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Charter schools are increasingly being heralded as a solution to the dismal education condition of many schools and school districts across the United States. Despite the proliferation of charter schools and their supporters, the school choice debate remains contentious. This paper seeks to advance the school choice debate by shifting the discussion away from whether charter schools are positive or negative, to explaining why research has found evidence that supports both claims. I ask: what explains the variance in student achievement in different charter schools? To answer this question I analyzed data from all Texas open enrollment charter schools. The empirical analysis suggests that school expenditure has a moderating effect of student achievement. Increased expenditure predicts increased student performance on Texas Academic Achievement Tests. The model also helps explain variance in school expenditure. Private revenue, such as grants and donations, is shown to be highly correlated with educational expenditure. The data suggest that Texas charter schools with higher private revenue will be able to spend more on education expenses and, as a result, student achievement will be expected to increase. The paper concludes that Texas charter schools may indeed respond to competitive pressures, as the school choice advocates predict. However, funding appears to have a major impact on schools’ abilities to respond to pressures to increase student achievement. If schools are not properly funded, no amount of competitive market-like pressures can produce sufficient academic achievement. This finding has important implications for the school choice debate, as well as for state and local government. The model suggests that Texas school funding levels (when not supplemented by large grants or donations) are not sufficient to allow schools to respond to competitive market-like pressures for increased student achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The No Child Left Bahind Act of 2001 impacts most school districts. Many of the regulations require changes to existing programs and practices, thus there is confusion among administrators. For Texas school districts, implementing NCLB is problematic considering a 12 percent cut in appropriations needed to balance the state budget. This paper focuses on the the provisions to help low-achieving children in challenging achievement academic standards. The measure is difficult to achieve for several reasons. 1) it is difficult for districts to indentify and reach under-served children because of legal restrictions on privacy;. 2) Changing state accountability measures many confound assessments required by NCLB. Texas changed its accountability instrument in FY2002-2003. 3) Provisions to expand programs are fiscally problematic. And 4) A highly quaified work force is problematic for Texas which has a shortage of certified teachers (U.S. Department of Education 2002). These concerns show the importance of this paper. In many cases, school administrators will be the agents of organizational change in order to implement NCLB. This paper should identify innovative change mechanisms that can transform schools and increase student achievement. The researcher will examine Texas budget records from the 2003 legislative session to assess cutbacks in educational spending and will interview a select group of school administrators to assess difficulties implementing NCLB in their districts. The interviewees will be doctoral students in the Educational Leadership program at San Houston State University that hold administrative posts. The research should give audiences an understanding of the difficulties of implementing programs that are conceived and passed into law by politicians It should also identify the creativity that school administrators need to achieve the required results of NCLB within their budgets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charter schools are increasingly being heralded as a solution to the dismal education condition of many schools and school districts across the United States. Despite the proliferation of charter schools and their supporters, the school choice debate remains contentious. This paper seeks to advance the school choice debate by shifting the discussion away from whether charter schools are positive or negative, to explaining why research has found evidence that supports both claims. I ask: what explains the variance in student achievement in different charter schools? To answer this question I analyzed data from all charter and traditional schools in the seven largest urban Texas schools districts. The empirical analysis suggests that school expenditure has a positive and significant impact on student achievement. Urban Texas charter schools appear to respond to competitive pressures for increased academic achievement by increasing teacher salaries and hiring more teachers. Contrary to expectations, however, revenue levels do not seem to impact expenditure levels in the charter schools examined. If expenditure helps explain student achievement levels in charter schools, as this analysis suggests, a deeper understanding of expenditure variation is necessary to more effectively predict when charter schools are likely to have positive impacts on student achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the impact of private funding on teacher turnover and student performance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]