EdSource Considers the Relationship Between Autonomy and Performance of Charter Schools

May 2006
Most charter school advocates see freedom from school district control and requirements as crucial to improving education for their students. Others, however, believe that the oversight and support a chartering agency (school district or county office of education) provides can help ensure that a charter school is well run. With these conflicting beliefs in mind, EdSource took a look at autonomy from the school district to see what role it played in charter performance as measured by whether the school met its 2005 Academic Performance Index (API) growth targets. EdSource relied on a spring 2005 survey of 318 charters to rate schools based on the following criteria:

• "Low-autonomy" charters reported receiving "several important services" from their district or county office of education, had collective bargaining arrangements that were the same or almost the same as that of their district, and were "locally funded" (receiving funds through the district).
• "High-autonomy" schools received from their districts "oversight only, no direct services or support." In addition, the teachers in these schools had no collective bargaining agreement or had an agreement that did not align at all with that of the district. Finally, these schools were direct-funded (receiving funding directly from the state).
• The "mid-autonomy" charter category served as the large middle ground. Schools that did not fit into either of the above categories were put in this "mid" classification. They could have had indicators of both low and high autonomy or they could have a set of "middle" values, such as having a collective bargaining agreement that was somewhat different from one their district had with its teachers.

As the table below shows, schools in the low-autonomy group were slightly more likely to meet their targets than high-autonomy schools. But the more substantial difference was seen between both of those groups and the mid-autonomy schools. Although these findings do not consider a number of factors (such as student demographics) and are not statistically significant, they raise the question of whether a "happy medium" between autonomy and oversight works best for charter school performance.

Level of Autonomy	Number in Survey	Number in Survey with Growth API Data	% Meeting API Growth Targets
Low	84	61	67%
High	71	43	65%
Mid	297	214	75%

Data: EdSource Survey, Spring 2005
EdSource 05/06
California Department of Education (CDE)