Is the Federal Government in the Business of Improving Charter Schools? An Investigation of the Unintended Consequences of ESEA Waivers.

Since the 1990s, school choice and accountability have been two central elements of education policy in the United States (Berends, 2015). Though a large body of work has investigated these elements independently, little research has explored the intersection or potential inconsistencies between the two. In this paper, we articulate a clear and potentially perplexing intersection between the accountability requirements under the 2013 Department of Education waivers to Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the underlying philosophy and mission of what might be considered a hallmark of the school choice movement - charter schools. In states with approved waivers the lowest-performing schools are required to implement mandatory interventions to improve subsequent student outcomes1. Therefore, unless otherwise noted in the state's waiver application, charter schools in those states, if among the lowest performing schools (i.e., bottom 15 percent), are also subject to the waiver mandates. In this way, by requiring states to intervene with low performing schools, ESEA waivers create a de facto requirement that waiver approved states engage in charter school improvement.Prior to the introduction of these waivers, charter school improvement was not an expressed purpose of Federal accountability policy. The shifting state responsibility for improving charter schools makes it important to consider whether and to what degree waiver mandates align with the foundational principles identified as drivers of charter school effectiveness, autonomy and innovation (See Bulkley & Fisler, 2002 for a review). Indeed, the success of many high-performing charter schools (e.g., Angrist, Cohodes, Dynarski, Pathak, & Walters, 2013; Hanushek, Kain, Rivkin, & Branch, 2007; Dobbie & Fryer, 2011; Hoxby & Murarka, 2007) is often attributed, at least in part, to their ability to innovate (Fryer, 2014). And yet, work by Stuit (2010; 2012) and others (Rotherham, 2005) show a large and potentially growing number of poorly performing charter schools (See Chingos & West, 2014 for an exception). While some argue that this outcome stems from limited oversight and enforcement of state charter laws (Gustafson, 2013; Paino, Renzulli, Boylan, & Bradley, 2014), others question the basic premise of charters including their true degree of innovation (see Preston, Goldring, Berends, & Cannata, 2012 for a review). The evidence points to a need to systematically study and understand the extent to which charter schools come into contact with waiver mandates and whether the requirements they face as a result are likely to improve their performance.Whereas in prior literature, the mandated interventions associated with the ESEA waivers are characterized as a direct challenge to school autonomy (McGuinn, 2012), we focus more narrowly on the intersection between the waivers and the second principle underlying charters - innovation. We ask the following research questions:1) To what degree are charter schools being identified as requiring mandated intervention through their state's ESEA waivers? 2) In what ways, do these mandated interventions for underperforming schools align or conflict with charter school innovation? This work provides opportunities to consider what it means when states do not act to close underperforming charters and are therefore expected, through the waiver process, to intervene in these schools. Second, it facilitates our ability to assess the degree to which interventions mandated by the waivers are likely to help these charters improve. Finally, we draw attention to more fundamental questions regarding the viability of a charter system in which chronic underperformers persist.Background on Charter SchoolsA Short History of Charter SchoolsAs defined by (Berends, 2015), "Charter schools are public schools funded by the government, but their governance structure differs from that of traditional public schools in that they are established under a charter run by parents, educators, community groups, or private organizations to encourage school autonomy and innovation" (p. …