Archived Information
A Study of Charter Schools: First-Year Report - May 1997
Chapter IV
Why Charter Schools Are Founded
The Study's telephone interviewers asked a respondent at each charter school to tell us the most important reasons for founding the charter school. Then we asked the respondent to select the most important reason. At 92 percent of the schools, the respondent provided an answer. We coded the responses into a small number of categories. Exhibit 19 lists the categories of reasons why charter schools are founded--namely (1) to advance an educational vision; (2) to have more autonomy over organizational, personnel, or governance matters, (3) to serve a special population; (4) for financial reasons; (5) to engender parent involvement and ownership; and (6) to attract students and parents. The second column of the table shows the percentage of all charter schools that cited a reason as an important reason (the respondents could cite more than one important reason); the third column shows the percentage of respondents who cited a reason as the most important from the several that might have been mentioned; the remaining three columns show the percentages of newly created, pre-existing public, and pre-existing private schools that cited each reason as the most important.43 The table suggests that these different types of charter schools tended to emphasize different reasons for their founding. Over two-thirds of newly created schools had "realizing an educational vision" as a primary motivation.44 In contrast, half of the pre-existing public schools that converted to charter schools cited "autonomy" as their most important reason. The story for pre-existing private schools is more mixed with realizing a vision, attracting more students, and seeking public funding accounting for most of the founding reasons for the small number (20) of formerly private schools.
Exhibit 19--Reasons for Founding Charter Schools
| |
Percent of charter schools that cited reason as45
|
|
An important reason
|
The most important reason
|
|
Reason for founding charter
School
|
All sites (respondents could cite more than
one reason)
|
All sites (respondents cite the most important reason)
|
Newly created
|
Pre-existing public
|
Pre-existing private
|
|
Realize a Vision
|
61.1%
n=133
|
51.0%
n=105
|
66.9%
|
27.9%
|
35.0%
|
|
Autonomy
|
24.0%
n=53
|
20.8%
n=43
|
7.7%
|
50.1%
|
0%
|
|
Special Population
|
12.7%
n=28
|
12.6%
n=26
|
19.6%
|
2.9%
|
5.0%
|
|
Financial Reasons
|
10.9%
n=23
|
5.8%
n=12
|
.8%
|
10.3%
|
20.0%
|
|
Parent Involvement
|
9.5%
n=21
|
4.9%
n=10
|
4.2%
|
5.9%
|
5.0%
|
|
Attract Students
|
9.5%
n=21
|
4.9%
n=10
|
.8%
|
2.9%
|
35.0%
|
|
Total Number
|
|
n=206
|
n=118
|
n=68
|
n=20
|
The following discussion offers examples of the coding categories in order to illustrate their meaning. To give the reader a sense of the variation in circumstances, we will draw on examples from newly created and pre-existing charter schools, from schools at different grade levels, and schools that had different approaches and goals in founding their charter schools.
To Advance an Educational Vision
We coded 51 percent of the responses as indicating that the most important reason for founding their charter school was to realize an educational vision (see Exhibit 19).46 Most such respondents referred to particular curricular and/or instructional approaches. In many cases, they also contrasted their approach to that of existing public schools, often indicating dissatisfaction or frustration with the public system. Their educational approaches vary greatly from one school to another, spanning virtually a master list of the curricular and instructional reforms currently being tried in many public schools across the nation--e.g., project-based curricula, experiential learning, thematic instruction, team teaching, cooperative learning, instructional uses of technology, and so on.47 The range of distinct curricular and instructional approaches cited was almost as large as the number of charter schools themselves, as the examples below illustrate.
Before discussing examples, we can highlight the quantitative difference between newly created and pre-existing schools by referring to Exhibit 20. This table is a repeat of Exhibit 19, except that row percentages are displayed. The second column of the table shows the percentage of all charter schools that cited each reason as the most important; the percentages for this column are the percentage of the number of the 206 sites that were coded. The percentages in the remainder of the table should be read across each row; this shows the percentage of newly created, pre-existing public, or pre-existing private schools citing each reason. The data in this table indicate that of the survey schools citing realizing an educational vision as their most important reason for founding the school, three-quarters were newly created schools and the remainder were pre-existing schools. Several examples drawn from the fieldwork may suggest some of the curricular and instructional approaches that might be included in a school's educational vision, and also indicate how varied the approaches are.
