National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education

Working Paper: Examining Variation within the Charter School Sector

Working Paper: School Autonomy in Denver

Philip Gigliotti analyzes Innovation Schools in Denver from its inception in 2009 through 2014. Gigliotti focuses on student scores on annual state tests in reading, math, and writing to measure the effectiveness of greater managerial authority. He finds that while Innovation Schools on average brought about impressive results by the second year of implementation, these results soon after declined substantially. 

Working Paper: How Chile Modified Friedman

Adrián Zancajo explores the striking reversal of voucher policy in Chile in 2014. Through examination of 30 key policy documents and interviews with 37 stakeholders involved in this transformation, Zancajo reveals a telling story about the forces in Chile for and against modification of the country’s market-based system of schooling.

Working Paper: Educational Privatization in China: A Case Study

Yiwen Wang focuses on Mei Jia International School, a private boarding school for students in grades 7 to 9 in Guiyang, capital of the inland province of Guizhou and home to 4.8 million people. Through a series of interviews with Mei Jia’s principal, teachers, and students, Wang addresses the school’s relationship with the government as well as its method of management, its finances, student enrollment, and teacher recruitment.

Working Paper: Charter Schools and Race in Kansas City

In exploring the enrollment data of 17 new charter schools that opened from 2011 to 2015 in Kansas City, the authors find that a disproportionate number of white students transferred into new charter schools, that white students appeared to be transferring into new charter schools with more white students, and, perhaps most significantly, that much of this racial sorting was associated with two new charter schools.

Working Paper: School Autonomy and Its Impact

In analyzing data from principal surveys and case studies at a broad sample of schools in Los Angeles from 2011 to 2014, Ayesha K. Hashim, Susan C. Bush-Mecenas, and Katharine O. Strunk find wide variation in the implementation of autonomy and close association between faithful implementation and better instruction.

Puerto Rico Charter Sector to Take Off