Document Type

Report

Publication Date

8-28-2024

Series Title

Arkansas Education Report

Series Number

Volume 21, Issue 2

Keywords

Charter schools; Value-added growth; Achievement PLCs; PLC at Work; professional development

Abstract

This study examines student outcomes of value-added growth and weighted achievement of Arkansas’s open-enrollment public charter schools and traditional public schools. Using publicly available school-level data, we use weighted averages to account for variations in school size in analyzing student performance in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics from the 2020-21 school year to the 2023-23 school year. To aid interpretation of the results, we translate the scores of the open-enrollment charter group and the traditional public school group into statewide percentile ranks within year and outcome.

The results reveal that statewide, students attending open-enrollment charter schools are consistently demonstrating greater value-added growth and achievement than their peers in traditional public schools. Regional analyses for schools in Central Arkansas and Northwest Arkansas also reflect students attending open-enrollment charter schools consistently demonstrating greater value-added growth and achievement than their peers in traditional public schools. In the Delta region, students attending open-enrollment charter schools are consistently demonstrating greater value-added growth although achievement is slightly lower than that of students attending traditional public schools in the region. Among schools serving the highest populations of students facing economic disadvantages (over 87% FRL), students attending open-enrollment charter schools demonstrate greater growth but somewhat lower achievement than students in traditional public schools. Among schools serving the lowest populations of students facing economic disadvantages (under 34% FRL), students attending open-enrollment charter schools demonstrate greater value-added academic growth and achievement than students in traditional public schools.

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