A Meta Analysis of Research Questions and Charter Schools

Hey everybody!

So this past week (in addition to the several weeks before that,) was spent meticulously reading, noting, and annotating our sources, which culminated in us creating our annotated bibliographies which were due today. Although it was not intended to be an arbitrary checkpoint in the research process (which it is not), it is still satisfying having a means of quantifying or demonstrating the work we have done so far. While I am proud of the many (and yes I mean MANY) hours that I spent working to construct my annotated bibliography, it is time to move onto constructing our outlines for our literature reviews. The first step in this process, which also happens to be the subject of our blog post, is to create our research question, which can be created only after reading the literature that pertains to my field. With that in mind, here it is:

“How are successful, high-achieving charter schools in the state of Arizona founded and maintained to uphold their creationary goal of improving educational practices?

First of all, while this question is as specific as it can be right now, I do envision it needing to be tweaked, especially considering that it will depend upon how I structure and conduct my research. That being said, let me justify why I think my question is pertinent to the field of charter school education.

From my research, I have found that their is a conglomerate of types of charter schools that all differ in educational philosophy, intended demographic, funding, educational and administrative techniques, etc. With that being said though, all charter schools have the same general over-arching purpose, which is to provide the students they enroll with the best educational opportunities to allow them to succeed in their designated fields of interest, whether that be in art and music, or math and science. From the reading I have done so far, several researchers have argued that there are universal traits that high-achieving charter schools employ to be successful. According to one researcher, these traits include autonomous school leadership, active recognition and measurement of academic achievement, strong staff relationships and professional development, a sense of belongingness from students,  parent and community support, and high quality social systems surrounding the students. Another study, however, argues that an extended school day and year, an emphasis on recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers, data-driven monitoring to track student progress, and making the effort to change culture of achievement, are what creates successful charter schools.

Being that there is a disparity between this research, I intend to observe charter schools (although I do not know in what capacity yet) to see what techniques result in benefit among student outcomes. Although I do not know if I will be focusing only on BASIS Scottsdale, or other BASIS schools as well, or other charter schools, or if I will be comparing BASIS to a public school, I still think that this question can be answered, regardless of which route I pursue. With that being said, I understand how this means that my question is most likely too vague, but until I determine my methodology, I think that it will suffice.

Delving into the actual wording of the question itself, a few words that I need to analyze are “Successful” and “high achieving.” Although the definition of this will differ based upon school, in general, when I use these words, I mean how effectively do these schools teach their children the material they need to learn, and also how do their results compare to other schools in the local area. Since this is a fairly subjective definition, school achievement is generally measured using standardized test scores since it is one of the least biased methods of conducting this type of research.

Moving on, I chose to focus on the state of Arizona for my research since this is the state that I will be conducting research in. Additionally, I used this as a means of narrowing down my scope. With that being said, I may need to change how narrow my scope is by focusing on the phoenix area, or by focusing on a specific type of charter. However, once again, I think this level of specificity cannot be exactly determined until I start designing my research.

The last part of this question that needs to be analyzed is the “founded and maintained to uphold their creationary goal of improving educational practices?” part. For this segment, I chose to say founded and maintained because I want to know how these schools operate, both in the classroom and at the administrative level, to see what it is that allows them to achieve more than other schools. Lastly, the “creationary goal of improving educational practices” part describes one of the purposes of charter schools, which is to develop new and effective pedagogical methods which can then be implemented elsewhere. If these schools are receiving higher test scores than other schools, then they must be doing something right. As a result, I want to determine what it is that they are doing that allows them to achieve these scores.

As per usual, I hope you were all intrigued by my long winded explanations of material that only I am fascinated about.

Until next time,

That crazy meta kid who is doing a school project about school

(Word count: 890)

When you form your thought process into a sequential set of points that can be described by some function

Hey everybody! Being that today’s post is going to be a lot longer, a lot more dry, (and a lot more horrible to go through), I thought that I would start with an encouraging and optimistic meme that describes my cheerful sentiments towards this class.

