Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Open enrollment charter school'

The primary purpose of this study was to examine how teachers, parents, and students viewed their charter school as effective when effectiveness was defined by the following 11 characteristics: (a) instructional leadership, (b) clear mission, (c) safe and orderly environment, (d) positive school climate, (e) high expectations, (f) frequent monitoring, (g) basic skills, (h) opportunities for learning, (i) parent and community involvement, (j) professional development and (k) teacher involvement. Two exemplary open-enrollment charter schools in Texas were used in this study. All 24 teacher, parent, and student participants completed a questionnaire that addressed characteristics analyzed for each group. The 72 participants in this quantitative study were randomly chosen to respond to items on the School Effectiveness Questionnaire developed by Baldwin, Freeman, Coney, Fading, and Thomas. Data from the completed questionnaires were reported using descriptive statistics and frequency data. Major research findings for the study were as follows: 1. There was agreement among teachers, parents, and students regarding 5 characteristics. These characteristics were: (a) safe and orderly environment, (b) positive school climate, (c) high student expectations, (d) frequent student assessment, and (e) monitoring of achievement and basic skills. 2. Teachers and parents agreed their school demonstrated effective instructional leadership, a clear and focused mission, and a maximized opportunity for learning. On the other hand, students were uncertain their school provided maximum opportunities for learning. 3. Only parents and students were in agreement concerning the parental involvement in their school. In contrast, teachers were uncertain their school provided parent and community involvement. 4. Teachers were also uncertain their school provided strong professional development and included them in the decision-making process for the school.

This dissertation is a compilation of three studies related to public school choice issues. Chapter 2 examines whether access to public schools of choice influences a household’s decision to choose private school for their child. I employ a multistate, individual-level data-set on students and their families — for which I have been granted access to restricted geo-code information. I supplement these data by matching students with their respective school districts using geographic information systems (GIS); I then examine whether relative measures of public school choice (PSC) in a school district influence the household’s public-private school decision. I find slight evidence that households respond to general measures of choice, though the implied effects appear to be trivial. Conditional on the presence of either PSC type of school in a district, I find more consistently significant crowd-out effects for competition measures from magnet schools, while charter school measures elicit stronger private-sector crowd-out effects, roughly three times those of the respective magnet school measures. Chapter 3 examines the statewide educational policies and student, household, and school district-level attributes that influence the demand for interdistrict and intra-district public schools of choice. In the context of a multinomial probit model, I also estimate the demand for private school as a third alternative to attending an assigned school. I find evidence to suggest that households substitute between intra-district and interdistrict schools of choice.. I also find that mobility patterns may significantly increase the probability a household opts out of district. Chapter 4 is an exploratory analysis that examines the qualities that distinguish school districts as net-losers, net-keepers, or net- gainers of students in their public schools. In particular, I examine how public schools of choice affect the net flow of students across the public sector. I find that charter schools appear to locate in districts that are net-losers of students, where students are opting into private school. I also find evidence to suggest that net-loser districts may signal better quality school districts with more diverse options available to facilitate positive student-school matches.

The study examined mathematics and English student achievement, attendance rates, dropout rates, and expenditures per pupil for Texas high school students in both open-enrollment charter schools and traditional public high schools for the 2009–2010 school year. All data were assembled using archived information found at the Texas Education Agency (TEA). This information included the TEA report entitled Texas Open Enrollment Charter Schools Evaluation; TEA Snapshot Yearly Report; and Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) data files. Microsoft Excel (Version 2010) was used to randomly select traditional public high schools categorized as Title 1 and non-Title 1 for comparison with Title 1 and non-Title 1 open-enrollment charter high schools. The IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) (IBM Statistics Version 20) was used for a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) conducted between one independent variable (charter or traditional school) and five dependent variables (mathematics exit-level TAKS scores, English exit-level TAKS scores, attendance rates, dropout rates, and expenditures per pupil). Traditional public high school students had higher or better average mean values than charter schools for mathematics exit-level TAKS scores, English exit-level TAKS scores, attendance rates, dropout rates, and expenditures per pupil. The ANOVA found that four of the five dependent variables were statistically significant at the 0.05 confidence level for the independent variable of school type, whether charter or traditional school. There was no significant difference found between the schools for attendance rates. Effect size calculations, using the eta-squared method, confirmed the comparisons with significant differences.

