Parents and Charter School Choice

Introduction

The emergence of a globally competitive economy new knowledge based economy requires workers with educational background beyond a high school. The American economic prosperity depends on the educational level of young workers who will replace the baby boomers in the American Labor force. According to demographics, these new workers will come increasingly from the minority, low income groups many of whom are notachieving at acceptable levels on most assessments. With this awakening, communities are concerned about their short and long term security. Families are also seeking opportunities for their children to get quality education that would give them a chance in the competitive American work force. The advancement of young people into middle-class jobs at all skill levels is essential to future economic growth of America. That growth is, in turn,essential to America’s ability to provide opportunities and social supports. The absence of these investments in the youth will result in building a society whose members will be fighting over pieces of a shrinking pie (William H. Frey, 2012). Public education has been historical to be the machinery necessary to supply the
needed quality education but unfortunately, public education has been the center of ridicule and criticism, which has resulted in massive reforms. Among those reform efforts is the school choice option which has sufficiently sparked up so much controversy among the different stakeholders.
School choice option is a public policy that provides parents the freedom to choose a school based on its quality and child’s needs and not on their home address. There are various forms of school choices such as: School vouchers, homeschooling, online schools and Digital learning, charter and private schools. School choice advocates argue that whatever the education delivery design the public has chosen to put in place in a particular school jurisdiction, parents should be afforded the maximum degree of choice, and with valid information on the performance of the education programs that are available. By comparison, public school choice, in its various forms gives parents the option of transferring their children out of lower-performing public schools to higher-performing public schools (Gary Miron, 2004). However, proponents of choice question whether it can be successfully implemented, especially in urban systems. A student’s movement from one failing school will not culminate automatically in a safe landing somewhere else. In many large urban school districts, students who want to opt out of failing schools will have few other choices (Education week, December 2002).
Charter schools of choice have a relative autonomy and are seen as a way to provide greater educational choice and innovation within the public school system. Charter schools often specialize in educational programs such as direct instruction or core knowledge; emphasize particular fields of studies such as arts or technology or severe special populations of students such as special education or at-risk students. With the rise of distance learning, a growing number “cyber” charter schools have also done away with the concepts of a brick and mortar school building. Coupled with aggressive academic goals in charter contracts, such alternative visions of schooling
are a motivating factor behind the growth of charter schools. According to the Department of Education report, more than 55 percent of public charter schools were in urban settings (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012).
As in many other parts of the country, school choice became an important topic in Delaware in 1995. The discussion resulted in the passage of the charter school Act in 1996. Currently, there are nineteen charter schools in Delaware. Parents have the option to choose between home schooling, private schools, charter schools, and traditional public schools. The study presented in this research was conducted to examine the factors that influence parents’ choice to send their children to a particular small rural K – 8  charter school and to determine the relative importance of each factor in the decision making process.
The analysis and review of relevant data revealed a lot about the reasons parents consider are important in their
charter school choice, the features of charter schools that parents consider are also important as well as the conditions that influence how parents choose.
Question 1 asked respondents to signify which school child previously attended. The largest percent of student enrollment in the charter school came from the traditional public school. The loss of students from the traditional public school could be a major set back especially in terms of finances in the public school. The influx of students
into the charter school is not surprising to me because according to literature, they will continue to be this movement by parents from traditional schools to charter schools as long as charter schools keep meeting the needs of student whose needs would not originally be met in the traditional schools.
Question 2 of the survey instrument asked respondents to identify and select from a list of 14 items the reasons that were most important to them in their charter school choice. Parents could check as many reasons as they deem fit. The two reasons that parents picked the most were: small size of charter school or classes. The next was charter school offer before and after school programs. Surprisingly, respondents chose item 14
– I am unhappy with the curriculum and teaching in the previous school as their least reason for selecting a charter school. According to the comparison made with child related reasons vs. Non child related reasons, what percent of non-child related reasons was higher than child related reasons. This validates Tedin and Weiher’s work on the parent stated preference versus their actual behaviors.
Question 3 asked respondents to identify the educational challenges that their children may have. 26 percent indicated that their children had no special challenges which violate the reason for the institution of charter schools which is to serve at-risk students by expanding learning experiences. Again this also validates parents stated preference with their actual behaviors.
Question 4 asked respondents to rate the features of the charter school in terms of its importance in selecting a
charter school. The responses were formatted into Likert-type scale that allowed for numbers to be assigned to each factor. The factor that had the highest rating was small size of charter school or class size. This also validates what literature says about the important reasons for parent charter choice.
Question 5 asked parents to identify their race. This question along with family income was often not responded to. Almost 77 percent indicated that they were white/Caucasian which basically was ranked the highest.
Question 6 asked respondents to identify their highest level of education.32 percent were college graduates while almost 14 percent had post graduate education.
Question 7 asked respondents information about their annual household income.17 percent indicated an annual income in the range of $60,000 - $99,000.6 percent indicated that their annual income exceeded $100,000.
Annual household income was further grouped into socio economic status based on the standard of living in the county where the Charter school in the study resides at. Almost 77% were classified as being in the low socio- economic status subgroup while 6 percent were from the high socio-economic status. Therefore, the conclusion from this analysis shows that the respondents were mostly white/Caucasians from low socio-economic status and
with high educational level. This analysis really shows how parents choose especially along the racial lines, educational levels and socio-economic status.
Conclusions

The charter school movement is still spreading. They are currently 19 charter schools in Delaware with many still
coming in the pipeline. The main reason for this study is to find out the important reasons that parents consider charter schools for their children as well as to find out the features of the charter schools that are most important
to parents in their parent charter school choice. It is very true that when parent look for charter schools, they are invariably looking for something that other educational options does not offer to them. The results of this
study helps to illustrate the important reasons for charter school choice as well as the features of charter schools that attract parent to choose charter schools for their children. As schools of choice, charter schools will have to
pay particular attention to the important reasons and features of charter schools that parents think play an important  part in their charter school choice in order that schools might be address the needs of these parents if they are to remain open, attract and retain students. The results of this study helps to illustrate the important reasons for charter school choice as well as the features of charter schools that attract parent to choose charter
schools for their children. As schools of choice, charter schools will have to pay particular attention to the important reasons and features of charter schools that parents think play an important  part in their charter school choice in order that schools might be address the needs of these parents if they are to remain open, attract and retain students.