Going Charter? A Study of School District Competition in Wisconsin

Autor/inn/en	Witte, John F.; Schlomer, Paul A.; Shober, Arnold F.
Titel	Going Charter? A Study of School District Competition in Wisconsin
Quelle	In: Peabody Journal of Education, 82 (2007) 2-3, S.410-439 (30 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	Weitere Informationen
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0161-956X
DOI	10.1080/01619560701313051
Schlagwörter	Competition; School Districts; Open Enrollment; Charter Schools; Motivation; Case Studies; Entrepreneurship; Correlation; Educational Resources; Student Needs; Educational Indicators; Models; Educational Change; Wisconsin + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Wettkampf; School district; Schulbezirk; Open entry; Offenes Bildungssystem; Charter school; Charter-Schule; psychologische; Motivation (psychologisch); Case study; Fallstudie; Case Study; Unternehmungsgeist; Korrelation; Bildungsmittel; Educational indicato; Bildungsindikator; Analogiemodell; Bildungsreform
Abstract	The question that drives this article is why some school districts decide to open up charter schools and others do not. Several answers are plausible: (a) entrepreneurial initiative, (b) structural explanations, and (c) spatial competition. We use data for the state of Wisconsin derived from extensive case studies of 19 charter schools and quantitative data on Wisconsin school district from state files and the U.S. Department of Education common core databases. We find evidence to support all three explanations for why districts "go charter." First, in almost every school and district we visited for case studies, at the heart of either the district or the charter school, and often both, there were entrepreneurial administrators, school board members, teachers, or parents. Our evidence was anecdotal but very consistent across 19 case studies. Second, there are two general sets of structural characteristics that were shown to be quantitatively correlated with becoming a charter district. The first set comprised resource characteristics (size, federal revenue, and available seats); the second set comprised indicators of unmet students needs (the percentage of students eligible for free lunch). Finally, we argue and believe we provide significant evidence that competition is also a motivation for going charter. We posit that open enrollment and charter schools are working together to enhance the flows of students from homeschooling, private schools, dropouts, and other public school districts into charter school districts. Thus using several different indicators and models, estimating both which districts become charter districts and the flow and net gain directly from open enrollment, there is no question that charter schools are increasing competition for students in Wisconsin. (Author).
Anmerkungen	Lawrence Erlbaum. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/default.html
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10