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Charter Schools' Effect on Public Schools

By Stuart Buck

Do charter schools force the nearby public schools to improve (i.e., via putting competitive pressure on them)? Or do they drain resources or teachers or perhaps positive peer groups from those nearby public schools? One recent paper on this topic is Scott A. Imberman, The Effect of Charter Schools on Non-Charter Students: An Instrumental Variables Approach. The author explains that the usual school fixed effects models could be unduly affected by selection effects in the places that charters choose to open. For example, what if a local public school were on a downward trend, and then a charter opened? Depending on how that trend independently moved (i.e., whether it continued downwards or reverted back upwards), it might look like the charter school had either more of a positive effect or more of a negative effect than it really did...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Buck Stops Here on January 10, 2008 (boomark / email).