The need to spur innovation and improve student performance initiated the formation of, under different legislative acts, charter schools that include variations of traditional public schools. With the enthusiasm and level of investment going into the formation of charter schools, it is necessary to explore whether these schools have achieved their objectives. This study explored whether Texas open enrollment charter schools perform bettered compared to Texas public schools. The study applied a causal comparative quantitative research design. School data on graduation and dropout rates, college preparation, attendance rates, and overall performance were analyzed quantitatively. Student achievement data available for statistical analysis includes student performance on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) state assessment from 2007 to 2011. Data analysis for race, special programs, at risk, economically disadvantaged, and limited English proficiency was incorporated. Descriptive statistics and analysis of variance techniques were included in the data analysis. The analysis extended to post hoc tests to determine variables that caused variation. The study found Texas open-enrollment charter schools had more African American students but fewer Whites compared to public schools. Students in public schools performed better than those in charter schools, and Whites yielded the best performance. Charter schools had high dropout rates, low attendance, and low graduation rates, while public schools had low dropout rates, high attendance, and high graduation rates. Finally, public schools had more students ready for college than charter schools.

The purpose of this study was to conduct an in-depth examination of special education services in open-enrollment charter schools in north Texas and to examine relationships between special education compliance and funding. Six questions guided the research: How have the charter schools designed special education services, and do these services meet individual needs of students with disabilities? Have federal education and disability laws affected charter schools' admissions, operations, or student performance ratings? What were the levels of special education funding and compliance with federal and state regulations? Is there a relationship between special education funding and special education compliance with rules and regulations? Studies at the national and state levels have frequently been conducted in the form of surveys, and provide only preliminary information about the status of special education in charter schools. There is a paucity of case specific information about the management and delivery of special education services in open-enrollment charter schools. A within-case study research design was used for this investigation utilizing qualitative methods of structured open-ended interviews, observations at the schools, and document analysis. Administrators at four open-enrollment charter schools were interviewed to gather data for this multi-case study. The data supported the hypotheses related to special education services in open-enrollment charter schools. The schools in this study provided special education services with an inclusion model for the first two years. In their first years of operation, charter schools face challenges of small budgets, few if any special education students, and difficulty finding special education teachers and other staff. In the third year and beyond, the schools were able to add special education services and staff and were more stable in terms of budget and operations. For the time period analyzed, special education costs exceeded special education funding. Compliance with special education regulations was relatively high as services were provided to students with mild disabilities with a high commitment to individualized instruction.

Despite rapid expansion of charter schools since the first enabling legislation was passed in 1991 there remains little understanding of the relationship between charter school law components and their relation to the percent charter school enrollment. This study focuses on the twenty charter school law components identified by the National Alliance of Public Carter Schools as being necessary for a strong charter school law and their correlation to charter school enrollment. Results suggest that, of the twenty components, Multiple Authorizers and Equitable Access to Capital Funding are most strongly correlated with an increase in the percentage of charter school enrollment. An additional five components, Equitable Operational Funding, Access to Retirement Systems, Adequate Authorizer Funding, Automatic Exemptions from State and District Rules and Regulations and Multi-school Charter Contracts Allowed, had a moderate correlation to the percentage of charter school enrollment. Additionally, one component, Authorizer and Program Accountability, shows a negative correlation to the percent of charter school enrollment. These findings suggest that if policymakers desire to increase the percentage of charter school enrollment they should carefully consider inclusion of these components in state law.

As an avenue of educational reform and organizational restructuring within public education, school choice has gained in popularity over the last twenty years. The charter school movement, in particular, has enjoyed a high growth rate since its introduction in 1992. Advocates of charter schools claim the schoolsâ regulatory freedom and unique structure foster improved academic performance and educational success. However, the literature shows charter school studentsâ performance is typically below and, at best, on par with that of neighboring public school peers. Given this mismatch of purported academic advantage and observed performance, this study aims to add to the literature by explaining why parents choose charter schools and remain in charter schools. Using the Texas Education Agencyâ s 2006 Survey of Charter School and Traditional School Parents this study will examine why parents consider different aspects of schooling more important than others. Survey responses will be analyzed to explain possible relationships between factors affecting charter school enrollment, race, and socioeconomic status.
Master of Science

The primary objective of the study is to identify the extent to which the current school choice policy in New Orleans has afforded students in underserved neighborhoods or city planning districts the opportunity to attend quality schools elsewhere in the city. Though all students in New Orleans have access to schools outside their neighborhood, more than two-thirds (68%) of public school students attended a school within their planning district or in the adjacent planning district in the 2011-12 school year. In staying close to home, just one-fifth (22 percent) of students attended a quality school. A clear relationship existed between a planning district’s service level and its socio-economic and racial make-up as well as the performance level of its students’ schools. The results of this analysis suggest that the lack of quality schools in low-income and minority areas significantly limits those families’ access to quality schools even under New Orleans’ far-reaching school choice policy.

