1. The Many Faces of Florida Charter Schools
Kenneth R. Mackie, MBA
PhD Student |Florida State University

2. The Many Faces of Charter Schools
Types
Racial representation
Income (specifically, poverty)
Size and district characteristics
Types: not all charters are created, or managed, the same. Different legal definitions
Race: do charters represent the racial diversity of Florida schools
Poverty: do charters represent the economic diversity of Florida schools
Size: do charters have similar influence across varying size of districts

3. Overview in Florida
Set the stage

4. Basic Comparison (2017) Charter Traditional ~280,000 students
657 charter schools
417 students per school
~2,510,000 students
3,303 schools
761 students per school
Big picture slides, charters perform better

5. Charters and Performance
No matter the justification for charter schools, a critical question is whether they accomplish the task of increasing student outcomes.
In Florida, this is typically measured through a “School Grade”
Achievement on standardized tests (English, math, science, social studies)
Learning gains (English, math)
Graduation rate
Acceleration success
Who is the “they” when we talk about

6. Get As higher, and that pulls from Cs. Mention that this is from
Three comparison areas, absolute achievement, learning gains, and achievement gaps
= 167
= 195

7. Grading Charters Most of the analysis stops there
Big differences exist
There are many faces that help us understand these
But that’s very misleading

8. A Tale of Two Districts Broward Hillsborough
269,000 students (348 schools)
62% free-reduced lunch
78% non-white
104 charter (16% students)
54% charter students free-reduced lunch
211,000 students (289 schools)
61% free-reduced lunch
65% non-white
42 charter (8% students)
33% charter students free-reduced lunch
What does this tell us: two districts that look very similar can be
ADD CHARTER GRADE % OF A AND

9. Profile of Largest Charter Districts
By Number of schools
By percentage of students
Dade 126
Broward 102
Palm Beach 50
Hillsborough 42
Duval 36
Orange 36
Pinellas 23
Polk 23
Lee 22
Osceola 17
Sumter 36%
Franklin 27%
Glades 17%
Dade 17%
Osceola 16%
Broward 16%
Sarasota 14%
Monroe 14%
Lee 14%
Bay 14%
Of course the largest counties have the most number of charter schools, but the small ones! Look at percentage of students!

10. District Size Impact of charter schools by size of district
We’ll go in more detail later
Let’s look at types of charter schools
So this starts to show that there’s huge variation in charter school dynamics once you dig into the district level

11. Three “types” of charter school management structures

12. Types of Charter Schools
Independent nonprofits
“Mom and pop” (353 schools, 48% charter students)
Charter management organization (CMO)
Nonprofit chains (31 schools, 6% charter students)
Educational management organization (EMO)
For-profit company manages (265 schools, 47% charter students)
CMO – 5 different types KIPP, Aspira, and Imagine are a couple examples
EMO – 15 different types

13. Rise of EMOs
Between , share of for-profit charters has risen from 25% to 45%
Nationally, they represent 15%
About half of all students attending charters are in EMOs
33 EMOs operate in FL ( )
25 account for 36 schools
Top 8 manage 244 schools
Between , the share of for-profit charters has risen from 25% to 45%
Yet, nationally they represent 15%
About half of all students attending charters are in EMOs
33 EMOs operate in FL
25 account for 36 schools
Top 8 manage 244 schools

14. Concentration of EMOs
EMOs
CMOs
Independent
Traditional
Schools
265 31
353
3,303
Big 3 Districts
65%
35%
29%
Top 3 districts is top 3 districts by number of charter schools (by type). Percentage is the highest proportion of charter schools of type that are found in the 3 districts.
So let’s zoom in on the EMOs for a second
Educational Management Organizations (EMOs) are significantly more concentrated in just a couple districts

15. The EMO Giants Academica Charter Schools USA
HQ: Fort Lauderdale (Broward)
53 schools
49,000 students
12 districts
78% students in Broward, Dade, Lee, Duval, Palm Beach, and Osceola
HQ: Miami (Dade)
102 schools
45,000 students
9 districts
85% students in Dade and Broward

16. Big EMO Big for-profit charters seem to dominate their markets
Densely located within a few districts
Some difference between EMO providers
Compared to US, EMOs are three times more prevalent

17. The Many Faces of Florida Charter Schools
Race and Charters
The Many Faces of Florida Charter Schools

18. Racial Representation – State Level
In aggregate, charter schools do not differ significantly on race
White
Black
Hispanic
Non-white
Charter
33%
21%
40%
67%
Traditional
23%
31%
61%
Total
39%
32%
62%
Black students are almost exactly equal, and Hispanic students are actually overrepresented, and a lot of that has to do with Dade county.

