Archived Information

What Obstacles and Implementation Problems Do Charter Schools Encounter?

Exhibit 21 tells only part of the story about barriers. We know from the fieldwork that newly created charter schools experience somewhat different barriers than do converted pre-existing schools. Consequently, before interpreting the quantitative results, we will present additional data about the barriers for newly created and pre-existing charter schools.

Exhibit 21--Barriers to Developing and Implementing Charter Schools

For each barrier, Exhibit 22 compares the percentage of difficulty for newly created and pre-existing charter schools; Exhibit 23 shows the mean difficulty scores for newly created and pre-existing charter schools, along with the results of a statistical test which indicates whether the difference in the mean scores is likely to have occurred by chance (a probability of less than 0.01 is extremely unlikely to have happened by chance).⁵⁴ These data suggest that newly created and pre-existing charter schools experience some similar but also systematically different barriers--a finding confirmed by the fieldwork.

Exhibit 22--Barriers for Newly Created versus Pre-existing Charter Schools

Exhibit 23--Mean Difficulty of Barriers for Newly Created versus Pre-existing Schools

**Significant at the .001 level

These tables also show that a lack of start-up funds posed great difficulty for more charter schools than any other barrier. In addition to a lack of start-up funds, the most commonly cited barriers were a lack of planning time and inadequate funding for operations. These barriers are interrelated. In effect, they form a cluster representing a more general dimension of difficulty that could be called resource limitations. The tables show that resource limitations are the most pervasive problems, generally causing the highest level of difficulty for the most sites.

To further explore connections among the barriers, we conducted a factor analysis, the results of which are shown in Exhibit 24.⁵⁵ We found that three clusters of barriers or dimensions underlie the difficulty scores. The first cluster reflects barriers concerned with resources (money and time). The key barriers that most define this cluster are--as suggested above--lack of start-up funds, inadequate operating funds, inadequate facilities, and lack of planning time. The second cluster can be called political resistance, for it most often involves resistance from union or bargaining units and from school districts, as well as conflicts about bargaining agreements and district regulations. The third cluster involves regulatory problems. The key barriers here concern the hiring of non-credentialed teaching staff, health and safety regulations, other state regulations (including financial, liability, and retirement issues), and accountability requirements.

Exhibit 24--Possible Dimensions of Difficulties

**Significant at the .001 level

A cluster indicates that some charter schools are likely to cite as difficult more than one of the barriers that have the greatest weight in defining a cluster. Exhibit 25 shows the results of computing the percentage of charter schools that cited at least one of the key barriers in a cluster. The table shows that resource limitations are the most pervasive difficulties, with about two-thirds of charter schools reporting difficulty. Political resistance much more widely affects pre-existing schools that converted to charter status--three out of five such schools report difficulty. Regulatory barriers are much less common, but they are the cause of real concern for about one-quarter of charter schools.⁵⁶

Exhibit 25--Percentage of Charter Schools Citing at Least One Type of Barrier within a Cluster

Given this quantitative background, the following sections describe and exemplify issues involving these three dimensions of difficulty.

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[Why Charter Schools Are Founded]

[What Obstacles and Implementation Problems Do Charter Schools Encounter? (part 2)]