What Do We Know About the Outcomes of KIPP Schools?

Although many consider KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) to be a prototype charter school operator that merits expansion and replication, few systematic and independent assessments of it are available. A large-scale study incorporating a randomized design has begun, but until that study is complete policymakers need to learn what they can from existing evidence. This brief reviews seven studies that attempt to answer questions concerning whether and to what degree KIPP schools raise student achievement

Henig, Jeffrey, R., The Evolving Relationship between Researchers and Public Policy, 89(January, 2008), 357-360.

Describes five factors affecting the relationship between educational research and its use by policymakers: new means of dissemination, new discipline-based researchers and fragmentation of publication outlets, expanded corporate (non-public) producers of research, increased foundation-supported research, and increased bias induced by government requirements on research

Local Politics and Portfolio Management Models: National Reform Ideas and Local Control

Amid the growth of charter schools, autonomous schools, and private management organizations, an increasing number of urban districts are moving toward a portfolio management model (PMM). In a PMM, the district central office oversees schools that operate under a variety of governance models. The expansion of PMMs raises questions about local control, as new national and local organizations become increasingly central players in the design and delivery of public education and educational systems. Looking across 10 distinct localities, this paper explores the variations in the role of local, state, and national actors in the initiation of PMMs and the provision of education within them. We find that the relationship between PMM reforms and issues of local control is a complicated one mediated by local contexts, including local civic and provider capacity, available resources, and issues of governance

The “Good” Schools: Academic Performance Data, School Choice, and Segregation

We examine the effects of disseminating school-level academic performance data—achievement status, achievement growth, or both—on parents’ school choices and their implications for racial, ethnic, and economic segregation. Many researchers consider growth to be a superior (if still imperfect) measure of school effectiveness relative to status. Moreover, compared to status, growth has weaker relationships with schools’ demographic compositions. We conduct an online survey experiment featuring a nationally representative sample of parents and caretakers of children ages 0–12. Participants choose between three randomly sampled elementary schools drawn from the same school district. The provision of status information guides participants toward schools with higher achievement status and fewer Black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students. The provision of growth information and the provision of both types of academic performance data guide participants toward higher growth schools. However, only growth information—alone, and not in concert with status information—tends to elicit choices with desegregating consequences