New Orleans as a Diverse Education Provider

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In 2005 there were about 120 schools in New Orleans. Catering mostly to a poor and minority population, the schools were financially bankrupt as well as academically impoverished. In October 2005 Katrina hit New Orleans with such devastation that 80 percent of its population fled their homes, one third of the schools were destroyed, and most were damaged. The schools of New Orleans were charged with recovering quickly, not only rebuilding structures and staffing them to accommodate returning students, but also improving vastly their academic performance.

This article documents the changes that took place through the state’s Recovery School District, charter schools, and magnet schools. By 2010-11 more than 60 percent of the schools were charter schools with future plans to convert almost all of the schools to function as charter or magnet schools. This transformation has not been without challenges as the local community of educational professionals that had been discharged after Katrina has been replaced substantially by outsiders hired through national organizations funded through national philanthropic foundations.

Many members of the local community also feel undermined by the lack of presence of a central school authority that is able to provide overall governance, coordination, policy, and community involvement.

After almost six years, the New Orleans schools are still evolving into what is planned eventually as a “school choice district”.

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Do Charter Schools Crowd Out Private School Enrollment?

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Evidence from Michigan


Charter schools have been one of the most important dimensions of recent school reform measures in the United States. Currently, there are more than 5,000 charter schools spread across the 40 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Though there have been numerous studies on the effects of charter schools, these have mostly been confined to analyzing their effects on student achievement, student demographic composition, parental satisfaction and the competitive effects on regular public schools.

This study departs from the existing literature by investigating the effect of charter schools on enrollment in private schools. To investigate this issue empirically, the authors focus on the state of Michigan where there was a significant spread of charter schools in the nineties. Using data on private school enrollment from biennial NCES private school surveys, and using a fixed effects as well as instrumental variables strategy that exploits exogenous variation from Michigan charter law, the authors investigate the effect of charter school penetration on private school enrollment.

The author find robust evidence of a decline in enrollment in private schools,—but the effect is only modest in size. We do not find evidence that enrollments in Catholic or other religious schools suffered more relative to those in non-religious private schools.

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KIPP: Lots of Private $, High Drop-out Rate

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Western Michigan University researchers have released a study raising questions about the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP). The network of charter schools has been praised by members of the Obama administration and the previous administration of George W. Bush.

The study does not question evidence of student achievement gains made in KIPP schools. But the report says KIPP relies too heavily on a large infusion of money from private sources, which the authors say may make it hard to sustain the program over time.

The report also found that KIPP's schools have substantially higher levels of attrition than traditional public schools.

Details:

The study finds that while KIPP serves more students that qualify for free and reduced lunch than local schools districts, it serves fewer students with disabilities and students classified as English language learners. The study finds high levels of student attrition in KIPP schools; a finding that is common for high poverty schools and in line with earlier research on KIPP. In its closer examination of attrition data, this study found that African American males were substantially more likely to leave KIPP schools. Alternative explanations for student attrition in grade cohorts over time—such as higher retention rates—could not explain the drop in enrollment since the size and demographic composition of students in entry grades did not change from year to year.

The study found that while charter schools typically receive less in public revenues—largely due to spending on special education, student support services, and transportation—the KIPP schools were actually receiving $800 more per pupil in public sources of revenue than local school districts. While KIPP schools reported no private revenues in the federal district finance dataset, a review of IRS 990 tax forms revealed that KIPP schools were receiving an average of $5,700 per pupil in private sources of revenue in 2008. Combined, the evidence suggest that during the 2007-08 academic year KIPP schools receive—on average—$6,500 more per pupil than local districts. The per pupil estimates of private revenues exclude revenues received by the KIPP Foundation, and instead considers only private dollars given to the KIPP regional groups or independent schools.

The study argues that KIPP is a model that serves public education by pushing the discussion of increased instruction for children in poverty and for its unique approach to training, mentoring, and supporting urban school administrators.

The study finds, however, that because of selective entry and exit of students and the higher levels of funding received by KIPP this model may not be easily replicated in traditional public schools.

NPR's two-way blog on the study.

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