for community services), but weren’t eligible for enrolling in the school don’t appear to have significantly different outcomes than those children who live in neighborhoods just outside HCZ. But, these results are somewhat inconclusive.

Evaluating Charter Schools Why is Promise Academy (school in HCZ) so effective at educating the poorest minority students? Teacher quality? Extremely high turnover (48% left after first year) Curriculum Seem to focus on what has shown to be effective 210 instruction days per year, 8 hour instructional days, Saturday school, after-school program, avg class size of 20, “No excuses” philosophy and school uniforms. Administers internal evaluations of teachers, requires a parental contract. Money NYC Dept of Ed provides $12,443 per student, HCZ spends and estimated $19,272 per pupil.

Evaluating Charter Schools Its not just Promise Academy and HCZ though. Other papers have used admission lottery results to test effectiveness of charter schools. Generally find them to be substantially effective at increasing test scores, especially for math and for minority students in high poverty areas. Boston (Angrist et al 2010, 2012), Washington DC (Curto and Fryer 2011); Chicago (Hoxby and Rockoff 2004), New York (Hoxby, Muraka, and Kang 2009). However, results are less apparent though for school districts outside high-poverty urban areas, but few have used lottery methodology (Hu 2011, Angrist et al 2011; Gleason et al 2010)

Evaluating Charter Schools Angrist, Pathak, Walters “Explaining Charter School Effectiveness” Look at charter schools in Boston area, start with lottery methodology.

Evaluating Charter Schools Can results be explained by compositional differences between urban and non-urban schools?

Evaluating Charter Schools

As discussed, many of these papers finding positive impacts of charter schools have relied on lottery winners and losers to identify the impact of charter schools. Why might this lead to an upwardly biased picture of the impact of charter schools overall?

Evaluating Charter Schools

So why are these urban/lottery charter schools so much better?

Evaluating Charter Schools So why are these urban/lottery charter schools so much better?

Evaluating Charter Schools Summary Expansion of charter schools has proven to be one of the most radical education reforms since Brown vs Board of Education. Very controversial. Outsiders? Erodes teacher welfare? Siphons resources away? Results seem to show they are effective in the places education system has been failing the most (urban high poverty areas). Results not uniform, but some “best practices” are emerging. Future? "Schooled: Cory Booker, Chris Christie, and Mark Zuckerberg had a Plan to reform Newark's schools. They got an education." New Yorker.