Student well-being (as opposed to an overemphasis on learning outcomes or technologies) should serve as the central component of a successful online model for students with disabilities. Historically, research on online schools for students with disabilities has focused on outcomes. One online charter schools growth of the students with disabilities population has outpaced the growth of the general education student population over the past eight years, which is an unusual trend that warrants additional scrutiny. Using anonymous parent and student surveys coupled with in-depth phenomenological interviews, this explanatory mixed-methods study investigates the reasons families of students with disabilities chose online learning at this particular school and what their experiences have been. The findings suggest that parents and students value the learning environment in terms of choosing when, where, and how to learn, and the student experience in terms of safety, support, academics, and teachers. Further analysis suggests the importance of mattering, social safety and connection, open educational resource-enabled pedagogy, and self-determination in providing supportive online learning environments for students with disabilities and their parents. This dissertation can be downloaded at www.delainatonks.com.

In order to understand withdrawal rates in online K-12 schools, it is vital to have detailed documentation of these rates and to describe characteristics of the students who withdraw compared to the students who remain enrolled. Once these characteristics are known schools can develop programs and/or policies that support students who are at risk of withdrawing. This study was a descriptive analysis of (a) attendance, (b) lessons completed, (c) participation, (d) teacher-student communication, and (e) overall performance percentage comparing the means between the enrolled student population and the withdrawn student population using extant data. Four of the five variables, (a) attendance, (b) lessons completed, (c) teacher-student communication, and (d) overall performance percentage, were significant at the p < .01 level. Upon analysis, the results of average lessons per day were not reportable due to problems with the data. The Enrolled group had significantly higher means in the following variables: (a) attendance, (b) lessons completed, (c) teacher-student synchronous contact, and (d) overall performance percentage.

Open enrollment was significant for the overall populations as well as white and Asian subpopulations. Access/Equity was only significant for white students. Thus, importance was the main cause of the model significance regarding open enrollment in AP courses and the percentage of students enrolled in AP courses. This investigation revealed that as schools increased the access and equity in AP programs that successful student performance percentages increased as did AP course enrollment percentages. Also when the variable of importance by principals was placed on AP programs, it typically had a positive impact on student performance percentages yet sometimes caused a decrease in AP course enrollment. The investigation also revealed and was supported by research that the open enrollment practices of a school may cause a decrease in successful student performance percentages. However, open enrollment practices increase student enrollment in AP courses and student success over time. Educational leaders have the natural responsibility to increase student achievement in schools. There must be appropriate practices and procedures put in place and monitored by principals to meet accountability standards and to increase equity in and access to a rigorous curriculum for all students. Based of educational reform and school accountability demands, balancing the benefits of open enrollment for AP programs, cost effectiveness of AP programs, the allocation of scarce resources, and maintaining course validity and rigor are important issues for educational leaders to consider (College Board, 2004).; The goal of this research was to determine whether or not there was a relationship between principals?' reports of practices regarding open enrollment in Advanced Placement (AP) courses and student achievement results on the AP examinations. Because the percentage of the school population enrolled in AP courses and the percentage of students scoring a 3, 4, or 5 on AP examinations were anticipated to impact high school grades in Florida beginning in 2010, research from this study may provide important information to Florida school leaders. Because of school accountability and educational reform initiatives, the study is also important to educational leaders on a national level. Relationships between open enrollment practices shaped by high school principals?' decisions and beliefs and the increased enrollment and student performance on AP exams were examined to allow school districts to make curricular decisions regarding rigorous curricular opportunities based on the importance of designing high school AP programs that provide equity and access for all students. The population for this study included all public high schools and their principals (N=56) in five central Florida school districts that administered AP exams in May 2009 and received a Florida Department of Education assigned school grade during the 2008-2009 school year. A multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to examine the relationships between the percentage of students from a school who took or passed the AP examination (dependent variable) and three independent variables describing principal?'s attitudes toward the school?'s AP program: (a) access and equity practices, (b) open enrollment practices, and (c) a rating of importance of the AP program.; The goal was to determine if the AP examination passing percentage or enrollment percentage could be predicted by these three principal attitudinal variables. The schools?' percentages of students scoring a 3, 4, 5, on AP examinations or taking AP examinations were gathered from the Florida Department of Education website. Principals?' reports of practices were obtained from self-report on the AP Course Enrollment Survey. When examining to what extent, if any, was there a relationship between the principals' reports of practices regarding open enrollment in AP courses and overall student achievement results on AP examinations in five central Florida counties, there were significant predictors based upon the regression model. In predicting the school?'s percentage of white, Hispanic, and Asian populations passing the AP examinations, only the principal?'s perception of access and equity was a statistically significant factor. There were no statistically significant predictors of a school?'s percentage of African American students passing the AP examinations. Neither principal?'s perception of open enrollment nor importance contributed to the model results regarding open enrollment in AP courses and overall student achievement results on AP examinations. When examining to what extent, if any, was there a relationship between the principals' reports of practices regarding open enrollment in AP courses and the percentage of students enrolled in AP courses in five central Florida counties, there were significant predictors based upon the regression model. In predicting the school?'s percentage of students taking AP examinations, only the principal?'s perception of importance was significant for overall and for all student populations.
ID: 028732427; System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader.; Mode of access: World Wide Web.; Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Central Florida, 2010.; Includes bibliographical references.
Ed.D.
Doctorate
Department of Educational Research, Technology and Leadership
Education

