Are Charter Schools Safer than District-Run Schools? Evidence from Pennsylvania

ABSTRACT

Access to public charter schools could theoretically reduce school safety problems by increasing competitive pressures, improving matches between schools and students, enhancing discipline policies, and allowing students to relocate to peer groups and cultures that discourage risky behaviors. Using publicly available data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, this study examines differences in reports of 58 school safety problems between public charter and district-run public school sectors in the 2018–19 school year. After controlling for several differences in students between sectors, public charter schools generally report fewer school safety problems than district-run public schools in Pennsylvania. These charter school sector advantages are generally more pronounced for cyber charter schools than brick-and-mortar charter schools, and for charter schools located in Philadelphia County than charter schools located in the rest of the state.

KEYWORDS:

• Charter schools
• school choice
• school safety
• school violence
• school climate

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Article XVII-A. Charter Schools. 1949 Act 14. Pennsylvania General Assembly. Retrieved from https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/uconsCheck.cfm?txtType=HTM&yr=1949&sessInd=0&smthLwInd=0&act=014&chpt=17A

2. What is a Charter School? Pennsylvania Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www.education.pa.gov/K-12/Charter%20Schools/Pages/What-is-A-Charter-School.aspx

3. What is a Charter School? National Charter School Resource Center. U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from https://charterschoolcenter.ed.gov/what-charter-school

4. Pennsylvania Population Density County Rank. USA.com. Retrieved from http://www.usa.com/rank/pennsylvania-state–population-density–county-rank.htm

5. Indicator 6: Violent and Other Criminal Incidents at Public Schools, and Those Reported to the Police. Indicators of School Crime and Safety. National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/crimeindicators/ind_06.asp

6. Pennsylvania Safe Schools Online Application. Pennsylvania Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www.safeschools.pa.gov/Main.aspx?App=6a935f44-7cbf-45e1-850b-e29b2f1ff17f&Menu=dbd39a1f-3319-4a75-8f69-d1166dba5d70&res=

7. Public School Enrollment Reports. Pennsylvania Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www.education.pa.gov/DataAndReporting/Enrollment/Pages/PublicSchEnrReports.aspx

8. Public Schools Percent of Low-Income Reports. Pennsylvania Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www.education.pa.gov/DataAndReporting/LoanCanLowIncome/Pages/PublicSchools.aspx

9. English Learners. Pennsylvania Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www.education.pa.gov/DataAndReporting/EnglishLearners/Pages/default.aspx

10. Special Education and Total Enrollment by LEA: 2008–2018. Special Education Data Reporting. Pennsylvania Department of Education. Retrieved from https://penndata.hbg.psu.edu/Additional-Reports

11. 2019–20 List of Charter and Cyber Charter Schools. Charter Schools. Pennsylvania Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www.education.pa.gov/Documents/K-12/Charter%20Schools/Cyber%20and%20Charter%20Listing.xlsx

12. Cost Analysis: Cyber Charter Schools and Public School District Cyber Learning Programs. Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators. Retrieved from https://www.pasa-net.org//Files/SurveysAndReports/2018/CyberCharterRPT06-19-18.pdf

13. Public Schools Extract. Educational Names and Addresses (EdNA). Pennsylvania Department of Education. Retrieved from http://www.edna.pa.gov/Screens/Extracts/wfExtractPublicSchools.aspx

14. The Appendix can be found online at http://efinstitute.org/pennsylvania_safety_appendix_tables_jsc/

15. Results for “failure to disperse” from each analysis should be considered with caution. The counts for “failure to disperse” and “bullying” are identical for all schools in the 2018–19 school year. The statewide count of “failure to disperse” incidents reported by the Pennsylvania Department of Education was 105 in the 2018–19 school year, which is only about 6% of the counts for individual schools. The statewide count of “bullying” reported by the Pennsylvania Department of Education for was 2,221 in the 2018–19 school year, which is much closer to the sum of the counts for individual schools. It is possible that the Pennsylvania Department of Education unintentionally used the actual “bullying” counts for the counts of “failure to disperse” incidents. The Pennsylvania Department of Education has not responded to inquiry about this potential data issue at the time of writing this report.

16. Pennsylvania Information Management System Volume 2 USER Manual Version 1.2. Pennsylvania Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www.education.pa.gov/Documents/Teachers-Administrators/PIMS/PIMS%20Manuals/2019-2020%20PIMS%20Manual%20Vol%202.pdf

17. Sixty schools (2%) with fewer than 10 White students enrolled did not report the specific enrollment count for White students for privacy reasons. Zeros were imputed for this variable for each of these observations.

18. Rules and Regulations. Title 22 – Education. Safe Schools. Pennsylvania Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www.education.pa.gov/Documents/K-12/Safe%20Schools/Chapter%2010%2042%20PaB%204574.pdf

19. Data Reports. Pennsylvania Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www.education.pa.gov/Schools/safeschools/datareports/Pages/default.aspx

20. Results based on seven models using varying amounts of control variables can be found in Appendix Tables A14 - A23. Results based on two-part models can be found in Appendix Tables A24 - A33.

21. AFR Data: Summary-Level. Expenditure Data 2017–2018. Pennsylvania Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www.education.pa.gov/Teachers%20-%20Administrators/School%20Finances/Finances/AFR%20Data%20Summary/Pages/AFR-Data-Summary-Level.aspx#.VZvrX2XD-Uk

22. Gov. Wolf Stresses Need for Stronger Charter School Accountability. Governor Tom Wolf. Retrieved from https://www.governor.pa.gov/newsroom/gov-wolf-stresses-need-for-stronger-charter-school-accountability/

23. Future Ready PA Index. Pennsylvania Department of Education. Retrieved from https://futurereadypa.org/