Exhibit 20 -- Percentage of Reasons That Newly Created and Pre-existing Schools Had for Founding Charter Schools
|
Most important
reason
|
Percent of Charter Schools that Cited Reason as Most Important
|
|
All Sites48
[read percent of column?]
|
Newly created
|
Pre-existing public
|
Pre-existing private
|
|
[read percent across row?]
|
|
Realize a vision
|
51.0%
n=105
|
75.2%
|
18.1%
|
6.7%
|
|
Autonomy
|
20.9%
n=43
|
20.9%
|
79.1%
|
0%
|
|
Special population
|
12.6%
n=26
|
88.4%
|
7.6%
|
4.0%
|
|
Financial reasons
|
5.8%
n=12
|
8.3%
|
58.4%
|
33.3%
|
|
Parent involvement
|
4.9%
n=10
|
50.0%
|
40.0%
|
10.0%
|
|
Attract students
|
4.9%
n=10
|
10.0%
|
20.0%
|
70.0%
|
|
Total number
|
n=206
|
n=118
|
n=68
|
n=20
|
Newly created charter schools. The following three examples are all newly created charter schools.
- One K-10 school of about 400 students offers a curriculum based on Mortimer Adler's Paideia Principles. All students are taught a common core curriculum that meets or exceeds the graduation requirements of the sponsor district, supplemented by intensive instruction in arts, sciences, and foreign languages. Multi-aged classrooms and small student-teacher ratios are in place, and learning goals and benchmarks are proposed for all grades. The charter calls for using the Paideia Principles, modes of instructional delivery including didactic teaching, coaching, and seminar methods.
- A 7-12 school with under 200 students takes quite a different approach: it is an "on-line" distance learning school. Students work almost exclusively at home and communicate with their teachers and other students via the Internet, modems, e-mail, and fax. The physical infrastructure of the school looks nothing like a typical school; there are no classrooms. Instead, there is an office for the principal, another for the technology director--packed with modems and computers--and a few meeting rooms. Students, teachers, and administrators use the technology to communicate one to one and in "electronic classrooms" via scrolling electronic chat sessions. The curriculum is delivered electronically and is consistent with the state's curriculum frameworks. Students typically download instructional units to complement their texts and other audio or visual media.
- A K-12 charter school, serving about 400 students, emphasizes an "unstructured" learning environment in which students who have had difficulty with conventionally structured public schools (or children whose parents felt their students would prosper in a less structured learning environment) can have more individualized curriculum and instruction. The school has a multi-aged and fluid grouping of students (with no tracking), takes an approach that curriculum should be meaningful to the students' experiences, stresses experiential learning and community service, and assesses students primarily on the basis of student portfolios, demonstrations, and performances. Each student has a teacher advisor who meets regularly with the student.
The founders of these newly created charter schools described above created public schools that would realize their clearly different educational visions. In the examples below, we describe educational visions of three pre-existing schools.
Pre-existing schools. Of the charter schools that cited an educational vision as the most important founding reason, three were pre-existing private schools that said they wanted to convert to charter schools so that public school students would have access to their particular educational vision.
- One such example is a formerly private Montessori school that wanted students of all socioeconomic groups to have access to its approach to schooling for children (pre-K-6). Montessori is a distinctive educational approach, featuring individualized instruction with students learning at their own rate in their "learning spaces," multi-aged grouping of students, an international curriculum, and special Montessori teaching materials. This school had sought to become a magnet school in the public system prior to the passage of the charter law, but met resistance that it could not overcome. Though there was stiff opposition to its becoming a charter, a small group of teachers and parents were able to convince its sponsor to support the charter.
Of the schools that cited an educational vision as the most important founding reason, 19 charter schools were pre-existing public schools. Similar to the private schools, the pre-existing public schools in the field sample that converted to charter schools generally had an established educational vision and program at their school prior to their conversion.
- One pre-existing charter school wanted to implement a school restructuring plan that had been developed by the school community over several years. Their vision included a stronger voice for faculty and the community in the school's governance structure, more flexibility in scheduling, and smaller class sizes. The school community felt that converting to charter would allow them to avoid the roadblocks that had prevented the implementation of their vision. For example, they believed that the charter would allow them to realize cost savings if they bought services from vendors other than the school district. Enhanced flexibility resulting from the charter enabled the school to modify its schedule and governance structure. The savings realized from the school's use of alternate vendors were used to reduce class size.
This example notwithstanding, nearly twice as many converted public schools indicated that more autonomy, rather than educational vision, was their most important motivation for becoming charter schools. The next section discusses autonomy issues in more detail. To Have Autonomy
The second most common reason cited for becoming a charter school was the desire for more flexibility from laws, regulations, or conventional practices: One-fifth of the surveyed schools cited autonomy as their most important reason. Specifically, they included autonomy with respect to personnel matters, educational programming, state laws, and independence in financial management.
