Two interesting national stories

The trend across the country, accelerated since the Republican sweep in 2010, has been to grant charters more autonomy, expand their reach, and remove limits on growth.  Washington and Alabama, two states that have never had charter schools, have legislation pending that would authorize them.

Two stories in national publications highlight this trend, along with a few exceptions.  This first one, whose approach is biased, lists the big changes in effect or pending across the country.  The author uses it to show "how powerful the charter school lobby is today."

This one is about the different approaches in New Jersey and Georgia.

Legislators in Georgia voted recently to make it easier for the state to approve new charter schools, regardless of whether local authorities want them or not. Their measure awaits voter approval. In New Jersey, the legislature is considering a measure to slow down the state’s approval of charters, by requiring local endorsement of each charter application. The New Jersey measure still requires passage by the Senate, where it has yet to be introduced, but if successful, charter experts say it would represent an unusual direction for charter school legislation.

Most efficient schools

This is the first post in a series analyzing the financial data of charter schools.

Schools have to spend money on administration, even though none of them have administration as one of the goals of their charter.  But, like janitorial work, administration is something that has to be done--for compliance, efficiency, and a consistent vision.

The premise of this post is that the schools that run effectively that spend the least on administration are the most efficient schools.

Using data from schools' Annual Financial Reports and the Superintendent's Annual Report, I analyzed spending on the administrative functions of each charter school on a per student basis.  The findings are interesting, if you're a little nerd like me.

The most efficient school in the state? Utah Virtual Academy, which spends $341 per student on administrative services.  (Actually Success School spends $0, but since they just outsource to the district, I don't count that as accurate.)  The top non-virtual schools are Liberty Academy ($458 per student) and Navigator Pointe ($459). A complete list is below.

The least efficient?  As you'd expect, they tend to be small schools.  Uintah River ($2,545!) and Moab ($1,818).

High schools typically have a higher administrative burden.  They range from Merit ($508) to City Academy ($1,603) to Uintah River, obviously.  The complete list is below.

(And the disclaimer: All data comes from 2011 AFRs accessed from USOE's finance website, using enrollment data from the Superintendents Annual Report, accessed also at USOE's website.  This post defines Administrative Services as the salaries, benefits, and purchased services in District, School, and Central support functions.  If you don't know what those are, you probably haven't read this far in the post.)

School	Admin Spending
88 Success School	$                           -
5F Utah Virtual Academy	$                       341
6C Liberty Academy	$                       458
9B Navigator Pointe Academy	$                       459
5D George Washington Academy	$                       467
81 Walden School	$                       481
A9 Success Academy	$                       481
8E Merit College Preparatory Academy	$                       508
94 Thomas Edison Charter School North	$                       516
8C Mountainville Academy	$                       519
7E Gateway Preparatory Academy	$                       542
2D Channing Hall	$                       550
5C Legacy Prepatory Academy	$                       556
7G Summit Academy High School	$                       559
5G Quail Run Primary School	$                       592
8D Open Classroom School	$                       596
7F Excelsior Academy	$                       602
A4 Summit Academy	$                       614
9E Providence Hall	$                       626
2G Vista at Entrada	$                       627
8B American Leadership Academy	$                       651
82 Freedom Academy	$                       651
4C Lakeview Academy	$                       660
6F Early Light Academy at Daybreak	$                       665
2E Karl G. Maeser	$                       666
1C Odyssey School	$                       673
3C Entheos Academy	$                       676
6D Noah Webster Academy	$                       680
1D Renaissance Academy	$                       689
1F Quest Academy	$                       693
8F Hawthorn	$                       695
3F Venture Academy	$                       712
4G Maria Montessori Acacemy	$                       715
A2 The Ranches Academy Inc	$                       716
4E Dual Immersion Academy	$                       720
4D Syracuse Arts Academy	$                       735
7C Monticello Academy	$                       740
3G Bear River Charter School	$                       740
7B Ronald Reagan Academy	$                       757
6G Weilenmann School of Discovery	$                       782
9D Canyon Rim Academy	$                       783
1G Oquirrh Mountain Charter School	$                       790
2B Lincoln Academy	$                       794
68 Ogden Preparatory Academy	$                       798
86 Pinnacle Canyon Academy	$                       810
8G Good Foundation Academy	$                       828
A6 North Davis Preparatory Academy	$                       830
5B North Star Academy	$                       847
1B Utah County Academy of Sciences	$                       859
4B Wasatch Peak Academy	$                       859
83 AMES	$                       888
2F Rockwell Charter High School	$                       917
7D Salt Lake School for Performing Arts	$                       947
4F Salt Lake Center for Science Education	$                       950
89 Soldier Hollow	$                       959
93 John Hancock	$                       964
3B Beehive Sci. & Tech. Acad.	$                       978
95 Timpanogos Academy	$                       978
A5 Itineris Early College High	$                    1,008
3E C.S. Lewis Academy	$                    1,087
97 Salt Lake Arts Academy	$                    1,101
90 Tuacahn Hs For Performing Arts	$                    1,115
9C Paradigm High School	$                    1,132
A8 East Hollywood High	$                    1,135
A3 DaVinci Academy	$                    1,221
98 Fast Forward Charter High School	$                    1,241
5E Edith Bowen	$                    1,331
3D Spectrum Academy	$                    1,336
A1 NUAMES	$                    1,459
2C Intech Early College High School	$                    1,483
74 American Preparatory Academy	$                    1,501
9F Open High School of Utah	$                    1,526
87 City Academy	$                    1,603
1E  Guadalupe Schools	$                    1,654
A7 Moab Community School	$                    1,818
92 Uintah River High School	$                    2,545

