Policy Research

The Achievement Impacts of Arkansas Open Enrollment Charter Schools

Jonathan N. Mills

Summary

Arkansas has restrictive charter school laws that cap the number of schools allowed and give less funding than is given to traditional public schools. This article compares the performance of Arkansas charter schools to traditional public schools. The author uses panel data of the Arkansas benchmark exams for 1.5 million third through eighth graders. Arkansas charter schools are found to have a small but statistically significant negative impact on student achievement. The average negative impact decreases as the number of years in operation increases. This study is consistent with the findings from other states.

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Policy Implications

The amount of money spent on education has doubled in the last 45 years, but achievement (measured according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress) has remained the same. The racial achievement gap remains stark and hasn’t shown overall improvement in over 25 years. Charter schools are publicly funded and have been a popular solution to achievement gap issues. However, charter schools can be started by anyone, even a person with no prior administrative experience. So, increasing a charter school cap without addressing funding or other quality of education issues is not likely to solve the problem charter schools are meant to address.