This presentation was an invited address at the opening session of the 2021 Annual Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching (CAST) in Ft. Worth, Texas. The presentation will investigate student achievement using three perspectives. The presenters will first ask if one could recognize a great teacher. They will then report research…

Using six waves of the Schools and Staffing Survey and the National Teacher and Principal Survey that span two decades, our study explores the differences between urban charter and traditional public school teachers and how those differences become more or less pronounced over time. During this time frame, the charter sector experienced…

2024 marked another year of considerable legislative progress by charter school supporters across the country. Advocates notched significant policy wins from coast to coast, including in red, blue, and purple states. This report provides highlights from this year's state legislative activity across the country, organized into the following…

Although charter schools are frequently afforded flexibility from many state laws that govern traditional public schools, a growing number of charter school teachers have now unionized and introduced collective bargaining to the charter sector. Using data from a detailed content analysis of teacher CBAs from California, we compare the…

The purpose of this study was to understand how traditional public school principals perceive charter schools. In this qualitative study, I interviewed ten traditional public school principals from the same rural public school system in North Carolina. The principals shared their perceptions of charter schools based on their current and previous…

This report provides information on enrollment in the Texas public school system from the 2013-14 through 2023-24 school years, based on data collected through the Texas Student Data System. Enrollment data are provided by grade, race/ethnicity, gender, and economically disadvantaged status, and for instructional programs, nontraditional school…

Despite a decline from the previous year, rates of chronic absenteeism for Wisconsin's students -- defined as missing more than one in ten school days for any reason -- remained at historically high levels in 2023 for children of every race, grade level, and socioeconomic status. District leaders point to many causes, including lasting impacts of…

By being public entities, charter schools must meet U.S. federal legislative mandates (e.g., Section 504) in providing a free, appropriate public education (FAPE) to students with disabilities--just as their traditional district public school counterparts must do. This legal update reviews a prominent case, "Lawton et al. v. Success Academy…

This study examined the experiences of Hmong American parents who navigate the U.S. public school system through Hmong American charter schools. The purpose of this study was to determine the successes and challenges, as defined and described by Hmong American parents, in the hope of creating a positive and effective educational experience for…

The purpose of this research is to understand the relationship among school conditions, teacher job satisfaction, intention to stay, and school type (charter versus traditional public schools) and to determine if school conditions, and thereby job satisfaction, influences teachers' intention to stay in the field. Understanding this is critical to…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how novice special education teachers describe the influence of collegial emotional, instrumental, informational, and appraisal support in public charter schools on their career decisions in the southwestern region of the United States. House's theory of social support and Vygotsky's…

For more than twenty-five years, public charter schools have served Ohio families and communities by providing quality educational options beyond the local school district. But it's no secret that we've also had a long-standing debate over whether increasing school choice impacts students who remain in traditional districts. In important--and…

For decades, charter schools have been promoted as a panacea for increasing competition in the educational marketplace. Supporters argue that increased choice forces neighboring schools to innovate, while opponents contend that charters "skim" students and funds away from traditional public schools (TPS). We test the two differing views…

The meteoric rise in charter schools has several implications for traditional public schools and their students. One understudied implication is the geographic competition for students. Given traditional public school boundaries are often fixed while charter school boundaries are more flexible, charter schools can draw students away from existing…

With the incidence of autism on the rise, it is imperative to identify factors that contribute to education. Despite the accessibility and low cost of public institutions, many parents choose to educate their autistic children in private and charter school settings. This study examined the difference in beliefs among public, private, and charter…