Purpose of literature review:

1. Understand what charter schools are and why they were created.
2. Understand the various perspectives for analyzing charter school achievement and analyze what the differing results say.
3. Understand the difference between how charter schools work in theory and how they work in reality.
4. Analyze why certain groups benefit more from charter schools than others.
5. Justify why looking at BASIS Scottsdale can provide insight into the industry as a whole.

Theme 1: Charter Schools in Theory

• Premise 1: Charter Schools were created to be autonomously run, yet publicly funded, educational institutions where new pedagogical and administrative methods could be tested out and implemented to try and increase the quality of public education.
• (Betts and Tang 2011), (Berends 2015), (Ladd and Bifulco 2006), (Lubienski 2003)
• “Charter schools are public schools funded by the government, but their governance structure differs from that of traditional public schools in that they are established under a charter run by parents, educators, community groups, or private organizations to encourage school autonomy and innovation” (Berends 2015)
• The purpose of charter schools is “to promote educational innovation, diversification of educational programs and learning environments, and expanded opportunities for teachers to become more involved in program design and school governance” (Ladd and Bifulco 2006)
• “As the first state to authorize charter schools, Minnesota established them as vehicles to "(1) improve pupil learning; (2) increase learning opportunities for pupils; (3) encourage the use of different and innovative teaching methods" (Minnesota, 1991, 124D.10, Sub. 1). This language is exactly the same in at least 14 states, and nearly verbatim in many others.” (Lubienski 2003)
• Sub claim 1:  With this goal in mind, some charter schools were created to provide alternative schooling options to fit the needs of specific demographics of students (i.e. special education, high achieving, arts oriented)
• Sub claim 2: Other charter schools were created to allow for greater community or parental input/involvement in the educational process (greater feedback from teachers, stronger influence on the curriculum)
• Premise 2: The effects of the charter school industry can be analyzed using Market theory, which is the economic perspective on charter schools, and Institutional theory, which is the sociological perspective on charter schools.
• Sub claim 1: Market theory is the economic approach to analyzing charter schools which looks at the impacts of charter schools on students and believes that greater competition in the education industry will result in greater gains in student achievement.
• Sub claim 2: Institutional theory is the sociological approach to analyzing charter schools which claims that although charter schools are intended to be different from public schools, in practice both schools end up looking more similar in how they run and operate than different, which results in not much academic gain.
• Sub claim 3: While they do not explicitly state which perspective they use, most studies which analyze charter school achievement use at least one of the two approaches, however that often use parts of both.
• Sub claim 4: These are the two conflicting theories which research attempts to answer to see which one is more correct.
• Evidence 1: Berends 2015 provides an overview of the progress that has been made in charter school research over the course of their existence. In this, he discusses the various approaches used to analyze the effectiveness and achievement of charter schools.
• Evidence 2: Lubienski 2003 analyses and critiques the market oriented approach which he takes to analyze charter schools, while also comparing the technique to the institutional theory. He concludes that charter schools provide an alternative to the monarchistic reign that public schools have on the education industry, which results in greater competition, and therefore improvement

Theme 2: Charter Schools in Reality

• Premise 3: Charter Schools are often run by management organizations to oversee the administrative and business oriented parts of running a charter school
• Sub claim 1: Management companies can be either for-profit (called EMOs), or nonprofit (called CMOs).
• Sub claim 2: The existence of for-profit management organizations not only raises ethical questions, but also allows for the potential mismanagement of funds
• Sub claim 3: Despite the potential risks of EMOs, both CMOs and EMOs generally produce the same levels of achievement
• Sass 2004 provides a meta-analysis of charter schools in the state of Florida and demonstrates that for-profit companies see no difference in achievement from nonprofit counterparts
• Premise 4: There is a large variation in the effectiveness and achievement of charter schools
• Betts and Tang-studies show both
• “Examining all of these results as separate parts of a whole, we conclude that overall charter schools look to be serving students well, at least in elementary and middle schools, and probably better in math than in reading. There appears to generally be more variation in the results for math than reading.”
• Premise 5: General trends show that traditionally disadvantaged groups (those that are low income, need special education, or are a minority) benefit most from charter schools.
• Sub claim 1: The existence of charter schools has helped to close the achievement gap between high and low income areas
• CREDO 2013 is the largest ever study conducted in the field of charter school research. After analyzing the test results of several million students, it revealed that disadvantaged groups of students tended to benefit the most from attending a charter school.
• Premise 6: The quality of charter school education tends to improve after several years of operation
• Sub claim 1: The data implying that the level of education increases for charter schools that have operated for a longer period of time may be skewed as a result of ineffective charter schools closing within their first several years of operation.
• Solmon, Paark, and Garcia shows that over time, charter schools exceed public schools in reading and math.