Pre-existing schools. Eighty percent of the 43 survey schools that cited autonomy as the most important factor in their decision to charter were pre-existing public schools (see Exhibit 20). Schools of this type visited in the field study had a well-developed educational approach and vision of schooling. However, they felt their further development and ability to serve their students was hampered by district regulations, collective bargaining agreements, and/or state laws. An example may make this motivation for autonomy more concrete.
- One large middle school located in a low-income, urban area enrolls more than a thousand students, less than 10 percent of whom are white. The school's program provides a multi-ethnic, student-centered learning environment to meet the needs of urban youth. The school was an integration magnet before it became a charter school. Its overall goal is to provide one advanced curriculum to guarantee every student access to and success in any high school program. However, its primary reasons for becoming a charter school were to have control over hiring and firing, to have autonomy in the running of the school and its budget, (e.g., waivers from district procedures) and to have control over the use of instructional staff. School staff and parents became convinced that their continuing efforts to improve would be stifled without freedom of decision in these areas. Their desire for autonomy concerned freedom from local control more often than state control.
Other pre-existing public schools cited the need for fiscal autonomy, freedom from the state education code, and flexibility for creating their educational programs.
Newly created schools. Although pre-existing schools were the most likely to cite the need for autonomy as a primary reason for becoming a charter school, nine newly created charter schools also believed they could not have flexibility in their educational programs without starting charter schools. In the fieldwork sample, three newly created charters believed they needed autonomy from district or state rules in order to develop non-traditional partnerships with members of the community. For example, one was founded to help business and labor work with university-based education reformers and the district in an effort to improve the post-school outcomes of youth through the school-to-work movement. The founders did not believe that they could develop this flexible partnership within the district.
To Serve a Special Population
Twenty-six schools, or 12.6 percent of the survey sample, said they founded charter schools to serve a special population of students, including "at-risk," language minority, disabled, or ethnic and racial minority students. Almost all of these are newly created charter schools (see Exhibit 20). The following examples convey a clearer picture of the goals of this type of charter school.
- One K-12 charter school of fewer than one hundred students was established to address the negative experiences of Native American students in traditional public schools, such as high dropout rates and overrepresentation in special education programs.49 Its founders believed that the charter school could also help to fill a large gap in community-based services; without it, Native American youth in need of public-funded treatment and other social services would have to leave the reservation in order to get them. The school uses multi-grade classes in large open rooms, and makes use of the community as a learning resource. Class sizes are small, and students typically work in groups. The school focuses on addressing students' social, emotional and behavioral needs in order to establish a foundation for academic progress.
- Another newly created school was established to meet the developmental and academic needs of language minority early adolescents who are making the transition to English. The school currently enrolls fewer than 200 students in grades 7-9, the vast majority of whom are Hispanic. Based on their observations at their children's elementary schools, parents believed that the large urban district lacked programs adequate to meet their children's needs in the district's large middle schools. Despite intense opposition from within the district, the charter was granted and the school is now a community-based school, with extensive parent involvement. The small school setting allows for smaller class sizes, which the parents believe are essential if their children are to learn both English and the remainder of the curriculum.
Financial Reasons
Of the twelve schools that cited financial reasons as the most important reason for founding their charter school, one-third are former private schools (see Exhibit 20).50 Data from fieldwork suggest that some pre-existing private schools felt they had to accept a loss of autonomy in order to receive the public funds which enabled disadvantaged children to attend the school.
- For example, a well-established private school with a distinctive and successful approach to early childhood schooling wanted to make the program affordable to any parent who wanted it. By converting to charter, the school could accept additional parents who otherwise could not pay the school's tuition. (Leaders at the school estimate that two-thirds of the parents who currently enroll children in the school could not afford the tuition if the school had remained private). In this case, the private school had previously charged a tuition rate that was lower than the state public school funding level.
Seven of the schools that indicated financial reasons as the most important reason for converting to charter status were pre-existing public schools. Their financial reasons varied. One well-established school, for example, with a reputation as a restructured school serving a diverse student body, believed that as a charter school, it could more easily raise funds for special projects and for reducing class size.
Whether public or private schools, pre-existing or newly started, such financial dimensions merit more detailed investigation than the Study could undertake in its first year. In future research, we plan to address questions such as:
- How do the funding (operating and capital) levels of charter schools compare to other public schools?
