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.

(word count: 1374)

*insert crying meme again*

my mind when I finish writing these posts.^