ABSTRACT
Charter schools allow parents and charter operators to select a range of options for individual children and for individual teachers. This may produce useful education programs for a small number of students. Charter schools could have their greatest impact by stimulating improvement in traditional public schools. This chapter examines whether Arizona charter schools have had such impacts. There are two primary rationales for choice-based efforts to improve schooling. First the children who attend the choice schools may receive a better education. A second rationale is that children remaining in the traditional public schools will benefit due to competitive pressures generated by choice schools. This argument, often referred to as the market hypothesis, which presumes that competitive pressures will force schools to shake off limitations imposed by bureaucracy, union influence, democratic conflict, and unclear outcome criteria. There is dispute as to what constitutes school improvement, with some educators smiling on experimentation and suggesting that educational improvement requires a free-flowing constructivist approach.
