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Purpose: While previous research has examined the impact of school turnaround models, less is known about the principals who lead these turnaround schools. This study examines the personal demographics, experience, educational background, prior school performance, salaries, and turnover of principals who led two turnaround models in Tennessee's lowest performing schools: a state-run Achievement School District (ASD) that has not yielded positive nor negative effects and local Innovation Zones (iZones) that averaged positive effects on student achievement over six years. Methods: We analyze longitudinal, administrative data from the Tennessee Department of Education from 2006–2007 to 2017–2018 to compare pre- and post-reform means and trends in principal characteristics between ASD, iZone, and similarly low-performing comparison schools. Results: ASD schools had higher principal turnover rates and lost principals whose schools performed higher while iZone schools retained more principals and lost principals whose schools performed lower. Moreover, iZone schools employed more experienced principals, more Black principals, and principals with higher graduate degree attainment and paid their principals more than ASD schools. Salary differences between ASD and iZone schools were not explained by principals’ characteristics, such as years of experience. Implications: Our findings reveal differences in leadership characteristics between iZone and ASD schools that were consistent with differences in the effectiveness of the two turnaround approaches.

In recent years, the federal government has invested billions of dollars to reform chronically low-performing schools. To fulfill their federal Race to the Top grant agreement, Tennessee implemented three turnaround strategies that adhered to the federal restart and transformation models: (a) placed schools under the auspices of the Achievement School District (ASD), which directly managed them; (b) placed schools under the ASD, which arranged for management by a charter management organization; and (c) placed schools under the management of a district Innovation Zone (iZone) with additional resources and autonomy. We examine the effects of each strategy and find that iZone schools, which were separately managed by three districts, substantially improved student achievement. In schools under the auspices of the ASD, student achievement did not improve or worsen. This suggests that it is possible to improve schools without removing them from the governance of a school district.

Since their inception in 1992, the number of charter schools has grown to more than 6,800 nationally, serving nearly three million students. Various studies have examined charter schools’ impacts on test scores, and a few have begun to examine longer-term outcomes including graduation and college attendance. This paper is the first to estimate charter schools’ effects on earnings in adulthood, alongside effects on educational attainment. Using data from Florida, we first confirm previous research (Booker et al., 2011) that students attending charter high schools are more likely to graduate from high school and enroll in college. We then examine two longer-term outcomes not previously studied in research on charter schools—college persistence and earnings. We find that students attending charter high schools are more likely to persist in college, and that in their mid-20s they experience higher earnings. C

In the academic and policy debates over the merits of charter schools, two things are clear: First, they are here to stay and, second, their quality varies widely. Policy makers therefore need to understand how to design charter laws that promote the creation of high-performing schools. Crucial to this discussion is the charter authorizing process, which varies across the nation. In some states, authorizing power is held exclusively by local school districts, whereas other states allow a range of authorizers that may include not only local districts, but also nonprofit organizations, counties, higher educational institutions, or a state agency. In this paper we use individual student-level data from Ohio, which permits a wide range of organizations to authorize charter schools, to examine the relationship between type of authorizer and charter-school effectiveness as measured by students’ achievement trajectories. © 2014 Association for Education Finance and Policy

As school choice options have evolved over recent years, it is important to understand what family and school factors are associated with the enrollment decisions families make. Use of restricted-access data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study allowed us to identify household location from a nationally representative sample of students and to match households to the actual schools attended and other nearby schools. This matching is significant as previous research generally has not been able to link individual households to school enrollment decisions. Using these data, we examined the role that socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity play in school enrollment decisions. One of our more interesting results suggests that the newest public alternative, charter schools, attracts families with higher socioeconomic status than those that traditional public schools attract. The attraction of charter schools, however, unlike traditional public schools, appears to be racially and ethnically neutral. Families do not choose a charter school because of its racial or ethnic composition, nor do race and ethnicity within a household influence its choice of charter schools. Other socioeconomic factors influencing charter school choice are more similar to factors explaining private school choice than to those factors explaining the choice of traditional public schools. The findings suggest that policies governing the design of charter schools should focus on broader socioeconomic diversity rather than race only. C � 2013 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

The first charter school law was passed in Minnesota in 1991 and with it, a new school reform movement began. After two decades, 41 states and Washington D.C. have adopted charter legislation. This special issue provides an opportunity for scholars to reflect upon the promises and limitations of charter schools and to offer policy advice for those in a position to influence future reforms. Together, the papers within this special issue examine the achievement effects of charter schools, their cost effectiveness, the competitive pressure created by charter schools, the degree to which charter schools are innovative and how some of the operational and policy features of charter schools may affect outcomes.

A premise of charter school initiatives has been that these schools have direct benefits for the students attending them and indirect benefits for other students by creating competition for traditional public schools to improve their performance. This study uses a two-pronged approach to assess whether California charter schools are having indirect effects on students in traditional public schools. First, we examine how traditional public school principals react to the introduction of charter schools. Second, we assess whether competition from nearby charters is affecting student achievement outcomes for students that remain in traditional public schools. The survey results show that traditional public school principals felt little competitive pressure from charters. Similarly, the student achievement analysis shows that charter competition was not improving the performance of traditional public schools. These results suggest that California charter schools are having little effect on the climate of traditional public schools.

The charter school movement is nearing its 25th anniversary, making this an opportune time to take stock of the movement by addressing the following questions: Where do charter schools locate? Who do they serve? Who manages them? Who teaches in them? Most importantly, what are the effects of charter schools on the academic performance of students who enroll in charters and on students who remain in traditional public schools? We review research findings that shed light on these questions.

