RJA 12b: APA-Style Annotated Bibliography, Part 1

Booker, K., Sass, T. R., Gill, B., & Zimmer, R. (2010). The unknown world of charter high schools. Education next, 10(2), Retrieved from http://educationnext.org/the-unknown-world-of-charter-high-schools/

Although I could not find any information about the authors of this article, it is a peer reviewed journal from Stanford and Harvard College. The article looks at long term achievements and the effects that charter school attendance has on high school graduation and college completion. They use data from Chicago and Florida charter and public schools to conduct their study. Their research found evidence that attending charter schools had significant positive effects on students. The study found that that students attending charter schools as apposed to traditional public schools were more likely to graduate high school and attend college. The information in this study is valuable because it is looking at the long term results of the effects educational choices are having on students as apposed to the short term results of standardized test results.

Abdul-Alim, J. (2011, July 29). Charter schools and college access. Retrieved from http://diverseeducation.com/article/16142/

Jamaal Abdul-Alim is a freelance journalist. His research covers a variety of topics for several different journals. In this article Abdul-Alim researched the subject of charter school access and college graduation rates of a Washington D.C. based charter school known as SEED. Abdul-Alim takes a look at the admission process for SEED charter school. Families are accepted into the charter school based on a lottery system. This lottery system is designed to give all families an equal opportunity to attend the charter school. Abdul-Alim shows statistics from SEED and RAND Corporation that show a trends in the number of students enrolling in and graduating from four year universities after leaving charter schools. His research shows a significant increase in college graduation for those students who attended charter schools as opposed to their public school counterparts. The argument is made in this article that it’s not about the test scores but the real measure of success for charter schools is their ability to prepare children to be successful in completing a four year college degree. 

Chen, G. (2009, July 10). Public school review. Retrieved from http://www.publicschoolreview.com/articles/123

Author Grace Chen is a public school educator, activist for reforming traditional public schools, education researcher, and writer. This article talks about the battle of charter schools verse public schools. It brings to light that most charter schools are not outperforming public schools in the area of standardized testing in Math and Reading. The article then goes onto state there is an exception to these scores with lower income families and English learner families in charter schools. These students are outperforming their public school counterparts. The article goes on to say that the charter schools were originally designed for these lower income families but that charter schools are underserving the lower income families because they are unable to meet the needs of special needs or at risk children and because attending a charter school has to be by choice. They argue that the very families that would benefit from charter schools are the same families that are drug addicts and abusers and unlikely to take the time or attention in registering nor researching a better schooling option for their children. This article takes a good look at the objections to charter schools and where they are lacking.