Archived Information
The State of Charter Schools 2000 - Fourth-Year Report, January 2000
Charter schools are held accountable for the achievement of their students. Some charter legislation speaks specifically of improving student achievement as a goal for charter schools; nearly every charter school used standardized assessments to measure student achievement and most used other nonstandardized assessments as well. More than one-third of the charter schools used seven or more different types of assessments to measure student achievement and gauge progress toward school goals.
- Typically, schools use the results of standardized tests for accountability purposes. In 1998-99, nearly every charter school used standardized assessments of student achievement (96 percent), though a higher percentage of charter schools used norm-referenced assessments (86 percent) than criterion-referenced assessments (62 percent).
- The results in 1998-99 are similar to prior years' results showing that assessment methods are generally consistent across newly created and pre-existing schools. The assessment methods with the most variation (about 10 percent)--performance assessments, parent satisfaction surveys, student interviews or surveys, and behavioral indicators--were used by a greater percentage of pre-existing public than newly created or pre-existing private schools.
- The majority of charter schools also used nonstandardized assessments. Charter schools measured student achievement through student demonstrations of their work (89 percent), student portfolios (81 percent), and performance assessments (74 percent). Charter schools used parent surveys (83 percent), behavioral indicators (76 percent), and student surveys (71 percent) to measure progress toward other school goals.
- The use of assessments was generally consistent across states. In every state except Ohio, at least 70 percent of charter schools used five or more methods of assessing student achievement and progress toward school goals. Every school in Kansas used at least five of the seven types of assessments.
- Over one-third (34 percent) of charter schools used all seven types of assessment to measure student achievement and progress toward other school goals. This pattern varied by type of charter school with a higher percentage of pre-existing public schools (45 percent) than newly created (32 percent) or pre-existing private (29 percent) using seven different methods of assessment.
Estimated Percentage of Schools Using Various Assessment Methods
NOTE: These tables draw on all 975 open charter schools that responded to the survey. These items have been asked on both the new and follow-up surveys and the results reflect the most recent school responses. In 1999, 857 schools answered the new or follow-up survey and 118 schools' responses are drawn from 1998 results. Standardized assessments refer to either norm-referenced or criterion referenced assessments. The more specific questions about whether the standardized assessments were criterion-referenced or norm-referenced were asked about only in 1999, and data are based on responses from 857 open charter schools.
Across-State Comparison of Estimated Percentage of Schools Using Various Assessments
Percentage of Schools Using Multiple Assessment Methods
1 The multiple assessment methods in this table and the preceding table refer to the seven different types of assessment common to the new and follow-surveys including standardized assessments, performance assessments, student portfolios, student demonstrations, parent surveys, student interviews or surveys, and behavioral indicators.
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