In the national effort to improve educational achievement, urban districts offer the greatest challenge as they often serve the most disadvantaged students. Many urban leaders, including mayors and school district superintendents, have initiated charter schools, which are publicly supported, autonomously operated schools of choice, as a mechanism of improving learning for these disadvantaged students. In this analysis, we examine the effect charter schools are having on student achievement generally, and on different demographic groups, in two major urban districts in California. Student achievement results suggest that charter schools are having mixed overall effects and generally not promoting student achievement for minorities.

Since the inception of charter schools over a decade ago, policymakers have wanted to know how charter schools are performing.

I. INTRODUCTION Currently, there is a large theoretical and empirical literature that has examined the demand and supply of publicly provided goods and services (Bergstrom and Goodman, 1973; Inman, 1978; Bergstrom et al., 1982; Rubinfield and Shapiro, 1989). This literature has formed the foundation for an understanding of the mechanisms of publicly provided goods and services. Intertwined in this literature are evolving theories of intergovernmental relationships and the effect these relationship has on the provision of publicly provided goods and services. Collectively, this research has helped articulate broad themes on the appropriate roles of governments and the efficient provision of publicly provided goods and services. However, this research has been underutilized in determining the appropriate provision of specific services. In this current research, the authors examine a specific federal program, the Department of Education's Impact Aid program, and draw on the existing literature of the provision public services to estimate the adequacy of funding. The results have direct implications for the Impact Aid program, but the analysis also has implications for the provision of other government services and as an empirical example of the effect of intergovernmental aid programs. Overview of Impact Aid Program The Impact Aid, originally created in 1950, (1) is a nearly $1 billion program constructed to reimburse local school districts for federal activity within the districts. These activities could include the placement of federal employees and their families on or near nontaxable federal property, which could create two adverse effects for the school district. First, federally connected students may create an additional cost burden for a local school district, and second, the school district may have a reduced tax base. On this premise, the federal government reimburses the school district through Impact Aid for the additional burden federal activities create within the district. Currently, the program provides funds for 1.2 million children in over 1400 school districts nationwide; as a result, the program not only affects students directly associated with these federal activities, such as children that live on Indian reservations and military bases, but also all other students who attend schools within these districts. Of the various activities, military bases plays an important role of the Impact Aid program. Impact Aid supports a portion of the education expenditures for 416,000 military-related students attending public schools operated by the local school district. About 37% of these students reside on military bases that are not subject to local property taxes. The remainder resides in local communities and support local schools explicitly through property taxes (if homeowners) or implicitly through rental payments (if renters). Both on- and off-base military residents work on federal facilities and do not contribute directly to the local tax bases through levies on their employment site. Finally, all military members have access to on-base shopping facilities that do not collect local sales taxes. The premise of Impact Aid payments is that military families are not paying their fair share of local school revenues because they are insulated from a portion of the local tax liability. The primary schooling option for military families assigned in the United States is the local public school system. (2) Most military-related children live in civilian communities and attend nearby schools like their civilian counterparts. Children in on-base residences generally attend an on-base school that is operated by the school district for the nearby community. The Impact Aid law has received bipartisan support, but there has been continuing debate over whether the program reimburses local school districts adequately. In this current research, the authors draw on the existing literature of publicly provided goods and services to estimate the adequacy of funding for the publicly provided Impact Aid program. …

Many argue that the composition of a school or classroom-that is, the characteristics of the students themselves-affect the educational attainment of an individual student. This influence of the students in a classroom is often referred to as a peer effect. There have been few systematic studies that empirically examine the peer effect in the educational process. In this research, we examine the peer effect with a unique data set that includes individual student achievement scores and comprehensive characteristics of the students' families, teachers, other school characteristics, and peers for five countries. The data allow an examination of peer effects in both private and public schools in all countries. Our analysis indicates that peer effects are a significant determinant of educational achievement; the effects of peers appear to be greater for low-ability students than for high-ability students. The finding is robust across countries but not robust across school type. © 2000 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Charter schools are an educational reform that provides alternatives to the traditional public school system for students and parents. They are granted greater autonomy for management of the school but are subjected to greater accountability for results. In this chapter, we tackle four contentious policy issues surrounding these schools of choice. First, we examine the profile of students attending charter schools and how this affects the profile of students in traditional public schools. We then compare funding between charter schools and traditional public schools. Next, we review the literature on the effects charter schools have had on the achievement of their students. Lastly, we ask how charter school competition has affected the performance of traditional public schools.

Following a state takeover of the Philadelphia public schools in 2002, 45 schools were turned over to private managers, making Philadelphia the site of the nation’s largest experiment in the private management of public schools. This study examines achievement effects in the privately managed schools, as well as in schools with district-led interventions, and examines these effects in the context of districtwide trends in achievement.

One of the biggest public school reform movements in the past decade has been the passage of charter school laws. Forty states and Washington, DC have approved legislation that allows charter schools to operate within their jurisdictional boundaries. The academic research thus far has focused on where charter schools have been located and the achievement consequences of the schools. This paper addresses a direct effect of charter schools by examining their enrollment consequences. We find that in Michigan approximately 17 percent of the students who enroll in charter schools were previously enrolled in private schools and approximately 83 percent move from the traditional public schools.

Currently, charter schools represent one of the fastest growing movements of educational reform. The first charter school opened in 1992 and there are now over 3,400 charter schools nationwide. Despite this growth, we are only beginning to learn about the performance and operation of these schools. This article adds to our knowledge of charter schools both by examining the finances of charter schools in California, which has more charter students than any other state, and by highlighting their fiscal challenges. Using survey data of California charter and conventional public schools, the results suggest that the degree charter schools are struggling with resources and facilities depends upon charter school type.