A Study of the Effects of Charter Schools on Student Achievement,Attendance,and Selected Mitigating Factors in a Midwestern State’s Midsize Urban School Districts

Abstract

Charter schools in urban environments have been scrutinized for their effectiveness. This study attempted to determine whether students attending Midwestern urban charter schools outperformed students in traditional schools on the state’s accountability system over a 5-year time period. Using a quasi-experimental research design, data were collected from 31 Midwestern urban school districts, along with data from 88 adjacent contiguous charter schools during the 2008 to 2012 school years. Findings in this study suggest that students who transferred from traditional public schools to charter schools did not outperform academically as their corresponding counterparts in mathematics and reading, and had lower attendance rates, over the first three consecutive years of their attendance. In the succeeding 2 years, however, charter school students outperformed traditional students in both reading and mathematics, and had greater attendance rates, than students attending traditional public schools. The study also found that a student’s ethnic and socioeconomic background had a significant influence on student outcome measures.