News around the country

Now that the Utah legislative session is over, here's some catch up news from across the country:

• The State Superintendent of South Carolina hopes that its legislature will pass a bill to expand charters, arguing they provide an education alternative for children who may benefit from a different learning approach. In education, "one size does not fit all," said his spokesman Jay Ragley. 
• On the other hand, Washington's governor pledges to veto a bill to bring charters to her state. Washington is one of eight states without charter schools. Voters have three times rejected allowing them to operate in the state, in 1996, 2000 and 2004. The Legislature rejected charter school bills on several other occasions before they reached the ballot. 
• Massachusetts gets a $12 million grant from the US Department of Education to expand charter schools.    This is a pool of money that used to come to Utah.
• Some key Democrats in Georgia say they'll support letting the state authorize charter schools, joining the Republican majority to bring this choice to Georgians for the first time. All three men said their decisions rested solely on local considerations and would not lessen their support of their Democratic caucus or party. 

Alianza is a cool school

Fox 13 visits the new hybrid school that focuses on at-risk students.

Priorities

The Legislature passed the education appropriations bill for 2013.  It includes a small increase in overall funding, plus growth throughout the public school system.  The DNews reported that many projects and programs weren't funded because, "(Senator Lyle) Hillyard said funding simply ran out after the ninth item on the list." So, priorities that the legislature had set below number nine simply didn't get funded.

The two big charter school items, the startup grants and the moral obligation for bonding, were prioritized as number our, just below an increase in the WPU and funding for enrollment growth. These charter priorities were even placed higher than the State Board of Education's top priorities. How does that happen? When your Association is strong enough that it rivals or surpasses the strength of the others.

What the research shows about school choice

The American Enterprise Institute is out with an article today about the various findings of school choice studies.  Different research bodies, both in favor and opposed to school choice, have published studies, and advocates on each side can cherry pick studies that support their particular point of view.  AEI's piece looks at all the research in total, looking at he conclusions in aggregate.  Key sections:

Regarding School Voucher Programs: 

Among voucher programs, random-assignment studies generally find modest improvements in reading or math scores, or both. Achievement gains are typically small in each year, but cumulative over time. Graduation rates have been studied less often, but the available evidence indicates a substantial positive impact. None of these studies has found a negative impact.

Other research questions regarding voucher program participants have included student safety, parent satisfaction, racial integration, services for students with disabilities, and outcomes related to civic participation and values. Results from these studies are consistently positive.

Among voucher programs, these studies consistently find that vouchers are associated with improved test scores in the affected public schools. The size of the effect in these studies varies from modest to large. No study has found a negative impact.

Regarding Charter Schools:

Among charter schools, some high-quality studies show that charters have positive effects on academic outcomes. In other contexts, the findings are more mixed. In general, charters seem most likely to have positive effects on student achievement at the elementary level, in math, if the school is part of a well-established charter network such as the KIPP schools (Knowledge Is Power Program) if the student has been enrolled for a while, if the student is disadvantaged, and if the school is in an urban area.

Fewer studies have examined the competitive effects of charter schools on achievement in traditional public schools, and the studies that do exist vary greatly in quality. The more rigorous studies generally show that charter competition is associated with modest increases in achievement in nearby public schools. It seems clear that school choice poses no threat to academic outcomes in the public school system.  Opponents predicted school choice would harm public schools, but that harm has not materialized.

A third area of study has been the fiscal impact of school choice. Even under conservative assumptions about such questions as state and local budget sensitivity to enrollment changes, the net impact of school choice on public finances is usually positive and has never been found to be negative.