Abstract  Title  Page   Not  included  in  page  count.       Title:  Much  Ado  About  Nothing?  Innovation  in  Charter  Schools     Author(s):  Courtney  Preston,  Ellen  Goldring,  Mark  Berends,  Marisa  Cannata                                       2011 SREE Conference Abstract Template Abstract  Body   Limit  5  pages  single  spaced.     Background  /  Context:     Description  of  prior  research  and  its  intellectual  context.     A  key  argument  for  charter  schools  pertains  to  the  notion  that  school  choice  will  spur  innovation   and  differentiation  among  schools.    School  personnel  are  free  to  innovate  because  they  are  able  to  use   professional  autonomy  to  make  decisions.    In  fact  in  many  cases  the  language  of  innovation  and   professional  autonomy  is  rooted  in  charter  school  legislation.    Malloy  and  Wohlstetter  (2003)  report  that   most  charter  school  laws  include  the  desire  to  “facilitate  innovative  teaching”  (p.220).    Lubienski  (2003)   notes,  "choice,  competition,  and  innovation  are  cast  as  the  necessary  vehicles  for  advancing  academic   outcomes"  (p.  397).    However,  we  have  limited  evidence  about  whether  or  to  what  extent  competition   and  choice  spur  innovation  in  schools.  Research  supporting  or  refuting  the  idea  that  school  choice  leads   to  more  innovative  instructional  practices  is  either  nonexistent  or  mixed  (Gill  et  al.,  2007;  Lubienski,   2003).            This  paper  compares  innovation  across  two  school  types:  traditional  public  schools  and   charter  schools.  We  develop  a  notion  of  innovativeness  in  terms  of  local  structures,  dynamics,  and   context  (Lubienski,  2003;  Mowery  and  Rosenberg,  2000;  Traill  and  Grunert,  1997).  We  submit  that   practices  cannot  be  deemed  innovative  in  an  absolute  sense,  but  innovations  must  be  considered  in   terms  of  their  relative  prevalence  in  a  local  and  state  context.       Defining  innovation  is  complicated  as  innovation  in  one  context  may  not  be  innovation  in   another.  Mowery  and  Rosenberg  (2000)  further  define  that  innovation  must  include  local  structures  and   dynamics,  considering  the  context  of  the  innovation.  Lubienski  (2003)  describes  the  education  analogue   to  these  concepts  in  his  dimensions  of  the  nature  of  innovative  practice:  “the  distinctive  nature  of  the   practice”  and  “appearance  of  innovation  in  a  local  context”  (p  408).     The  deviations  between  charter   schools  and  traditional  public  schools  in  the  same  district  are  used  in  this  paper  to  measure  the   contextual  level  of  innovation.  The  outcomes  we  measure  are  therefore  not  innovative  in  the  “brand   new”  sense  of  the  term,  but  they  may  not  be  prevalent  or  standard  practice  in  traditional  public  schools,   either.  Therefore,  we  measure  innovation  in  terms  of  how  innovative  a  practice  is  relative  to  its  local   and  state  context.       Purpose  /  Objective  /  Research  Question  /  Focus  of  Study:   Description  of  the  focus  of  the  research.     The  purpose  of  this  paper  is  to  develop  a  framework  for  measuring  innovation  in  charter  schools.  We   ask  two  questions,     2011 SREE Conference Abstract Template 1 1. What practices constitute innovation in various local and state contexts? 2. Do levels and types of innovation differ between charter schools and traditional public schools?   Setting:   Description  of  the  research  location.       Our  sample  frame  includes  traditional  public  schools  from  the  Schools  and  Staffing  Survey  and   charter  schools  from  our  Northwest  Evaluation  Association  (NWEA)  database  in  103  school  districts  in  11   states.         Population  /  Participants  /  Subjects:     Description  of  the  participants  in  the  study:  who,  how  many,  key  features  or  characteristics.     As  part  of  a  larger  study  of  school  choice,  the  schools  for  our  study  were  selected  from  the  set  of   schools  with  which  NWEA  had  partnered  to  monitor  student  achievement  through  the  administration  of   computerized  adaptive  tests  in  math,  reading  and  language  arts  every  spring  and  fall  of  the  school  year.   As  of  the  spring  of  2006,  approximately  270  were  identified  as  charter  schools.  About  51.79%  of  the   charter  schools  agreed  to  participate  in  the  study.       Intervention  /  Program  /  Practice:     Description  of  the  intervention,  program  or  practice,  including  details  of  administration  and  duration.       Principals  of  the  charter  schools  that  agreed  to  participate  were  asked  to  fill  out  online,   confidential  questionnaires.  The  research  project  survey,  called  NWEA  What  Makes  Schools  Work   (WMSW)  survey  of  principals  is  a  comprehensive  survey  geared  toward  understanding  a  wide  set  of   areas  in  comparing  traditional  public  schools  and  charter  schools,  including  such  topics  as  hiring   practices,  job  focus,  school  organization,  professional  development,  teacher  pay  structures,  parental   involvement,  and  curriculum  foci,    and  instructional  practices.     Research  Design:   Description  of  research  design  (e.g.,  qualitative  case  study,  quasi-­‐experimental  design,  secondary  analysis,  analytic   essay,  randomized  field  trial).     