The Role of States in Enhancing Performance of Charter Schools
In the United States of America, states play an integral role in enhancing the performance of charter schools as well as promoting their financial integrity via an array of actions such as assisting authorizers in addition to overseeing their operations. Besides, 28 of the 39 states surveyed reported gathering data regarding the degree to which charter schools had attained their academic objectives (Bender, 2002).
With respect to monitoring the authorizers, majority of the states surveyed reported having taken some steps to establish these authorizers were executing their mandate of oversight (Baker, Gersten and Lee, 2002). About half of the states surveyed also reported offering financial assistance to assist authorizers play their responsibility of overseeing charter schools or permit them charge charter schools they authorize a small fee (United Sates Government Accountability Office, 2005).
Various studies have concentrated on whether charter schools improve the academic performance of students who are enrolled in them or not. According to the U.S. GAO (2005), longitudinal students-level information has been utilized to explore the achievement growth after and before students are enrolled to charter school.
The findings of this studies have demonstrated that students enrolled in charter schools were performing better academically just as their colleagues who are enrolled in public schools (United States Department of Education, 2003).
However, these studies revealed that charter schools were in overall not having a direct impact with respect to enhancing the performance of students enrolled in them. Some studies demonstrated that some students even performed worse in charters schools than if they had remained in public schools (United States Government Accountability Office, 2005).
A study was carried out to examine whether competition provided by charter schools has the potential to improve the academic performance of public schools (U.S. GAO, 2005).
The study hypothesized that if charter schools are successful in drawing students from private schools as well as traditional public schools, this development may promoted improvements in addition to reforms in the existing schools within the U.S.
The study employed school-level information to investigate how charter schools in Michigan influence the academic performance of traditional public schools within the same state. The findings of this study revealed that competition provided by charter schools played an integral role in enhancing the academic performance of traditional public schools (Tomlinson, 1999).
The funding of charter and Public schools
Numerous studies have been carried to examine the funding of charter and public as well as its effect to academic improvement of these schools. Buddin (2012) affirms that the findings of these studies have revealed that tradition public schools are more funded as compared to charter schools.
A study carried out by Batdoff et al. found out that the gap of funding that existed between charter schools and public schools stood at 19%. A similar study carried out by Miron and Urschel revealed that there existed a big gap with respect to funding between traditional public schools and charter schools (about 30%) (Scholastic Instructor, 2010).
This difference was attributed to the fact that traditional public schools spent more in food services, transportation, students support as well as special education compared to charter schools. Hunuschek, on the other hand, is of the opinion that the differences that exist between traditional public schools and charter schools with respect to funding do not influence the academic performance of these schools (Skilton-Sylvester, 2011).
Enrollment Effects
Some studies have investigated how the option provided by charter schools influence the enrollment pattern with the U.S. A study conducted by Glomm et al. discovered that charter schools were more popular in areas where there is more expenditure related to special education, had more private schools as well as in areas that were having people from diverse ethnic backgrounds (Buddin, 2012).
Curriculum Development
Majority of charter schools, which are newly created move via distinct stages in order for them to develop into functioning learning institutions. According to Premack (1998), these phases encompass preoperational phase (between 1 and 2 years), operational phase (between 2 and 3 years) and lastly institutional operational phase (between 3 and 5 years).
As stipulated by Peebles (2004), the activities related to operational as well as preoperational have the capacity to delay the opening of chart schools and as such, there is a need to give them more attention in the course of the initial phases of development.
When developing a curriculum for a charter school, the role of the experience of teachers as well as their support is integral. Hassel (2003) contends that various studies have indicated that the teaching staff full of experienced teachers has the capacity to contribute positively to the development of school curriculum.
In addition, surveys play a critical role in the development of a school curriculum. A survey that was carried out by Marblehead charter school revealed that majority of the parents wanted as stronger emphasis in mathematics as well as allocation of more time when teaching the subject. When developing a school curriculum, teachers must be given more time to plan, create, adopt as well as assessing the proposed curriculum (U.S. Department of Education, 2003).
Challenges Schools Face When Developing Curriculum
Several studies have highlighted some of the challenges directors, parents as well as teachers face when developing a curriculum. Peebles (2004) opines that a lack of sound policies, tradition as well as structure can unconstructively affect the outcome of a curriculum. To effectively deal with these issues, a detailed school reform design can play a critical role in enhancing the academic achievement of students in both traditional public as well as charter schools (Peebles, 2000).
Besides, in order to successfully adopt the school curriculum, teachers in both public and charter schools must receive professional development as well as necessary training. Moreover, teachers must mirror and create beliefs, habits, as well as knowledge that offer support to the development of school curriculum (Allsopp, Kyger and Lovin, 2007).
Conclusion
This literature review has revealed that states play an important role in enhancing the performance of charter schools as well as promoting their financial integrity via an array of actions such as assisting authorizers in addition to overseeing their operations. Moreover, studies have indicated that tradition public schools are more funded as compared to charter schools (Allsopp, et al. 2008).
With respect to enrollment effects, several studies have demonstrated that charter schools were more popular in areas where there is more expenditure related to special education, had more private schools as well as in areas that were having people from diverse ethnic backgrounds.
There are three phases involved when developing a school curriculum. These phases include preoperational phase (between 1 and 2 years), operational phase (between 2 and 3 years) and lastly institutional operational phase (between 3 and 5 years) (Bailey, 2009). Some of the challenges schools face when developing a curriculum includes lack of sound policies, tradition as well as structure can unconstructively affect the outcome of a curriculum.
References
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