We study the total, market-level effects of charter schools, and their mechanisms, on a national level and across multiple outcomes. Using a generalized difference-in-differences method, we find that increasing the charter market share by 10 percentage points increases math and ELA elementary/middle test scores of the entire geographic district in…

The National Longitudinal School Database (NLSD) comprises three files, making up a near-census of all schools and districts in the United States from school years 1990-91 to 2019-20. The three files are the Public School File, Private School File, and District File. As evident by the titles, the first two files report data at the school-level for…

We study the combined effects of charter schools, and their various mechanisms, on a national level and across multiple outcomes. Using difference-in-differences and fixed effects methods, we find that charter entry (above 10 percent market share) increases high school graduation rate in geographic districts by about 2-4 percentage points and…

Research on charter schools tends to focus on direct and immediate effects on student outcomes. However, there may be unintended indirect effects on, for example, the teacher labor market. Charter schools tend to hire younger, less experienced teachers with fewer traditional teaching credentials, which may reduce the equilibrium quantity of…