A Study Of The Changes In The Development Of Charter Schools In The United States From The Perspective Of Historical Institutionalism

The American charter schools,which rose in the 1990 s,came into being under the background of American public education reform and free school choice movement.Charter schools are different from the traditional public school system in the United States.They are based on the contract system,introduce market competition mechanism,and enjoy full autonomy.In other words,charter schools are publicly.They rely on families to choose to recruit children and must sign a written performance contract with authorized public charter institutions.Charter schools are also autonomous.Compared with traditional public schools,the operation and management of charter schools have greater flexibility.Charter schools aim to improve students’ academic performance,improve teaching quality and change the continuous downturn in the development of public education in the United States.The emergence of charter schools has written a heavy color in the history of American education.Therefore,analyzing the context of the development of charter schools in the United States and combing the historical track of the development and changes of charter schools have a certain reference significance for the development of schools in the compulsory education stage in China.Taking the development and changes of American charter school system as the research object,the researchers use the methods of literature research,historical research and educational insight to make an in-depth analysis,and introduce the analytical framework of historical institutionalism.According to the development process,development focus and development characteristics,the development and change of American charter school system is divided into four stages: germination and initial stage（1955-1991）,exploration and expansion stage（1991-1998）,adjustment and promotion stage（1998-2015）and stability and consolidation stage（2015-present）.From the perspective of historical institutionalism,this study analyzes the change motivation,path dependence and change path of the development and change of American charter school system.This study focuses on how political,economic and cultural factors affect the development of American charter schools in different stages under the framework of historical institutionalism.The study found that in the structural analysis,the impact of the wave of marketization,the reform of the public education system and other macro systems determine the orientation of the charter school system,and the meso variables such as economic development,interest drive,and concept innovation affect the arrangement of the charter school system.The federal government,state and local governments,charter schools,markets,communities,teachers and parents interact with the system as micro actors to promote the practice of charter school system.In the historical analysis,institutional change will be affected by the initial system,the functional effects of institutional change and the limitations of supporting systems.There are four key nodes in the American charter school system from 1983 to 1991,from 1994 to 1998,from 2002 to 2015 and from 2015 to now.Influenced by internal and external historical turning points,its changes show a strong path dependence,and generally show the characteristics of gradual changes.Finally,the study is based on the four stages of the development of the American charter school system,this study analyzes the value contribution in its development process,and makes suggestions for the current development of schools at the compulsory education stage in combination with the actual situation in China.This paper mainly includes six chapters.The first chapter is the introduction,mainly from the research background,research significance,research methods and other aspects of the discussion.Chapter two is the explanation of concepts and theories,expounds the objectives that charter schools are committed to pursuing through the theory of educational equity,and analyzes the institutional changes of charter schools with the help of historical institutionalism theory.The third chapter demonstrates the background of charter schools from political,economic and social reasons,and divides the development of charter schools into four stages from the development process,focus,characteristics and key policy documents.The fourth chapter makes a structural analysis of the changes of charter schools from three aspects: macro system,meso variables and micro action.The fifth chapter provides a historical analysis from the key nodes,path dependence,and historical turning points in the change of the charter school system.The sixth chapter refers to the value contribution of American charter schools and puts forward constructive suggestions for the development of schools in the compulsory education stage in China.