Schools’ Effectiveness Varies By What They Do, Not What They Are
There may be a mini-trend emerging in certain types of charter school analyses, one that seems a bit trivial but has interesting implications that bear on the debate about charter schools in general. It pertains to how charter effects are presented.
Usually, when researchers estimate the effect of some intervention, the main finding is the overall impact, perhaps accompanied by a breakdown by subgroups and supplemental analyses. In the case of charter schools, this would be the estimated overall difference in performance (usually testing gains) between students attending charters versus their counterparts in comparable regular public schools.
Two relatively recent charter school reports, however – both generally well-done given their scope and available
