Preface

This document is the first-year progress report of the National Study of Charter Schools (the Study), sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education as authorized by 1994 amendments to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The Study is a four-year research effort (September 1995-September 1999) to document and analyze the charter school movement. By means of reports circulated on-line and in hard copy, the Study will provide descriptive information about how many and what kind of charter schools become operational and about those factors that facilitate or hinder the charter schools' development and implementation. The Study will also conduct analyses of the impact of charter schools on student achievement and on local and state public education systems.

This first-year report presents only descriptive information about charter schools for the school year 1995-96. It is based on a telephone survey designed to collect data from all 252 charter schools in operation across the nation as of January 1, 1996. The Study completed 89 percent of the phone interviews by June 30, 1996, and summaries of these responses are reported here. The survey instrument and responses (with the exception of any information that could identify the specific responses of any school) will be made accessible on the Study's World Wide Web site.

The report is also based on information collected during site visits to 42 charter schools that had been in operation by the beginning of the 1994-1995 school year. The schools were selected within states and within categories of grade level, school size, and their charter school status as either newly created schools or schools that had converted from a pre-existing school. The field visits, made primarily at the end of the 1995-1996 school year, were conducted to: (1) develop a deeper understanding of why charter schools are started, how they are being implemented, and what barriers they have encountered to their development and implementation; (2) collect preliminary information about the schools' educational programs, organizational structures, governance and finance arrangements, and student assessment and accountability procedures; and (3) check on the accuracy of the telephone surveys. Given the preliminary nature of these data, the report draws on examples from the field to illustrate the variety of charter schools and how they are being implemented.

The National Study of Charter Schools is conducted under contract with RPP International of Emeryville, California, in partnership with the University of Minnesota's Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI) and the Institute for Responsive Education (IRE), a nonprofit research organization in Boston.

This first-year report represents a collaborative effort of various researchers from RPP International and CAREI of the University of Minnesota. Paul Berman and Beryl Nelson of RPP along with Patricia Seppanen of CAREI drafted the actual report. Wayne Jennings associated with CAREI and Eric Premack associated with RPP were major authors of the state legislative analysis. Mary Sinclair of CAREI and Kara Finnegan and Sanjay Santhanam, of RPP provided key support for data analysis. Karen Seashore Louis of CAREI and Paul Berman of RPP provided oversight and critical review of the drafting process.
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[About This Study]

[Acknowledgments]