- Shaking Up Public Schools with Competition: Are They Changing the Way They Spend Money?
Authors: David Arsen, Yongmei Ni
Year: 2011 - Source: School Choice & School Improvement: What have we learned?
Abstract:
This paper examines two questions: (1) How does resource allocation change in districts experiencing sustained charter school competition? (2) Are there differences in the resource allocation adjustments among districts once threatened between those that do and do not succeed in stemming further enrollment loss to charters? The empirical work focuses on Michigan, where charter schools have been in effect since 1994 and many local areas have quite high levels of charter competition. The variable of interest, charter competition, is measured through two dimensions: the magnitude and the duration of the competition. These findings do not indicate many strong or consistent impacts of charter competition on school district resource allocation. Overall Michigan school districts respond to charter competition by devoting a smaller share of their spending to instructional services and a larger share to non-instructional support services. In addition, higher levels of charter competition, once it persists beyond the short term, clearly generates fiscal stress in districts.This paper is published in a book from the Harvard Education Press.
-
NCSC Project: School Choice and School Improvement - Type of School Choice: charter schools
- Keywords:
finances and resource allocation