2011 SREE Conference Abstract Template 2 To  provide  local  context  for  the  charter  schools  to  determine  the  extent  to  which  the  charter   schools  are  innovative  in  relation  to  other  schools  in  their  locales,  we  linked  schools  in  our  sample  to   traditional  public  schools  in  the  same  district  from  the  2007-­‐08  Schools  and  Staffing  Survey  (SASS)   (NCES)  using  NCES  district  identifiers.  Because  we  define  practices  as  innovative  relative  to  their  local   context,  we  chose  the  SASS  to  provide  this  context.  It  is  a  nationally  representative  survey,  providing  a   stratified  systemic  sample  of  schools  and  giving  a  picture  of  what  practices  are  in  use  at  both  the  school   and  district  levels.     Data  Collection  and  Analysis:     Description  of  the  methods  for  collecting  and  analyzing  data.     Measures  of  innovation  are  taken  from  NWEA  principal  surveys.  To  obtain  additional  local  and   state  contexts  for  comparison,  we  developed  a  database  from  principal  questionnaire  of  the  nationally   representative  2007-­‐08  SASS  (NCES).  We  matched  items  from  the  principal  surveys  from  our  sample  of   charter  schools  to  similar  items  from  the  SASS  in  order  to  observe  differences  in  the  implementation  of   innovative  practices.  Following  arguments  for  innovation  in  charter  schools,  measures  of  innovation   from  both  the  WMSW  survey  and  2007-­‐08  include  the  extent  to  which  practices  and  policies  are   implemented  that  are  innovative  in  regard  to  instructional  strategies,  curriculum  materials,  student   assessment,  and  parental  contact  and  involvement.  Examples  of  items  include,  such  looping  and  flexible   hiring  policies.           We  calculate  the  difference  in  frequency  of  innovations  within  the  local  context  for  each  charter   and  its  matched  district  traditional  public  schools  in  our  sample.  We  measure  differential  innovativeness   in  two  contexts:  between  the  charter  schools  and  their  contexts  and  charter  schools  and  traditional   public  schools  in  the  aggregate.  For  example,  if  the  local  district  does  not  have  policies  or  programs   about  extended  school  days,  and  the  matched  charter  schools  do,  this  would  be  considered   "innovative."  Therefore,  having  an  extended  day  policy  may  be  innovative  in  one  local  context  but  not  in   another  context  where  this  practice  is  more  widespread.       Findings  /  Results:     Description  of  the  main  findings  with  specific  details.     The  innovations  we  examine  relate  primarily  to  the  instructional  experiences  of  students  in   classrooms  and  schools  since  we  hypothesize  that  those  innovations  closest  to  the  instructional  core  are   likely  to  be  related  to  student  achievement  gains.  Preliminary  results  suggest  limited  innovation   differences  between  charter  and  traditional  public  schools  on  average,  with  more  variation  when  locale   and  state  context  are  taken  into  account.  Practices  where  we  find  the  most  evidence  of  innovation  in   2011 SREE Conference Abstract Template 3 charter  schools  include  awarding  tenure  and  providing  academic  support  services  to  students  such  as   voluntary  tutoring.  Overall,  as  predicted  by  institutional  theory,  schools  in  a  given  choice  set  appear  to   have  similar  programs  and  practices.       Conclusions:     Description  of  conclusions,  recommendations,  and  limitations  based  on  findings.         Based  on  our  findings,  we  conclude  that  while  charter  schools  on  the  whole  may  engage  in   innovative  practices  more  often  that  traditional  public  schools,  within  their  local  context,  they  do  not   fulfill  their  promise  of  innovation.  We  do  not  have  data  that  provides  information  on  which  school   employed  a  practice  first,  therefore  we  cannot  fully  examine  the  impact  charter  schools  may  have  had   on  the  diffusion  of  innovative  practice  within  their  local  context,  but  the  results  support  a  diffusion  of   innovation  notion  supported  by  institutional  theory.     2011 SREE Conference Abstract Template 4 Appendices   Not  included  in  page  count.       Appendix  A.  References   References  are  to  be  in  APA  version  6  format.       Gill, B. P., Timpane, P. M., Ross, K. E., Brewer, D. J., & Booker, K. (2007). Rhetoric versus reality: What we know and what we need to know about vouchers and charter schools. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.     Lubienski,  C.  (2003).  Innovation  in  education  markets:  Theory  and  evidence  on  the  impact  of   competition  and  choice  in  charter  schools.  American  Educational  Research  Journal,   40(2),  395-­‐443.     Malloy,  C.  L.,  &  Wohlstetter,  P.  (2003).  Working  conditions  in  charter  schools.  Education  and  urban   society,  35(2),  219.         Mowery,  D  &  Rosenberg,  N.  (2000).  The  influence  of  market  demand  upon  innovation.  In  Martin,  B.R.  &   Nightingale,  P.  (Eds.),  The  political  economy  of  science,  technology,  and  innovation  (pp  195-­‐242).   Northampton,  MA:  Edward  Elgar.           Traill,  B.  &  Grunert,  K.G.  (1997).  Product  and  process  innovation  in  the  food  industry.  London:     Chapman  &  Hall.     Traill, W. B., & Meulenberg, M. (2002). Innovation in the food industry. Agribusiness, 18(1), 1– 21.     2011 SREE Conference Abstract Template A-5