19. Race By Type Charter schools seem to be fairly representative on race
EMOs
CMOs
Independent
Traditional
Non-white
77%
64%
59%
61%
Black
22%
32%
27%
Charter schools seem to be fairly representative on race

20. Racial Representation
But that could depend on where you’re looking
Black students most likely to be underrepresented
Districts with >10% difference between charter and traditional
Sumter, Dade, St. Lucie, Indian River
Aggregating diminishes disparity

21. Districts and Black Representation
St. Lucie
Charter
Traditional
Students
3,112
36,941
# Schools 4 47
% Black
21%
31%
% Hispanic
28%
29%
Dade
Charter
Traditional
Students
36,941
298,364
# Schools
126
485
% Black 1%
11%
% Hispanic
80%
67%

22. Districts and Black Representation
Leon
Charter
Traditional
Students
1,909
31,866
# Schools 6 40
% Black
45%
35%
% Hispanic 5% 7%
Alachua
Charter
Traditional
Students
1,868
27,461
# Schools 14 46
% Black
45%
35%
% Hispanic 8% 9%

23. Race and Charters Aggregate do well
Important to look more at district level
But still, differences are mostly relatively small
As noted, previous research on charter schools tends to look at aggregate (state/country wide).

24. The Many Faces of Florida Charter Schools
Poverty and Charters
The Many Faces of Florida Charter Schools
Seem to do good on race and performance, let’s look at income

25. Free-reduced lunches Monroe – 30% students in charter schools
Glades – 22% students in charter schools
Palm Beach – 21% students in charters
Charter
12.4%
Traditional
56%
Charter 0%
Traditional
44%
Charter
38%
Traditional
63%

26. Free-reduced lunches Columbia Glades Monroe Sumter Duval Bay Clay
The following districts have over 30% difference between charter and non-charter rates
Columbia
Glades
Monroe
Sumter
Duval
Bay
Clay
Madison
Hillsborough
Indian River

27. Charters and Poverty
Charter schools do not do as well in serving poor student populations

28. Districts, Size, and Charters
The Many Faces of Florida Charter Schools
The last part of this presentation will combine the many faces together, and then close out with the point I told you we’d come back to, the impact on smaller districts

29. Miami-Dade District Charter Traditional Difference Students 358,179
59,207
Schools
485
126
Non-white
92.7%
93%
~0%
Lunches
74.67%
63.1%
77.2%
14%
Black students
21.8%
11.4%
23.9%
12%
In these slides I’m showing you income and black students
Summary slides on the many faces

30. Sumter District Charter Traditional Difference Students 8,534 3,112
Schools 12 1
Non-white
33.2%
24.7%
38%
~0%
Lunches
60%
33.9%
75.9%
42%
Black students
13.1%
4.1%
18.3%
14%

31. Broward District Charter Traditional Difference Students 269,000
44,000
Schools
348
104
Non-white
78%
81%
77% 4%
Lunches
63%
54%
64%
10%
Black students
39%
37%
40% 3%

32. Pinellas District Charter Traditional Difference Students 103,000
7,000
Schools
155 23
Non-white
44%
36% 2%
Lunches
52%
32%
53%
21%
Black students
19%
15% 4%

33. Hillsborough District Charter Traditional Difference Students 212,000
17,000
Schools
289 42
Non-white
65%
62% 3%
Lunches
61%
33%
64%
31%
Black students
21%
20% 1%

34. Duval District Charter Traditional Difference Students 129,000 12,000
Schools
206 35
Non-white
64%
66% 2%
Lunches
50%
13%
54%
41%
Black students
44% 0%

35. Small Districts Monroe Sumter 8,465 students 1,174 charter students
12% v. 56% free-reduced lunches
20 schools in district, 6 of them is charter
28% vs 57% students non-white
14% of students in charter schools
8,534 students
3,112 charter students
34% v. 76% free-reduced lunches
12 schools in district, 1 of them charter
4% vs 18% students black
36% of students are in a single charter school

37. Take-aways Huge charter school variation in the state
Significantly more likely to be advantaged economically
In aggregate not a lot of racial differences
Yet, this changes at the district (and school) level
Looks like they’re getting the high income minority students
Pay attention to smaller counties
Impact can be huge
EMOs have seen large growth in recent years, and tend to cluster in a few districts

38. Thank you!
Please clap.

39. The Many Faces of Florida Charter Schools
Extra Slides
The Many Faces of Florida Charter Schools

40. Charter Type and PerformanceB C D
EMO
35%
21%
31% 9%
CMO
30%
17%
Independent
39%
22%
24%
Charters
37%
28%
10%

41. Segregation and Type EMOs CMOs Independent Traditional
50-100% Nonwhite
81%
61.3%
56.3%
62.1%
90-100% nonwhite
43.5%
22.6%
19%
20.1%
99-100% nonwhite
5.7%
10%
5.1%
3.9%
This is percent of (type) by segregation. I can also do this as a count variable

42. Choosing where to locate: Districts
Average size of districts with charter schools 56,000 students (44)
Average enrollment in districts without charter schools: 3,900 students (26)
Highlands and Nassau are two largest with ~11,000