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  • How Do Principals Respond to Charter School Competition? Understanding the Mechanisms of the Competitive Effects
    Authors:
    Year: 2011

  • Abstract:
    There has been dramatic growth in the number of charter schools since the first charter school opened in 1992, as well as a great deal of research on student achievement inside charter schools. Yet charter schools remain a small slice of the public education landscape. Increased choice may have a more substantial effect on public education through competitive pressures felt by traditional public schools to improve. Although there is some research on competitive effects on achievement, few studies examine the mechanism by which competition is thought to influence achievement—that is, how principals in non-charter schools perceive and respond to competition from charter schools. This study explores these questions. Overall, the principals in this study perceived little competition from charter schools affecting either their financial resources or recruitment of teachers and students. Finally, this study provides no evidence that principal perceptions of charter school competition, or actual charter competition, is related to how principals spend their time.

    This paper is published in a book from the Harvard Education Press.
    Download the chapter’s appendix above.


The NCSC is funded by a 5 year, $13.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. Its lead institution is Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. The center is housed on the campus of Peabody College, one of the nation's top graduate schools of education.