• Premise 7: Although charter schools are given greater autonomy, this also results in less accountability among the schools
• Wells 2002 takes a more pessimistic view of charter schools by looking at what is wrong with the charter school system and how it needs reform. One such point she brings up is the lack of accountability of charter schools, especially in the state of Arizona, which at the time had the strongest laws in favor of charter schools
• Counterclaim 1 : The closing of ineffective charter schools, as well as for the addition of new, more comprehensive studies shows that while lack of accountability is still an issue, there are countermeasures in place to help combat this issue.
• Counterclaim 2: Additionally, new studies have shown that charter schools have improved student achievement in some locations, which implies that if students are learning more than if they had attended a public school, then the school values improving education and therefore feels accountable for their actions.
• Research Question: What about the charter school BASIS Scottsdale results in its high achieving academic atmosphere?
• Justification for question: As has been seen, there is a large variation in the types, purposes, and quality of charter schools. However, despite the countermeasures in place to prevent the continued existence of ineffective charter schools, many still persist today. However, to help alleviate this problem and potentially find ways of improving these schools instead of closing them, one method would be to do an in depth analysis of a successful charter school. Being that BASIS Scottsdale is the best charter school in the country, it is a prime candidate to be analyzed for this purpose.

After looking at my line of reasoning, I understand and expect that some claims will need to be moved around or embellished, but I think that this includes most of my major claims that I will need to include for my literature review. Also, I have a lot more evidence that I can include to support my points, but as of right now, I am more focused on getting my claims down than on burying everything with evidence. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this thrilling post, and are excited for those coming in the future.

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*insert crying meme again*

my mind when I finish writing these posts.^

Papa Johns and the Free Market System

Hey everybody. Over this past week, we as a class spent a large chunk of time watching, analyzing, and deconstructing John Oliver’s segment about the ubiquitously horrible and corrupt charter school system run by a bunch of greedy selfish monsters (*cough* sarcasm *cough*).  It was truly eye opening to realize that I am nothing more than a sh*tty pizza (I don’t know if I can swear in this but I’m just gunna go for it) being made by a Papa John’s pizza shop. Sarcasm aside though, I did find it particularly helpful to dissect Oliver’s argument about charter schools, especially considering that my project revolves around charter schools and what it is about specific one’s that make them more successful than others. (This also explains why I just randomly knew all those statistics about charters schools).

Anyways, in addition to learning more about my topic as the class discussed the video, I continued to read more about the multitude of studies and meta-analyses that attempted to understand and describe the state of charters schools throughout the United States (a task which I have learned often results in super vague conclusions). After reading a bunch of 50 plus page papers and trying to decipher some crazy cryptic statistics, I began to understand how all of the various influences can affect the performance of a charter school.

To understand how these various influences (socioeconomic status of student and community, state charter laws, school philosophy, etc.) affect student outcomes, two sources that can be put in conversation with one another are my sources by Christopher Lubienski and the Center for Research on Education Outcomes from Stanford University (CREDO). To save you all the boredom, I won’t go to in depth regarding what each one is about; however, in order to put them in conversation with one another, I have to provide at least a brief description of each.  With that being said, the Lubienski source is one of the foundational sources regarding the theory behind how charter schools affect the educational industry. From what I have seen, this paper is often cited in other well-known studies, and is one of the most important papers regarding market theory and education. On the other hand, my CREDO source deals far more with actual results than theory, as it is not only the most current study regarding the effects of charter schools, but it is also the largest one ever conducted in the field. As a result, it provides the most accurate data concerning the level of achievement of charter schools.

