| Charter schools arose partly due to outcries for education reform. This quantitative research evaluated conversion charter schools for a large urban school district in California. Assessing the performance of the conversion charters, the year prior to conversion and longitudinally after the conversion, with matched schools provides insight into the effectiveness of the conversion charter schools. The data from the various schools in this study include all students who took the California Standards Test and student demographic groups: African-American, Asian, Hispanic, White, English language learners, and those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.;This research utilizes the California STAR standardized tests for mathematics and language arts. Statistical ANOVA's were employed and determined a significant effect (p < 0.005) between attending a conversion charter school or a traditional school within this district on the standardized test scores. The effect size measured the strength of the phenomenon of attending a conversion charter in this district affected the standardized test scores. The findings indicate that some demographic groups fared better in the conversion charter schools. |
