Topic

I was originally trying to narrow down what to put in the blank:

Does ___________ influence the effectiveness of charter schools? 

I was thinking of using teacher retention, and there are a few articles out there that address this. But as I did more research, and going along with some of the things I know from looking at charter schools for a separate assignment, this research is largely inconclusive, as is the case with so much of the research out there in general about charter schools. However, there are a few studies that do more of a meta-analysis of which factors influence charter school effectiveness (looking at a variety of primary studies focusing on individual factors). These factors range from funding, oversight, staff/student populations, size, retention etc, etc. I was possibly considering looking at a few different factors, maybe 3-5 of them, and use my thesis to comment on "which of these factors appear to have a significant effect on overall effectiveness and which appear not to have a significant effect." I think this could be more insightful than focusing solely on one factor only to find out by the end of the project that this factor is useless at determining effectiveness of charter school.

Teacher retention

This week I reviewed the article titled "New Schools, new students, new teachers: Evaluating the effectiveness of charter schools" by Celeste Carruthers. This article focused on charter school effectiveness and its relationship to teacher turnover and retention. The study focused on public schools in North Carolina and included numerous charter schools with varying demographics. The study concluded that teacher retention tended to increase with the age of the charter school, as did average achievement gains. However, both remained significantly below the rates observed in traditional public schools. Carruthers concluded that teacher retention was only a minor factor for student achievement and only accounted for about a third of the gains observed in math among charter school students and virtually none of the reading gains. Carruthers cites experimental biases and other aspects of charter schools, like leadership, that may contribute to the results generated in the study. Further research is needed to determine if teacher retention is a significant factor in student achievement.