What is interesting to note between these sources is that in theory, having a greater number of options for schooling should result in increased achievement for all schools, because the competition between charter and public schools should result in both parties improving their teaching methods. However, in reality, charter schools have far fewer positive gains than would be expected. Although there are numerous social factors at play, this discrepancy between actual and expected results is one of the largest ongoing debates in this field today.  This discrepancy also helps to justify my research, because providing an in depth study of one of the most successful charter schools has the potential to help understand why some charter schools excel, and others fail.

Anyways, hopefully that last part was not too boring and dry. I am currently writing this in a redbull fueled, post vector-calc take home test dazed state and so I can’t really tell. With that being said, I’m signing off now, because I probably need some sleep. (593 words)

When John Oliver Basically Disses Your Research

To start this post off, I just wanted to begin by discussing my current progress and what I was able to accomplish this week. To quantify my progress, as of right now (although I plan on doing some more tonight), I am currently in the middle of reading my sixth paper. In addition, I have several more sources that I have compiled that I have not read yet, as well as for several people and leads that I need to look further into. To give a more holistic approach, I feel as if I am continuously working on narrowing down and refining my research as I read each source and learn more about my field. This week, the majority of my reading was primarily about charter schools, including information about what they are, their history, and their overall effectiveness.

Now, to get back on track with what I am supposed to talk about, for my literature review, I anticipate that a large portion of it will consist of defining what charter schools are and what the current debate surrounding them are. To go more in depth, I plan on defining what charter schools are, followed up by a brief history of their existence, and then what their purpose is. After providing this general information, I intend to discuss the overall effectiveness of charter schools and how this conflicts with their intended purpose. From there, I plan on delving deeper into the debate and academic conversation about charter schools by looking at the different approaches of looking at charter schools, including the market theory approach, which is more from an economic perspective, and then a sociological perspective, which focuses on understanding the social factors, including demographics, social atmosphere, etc., that contributes towards the success or failure of a charter school. As I am going into the different ways of analyzing charter schools and the debate that surrounds them, I can include how charter schools have to succeed, otherwise they will be shut down.

After I am done discussing the general debate between charter schools, I can start providing information about what creates a successful school, and more importantly a high achieving academic environment. After discussing some important pedagogical methods, I then intend to explain why BASIS (maybe just Scottsdale, maybe the other ones too, I don’t know yet) will be the school that I will be focusing my research on. Since it is the best charter school in the country, and the second best school in the country, I can assert that the school is doing something right to produce such high achieving students. As a result, by immersing myself in its academic atmosphere and really understanding everything that is going on here, I can then determine what it is about the school that makes it so successful. From there, I can finally explain my goal of how I want to find specific aspects about BASIS that can be replicated in other charter (or maybe even public) schools in order to increase their academic performance as well.

So I know that I am already 100 words over the minimum word count, but keep reading guys because talking about sources is obviously super fun. Anyways, one of my foundational sources that I want to discuss ( I know so fun) is my source by Mark Berends. This paper by Berends, which was actually only published a year ago, provides a general overview of the debate and history surrounding charter schools over the approximately 20 year period that they have been around. Although this source has some important information in it, what was more useful about it is that it provided me with some of the most important sources in the field since it provided an overview of the history of charter schools. Because of this, it was really helpful in finding other sources and areas of inquiry to pursue.

Lastly, after watching the video, I would love to put together a rebuttal video against what John Oliver said about charter schools. Although I agree with the fact that there are some corrupt charter schools out there, I believe that he cherry-picked evidence and painted charter schools as a whole in a bad light. If we could spend class time discussing this, then I would be all for it, however even if we do not, then I would still like to work with the people in either the other research or class, or just Mrs. Haag, to put together the video. Being that my research topic is directly tied to what he discusses, it explains why I am so passionate about this idea.

Anyways, once again, I went way over the word count in this post, but it helped me to think about my literature review in a more concrete way, so it doesn’t really bother me. One last thing though, before you go, I just wanted to say sorry about how many times I said "charter schools." I know it was a lot. Okay, you can go now.

(word count: 835)