What are the effects of charter laws and charter schools on school districts? A study of eight states and the District of Columbia

To date, little research has been initiated to study the overall effects which charter schools are having on school districts throughout the United States. Yet advocates promoting charter schools have argued that charters will create market forces within public education that will result in improved education for children who remain in traditional public schools. Likewise, opponents of charters argue they will undermine public education and cause nearby school districts to flounder.;This study identifies (1) the impact of charter schools on school districts; (2) the ways school districts have responded; and (3) whether districts have experienced systemic change as a result of charter laws and the opening of charter schools. This study was conducted in 1997, six years into the nation's experiment with charter schools. It focuses on eight states and the District of Columbia and includes case studies of 25 school districts affected by charter schools which are located in urban, suburban, and rural communities.;Almost half the districts had experienced strong or moderate impact from charters and slightly more than half had experienced no or low impact. Large urban districts had experienced significantly less impact than rural, suburban, and small urban districts. Typically, school districts had not responded with swift, dramatic improvements at that time of this study. Almost one quarter of the districts studied had responded energetically to the advent of charters and significantly altered their educational programs. Charter schools stimulated certain kinds of changes and brought about certain kinds of effects and not others: several districts had made changes in their educational offerings as a result of charters. All highly-impacted districts had increased public relations efforts. Charter schools were rarely thought of as educational laboratories by district personnel.;A variety of factors other than the nature and degree of impact seemed to contribute to school district response to charters, including reform-minded district leadership, the overall ecology of school choice in the area, and community awareness of charters. This study suggests a more complicated trajectory for school reform in response to public school choice than discussed by advocates of free market forces in education.