- What (operating and capital) funding advantages and disadvantages do charter schools experience compared to other public schools?
To Enable Parent Participation
Nearly half (48 percent) of all the surveyed schools reported some form of parent or family participation requirement.51 Though only ten survey schools cited parent involvement as the most important reason for founding a charter, parent participation was a recurrent theme at many fieldwork sites.52 The field team made a preliminary classification of the field sites as falling into one of three groups--namely, schools that follow a more-or-less conventional approach to parent involvement, schools that differ in a variety of ways from standard parent involvement activities, and schools that make parent participation a core aspect of their learning process.
Our fieldworkers characterized about one-fifth (19 percent) of the charter schools visited in year one as using conventional approaches to parent involvement or home-school relations. In these charter schools, parent involvement activities centered on home-school communication and family involvement in school decisions in the form of a few parents serving on the school site governing board or on school-wide committees. These schools did not develop opportunities for most parents to participate in the school's operations.
Slightly fewer than half of the charter schools visited in year one (43 percent) could be described as diverging from the more conventional approach to parent involvement or home-school relations. Though parents were generally not an active or driving force in the school's obtaining its charter status in these cases, these charter schools differed from more conventional approaches to parent involvement in one or more of these ways: (a) offering activities such as workshops, support groups, regularly scheduled parent meetings, and referrals to other service agencies; (b) offering opportunities for parents to volunteer at the school or requiring parents to volunteer their time, both in the classroom and around the school (e.g., the lunch program, custodial or maintenance work, transportation, working in the office); and (c) offering parents at-home learning activities to support school objectives, or requiring parents to sign the homework completed by their child. A small number of these sites (five) had articulated plans related to parent involvement that differ fundamentally and systematically from conventional approaches to parent involvement, but these plans had yet to be implemented.
More than one-third of the charter schools in the fieldwork sample had extensive and systemic parent involvement. Respondents often cited such involvement as a critical reason for founding the charter schools. These schools appeared both to require and enjoy an exceptionally high level of parent commitment and involvement in a number of areas: activities to enhance parent knowledge and skills, home-school communication, governance, support for classroom instruction, operational support, volunteering and participation at school-wide events, and activities to promote family involvement in learning activities at home.
- For example, one K-7 charter school was previously a parent cooperative preschool. It converted to charter status because parents wanted to continue to play an active role in their children's education. Parents (or their designees) are required to contribute one-half day per week per child (for up to two children) to the school. Much of the parent volunteer time is spent in the classroom, with as many as four (and sometimes more) parents in the classroom at a time, working with small groups of students or one to one to support for instructional activities. Time is scheduled before and after each class period for parent volunteers to meet with the teacher to discuss classroom goals and debrief. Parents, teachers, and students all spoke of the benefits of having parents in the classroom.
Programs such as these attracted a population of parents who wanted to participate actively in the education of their children, and the schools had implemented strategies for them to do so. Parents were involved in every aspect of the school during the entire day. Most of these schools, like the example above, required parents to commit to volunteering at the school a minimum number of hours per year. In some sites, continued enrollment of a child was dependent upon his or her parents completing the minimum number of hours of service. Parents and staff had forged a working relationship to manage all aspects of the school. A few of these schools were offering home school programs or distance-learning, allowing parents to play a major role in the child's instruction. In these cases, teachers provided support to parents so that they could fill this role.
Thus, charter schools vary greatly, with respect to the extent of parent involvement with the schools. While some have a conventional approach, others are working to develop more active and comprehensive roles for parents, and some have practices in place that could serve as models for other public schools. This variation suggests that future research might examine the following questions:
- What parent participation practices do charter schools develop, and what factors account for the variation in their approaches?
- To what extent does a charter school's approach to parent participation affect charter school operations, educational practices, and student outcomes?
- Do some charter schools provide models of parent participation that could be adopted by other public or charter schools?
To Attract Students
Ten of the surveyed schools said that their most important reason for founding a charter school was to attract students and parents.53 Of these, seven were pre-existing private schools. Four of these formerly private schools have fewer than 100 students, while two have fewer than 200 students. The motivation here generally involved providing access to the schools' educational vision for public school students.
Next year's fieldwork will examine in greater depth the reasons for founding charter schools, and will explore the impact of the state's legislative context on founding and operating charter schools. The Study will investigate the extent to which reasons for founding charter schools affect student achievement, other measures of student learning, and how charter schools are implemented.
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[Who Originates Charter Schools] 
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