Minnesota Charter Schools Evaluation
About Research on Charter Schools
Minnesota has been a leader in the charter school movement,
passing the first legislation allowing for legally and
financially independent public schools in 1991. The first
charter schools in the country opened in Minnesota in 1992.
Minnesota's charter school legislation allows teachers, parents,
and community members with innovative ideas for improving
learning to form and operate an independent charter school.
Minnesota has eighteen charter schools in operation currently.
In order to examine the effectiveness of Minnesota's charter schools the
Minnesota State Board of Education requested an evaluation of Minnesota's
charter schools to begin in February, 1996 and be completed by May, 1997. The
evaluation is focusing on charter schools' impact on student performance, local
policy implementation, and state charter school policies.
The University of Minnesota's Center for Applied Research and Educational
Improvement (CAREI), in collaboration with the National Center on Educational
Outcomes and the Enrollment Options Project, was chosen to evaluate Minnesota's
charter schools. CAREI is uniquely qualified to perform this study. The Center
is actively studying charter schools nationally through participation in a
4-year national evaluation of charter schools funded by the U.S. Department of
Education. In addition, evaluation team members from the University's Enrollment
Options Project have been conducting research examining the effectiveness of
school choice options for several years.
Building on the work being completed as part of the national charter school
evaluation and the Enrollment Options Project, CAREI has developed a four-strand
approach to evaluating Minnesota's charter schools. These strands include the
following activities:
- Strand 1: Collection of Basic Descriptive Data from
All Charter Schools
Building on a telephone survey being conducted as part
of the Department of Education's National Study of Charter
Schools, a database for all Minnesota charter schools will
be created that can be compared to the database of programs
across the U.S.
- Strand 2: Comprehensive Field Visits
To
complement and build on the survey information, field visits
will be conducted at all 18 charter schools. Field visits
will provide the data and insights needed to comprehensively
describe the implementation of a representative range of
charter schools and their impact on the surrounding
community.
- Strand 3: Student Performance Assessment
Student performance will be assessed through collaboration
with educators and parents at the charter school sites.
Performance data generated by the charter schools and data
collected across all sites will be used.
- Strand 4: Charter School Policy Analyses
Minnesota's charter schools and charter school legislation
will be compared to charter school legislation in other
states in terms of growth, the role of the state education
agencies in relation to the growth of charter schools, and
key legislative provisions and policies.
Members from the Minnesota Charter School network and an advisory group
consisting of charter school directors or teachers, State Board of Education
representatives, staff from CFL, teacher union representatives, and staff
from the education legislative committees will help inform this evaluation
through review of the design and instruments. Their feedback will be
solicited to guide the evaluation.
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