News Flash! School Culture Matters
by Robert PondiscioDecember 12th, 2011
A new study establishes something that we pretty much knew—or at least should have known–by now: school culture matters. And it seems to matter more than class size, spending, and other structural factors.
The paper by Roland G. Fryer and Will Dobbie out of Harvard examined 35 charter schools in New York City. The duo looked at three different flavors of charter schools: those that provide wrap-around services, a model focused on teacher selection and retention, and the so-called ‘No Excuses’ brand of school.
“We find that traditionally collected input measures — class size, per pupil expenditure, the fraction of teachers with no certification, and the fraction of