The International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma program has been one of the fastest growing accelerated learning programs in recent years. At the high school level, the program offers a focus on critical thinking, combined with the accountability of external assessments of student performance. A significant portion of the program's growth is attributed to its effective marketing, presenting itself as a program that benefits the entire school community, above and beyond the benefits reaped by its graduates. To date, the research literature on IB schools has been clear about the benefits of participation; what remains unclear is how and to what extent the program affects the educational experience of non-IB students as well. In an effort to learn more about these claims, the researcher conducted a qualitative study of an IB school, specifically interviewing teachers and administrators about the IB and its impact on non-IB students. The study identified two general arguments the school was making to this end: 1) the IB benefits the whole school by attracting students (and the funding that follows them) through Open Enrollment, and 2) IB-trained teachers teach non-IB classes, providing the whole school with an improved teacher capacity. The principal findings of this study suggest that offering the IB program benefitted non-IB students in ways that the school claimed--but only to an extent. The results of this study reveal how certain social and political realities emerge alongside program growth, and how these factors influence the distribution of benefits over time. As test scores increasingly signaled program quality, the need to preserve the school's reputation seemed to prompt a corresponding shift of high-quality teachers towards IB. From the interviews, it was clear that IB classes were smaller than general education classes, and that the teachers with the highest status were disproportionately assigned to teach the upper-level classes. When put together, the case study data points at seemingly inevitable inconsistencies between the claims that the IB benefits non-IB students and the ongoing institutional necessities of the program.

Educational Leadership
Ed.D.
The academic intensity of one's high school experience is most important to success in college. Tracking causes in-school segregation that most often results in low levels of participation by students of color and low socioeconomic status (SES) in upper level classes, including Advanced Placement (AP). Using a practitioner's vantage point, this dissertation is a mixed-method case study of AP course-taking at one inner-ring suburban high school that eliminated its lowest track prior to the first year of data analysis and allowed open enrollment to AP courses prior to the third. To track the impact of these changes, five years of AP course-taking data were analyzed for participation by students of color and those of low SES. The data revealed an increase in AP course enrollment by students of color from 12% to 22%, and by students of low SES from 2% to 8%. Interviews with 19 influential educators followed the quantitative analysis. In five years, this diverse Pennsylvania public high school moved from a system characterized by a number of barriers preventing low-income and minority students from taking higher level courses to an institution that has provided a rich choice of AP course offerings, established a Black Scholars program to encourage the academic success of students of color, and created open enrollment to its AP courses. While all teachers had some struggles adjusting to teaching AP courses in open enrollment era, teachers assumed either a resistant stance and intimidating approach to non-traditional AP students or a progressive stance, inviting and supporting non-traditional students in their course. Those teachers who created an emotionally and academically safe environment, expressed caring for their students, and employed flexible approaches to instruction and assessment attracted the most diverse set of students to their AP courses. Lincoln is not necessarily a model school as more work is needed to continue to create rigorous, inclusive learning environments in all classes, yet this study indicates that if students have the opportunity to take on challenging coursework like AP and work to master the course with the support of excellent teachers, long-term reward is sure to follow.
Temple University--Theses