First Year Implementation Of Californias School Accountability Report Card

Author : Sherrie Reed
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781339261010
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (61 download)

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Download or read book Efforts in School Reform written by Sherrie Reed and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In response to a public perception that schools in the U.S. are failing to provide equal opportunities for all students and to ensure student attainment will meet the demands of the U.S. workforce, "reform of America's public schools" has dominated education rhetoric and policy over the last three decades. Efforts to reform America's schools are abundant and diverse. The three papers included in this dissertation explore three specific reform efforts: accountability, school climate and fiscal flexibility. The first paper in this dissertation examines charter school accountability in California. In 2011, the California Charter Schools Association launched an annual publication of Academic Accountability Report Cards for each charter school in the state and a public call for the closure of charter schools not meeting criteria outlined on the report cards. In examining the CCSA accountability framework, I find merit in critics' claims. The CCSA framework does not identify low-performing charter schools not already identified under existing accountability systems and potentially identifies charter schools serving primarily disadvantaged students. Overwhelming evidence indicating the positive relationship between school climate and students' mental and physical health, social-emotional well-being and academic performance has led to the inclusion of school climate reform efforts in a range of school improvement initiatives, including New Tech Network. The second paper in this dissertation examines perceptions of school climate for more than 10,000 students enrolled in 72 New Tech Network schools. Although students' perceptions differ across NTN schools, size of student body, year of implementation, type of model implementation, and diversity of the school explain little of the variation in students' perceptions. In fact, students' perceptions of school climate vary more among individual students within a school than between students in different schools. In NTN schools, male students have more positive perceptions of their relationships with peers than female students. Further, Asian and Hispanic students report more positive perceptions of connectedness to school, fair and enforced discipline and peer relationships than African American, white and multi-racial students. The third paper in this dissertation, also published in the Journal of School Choice: International Research and Reform in August 2015, investigates resource allocation practices, including savings, of charter schools in California using nine years of data. Findings indicate charter schools spend less on instruction and pupil support services than traditional public schools. The lower spending on instruction and pupil support is offset, not by administrative costs, but by higher spending on operations, consultant services and a greater rate of savings. Further, analysis indicates that the differences in resource allocation patterns between charter schools and traditional public schools is not completely explained by the characteristics of students served.