Volume 4 - Issue 1 - DBU Journal of K-12 Educational Research - Page 84

82 Battdorff et al., 2014; Osberg, 2006; Speakman, Hassel, & Finn, 2005; Texas Public Charter School Association, 2013). In the current study, the traditional public schools included in the review are funded more richly than their geographically paired open enrollment charter schools by an average amount of $1,194 per student. Results from the current study illustrate increased school funding provided solely to open enrollment charter schools would narrow the school funding gap with traditional public schools yet fail to increase student assessment scores in most student cohort groups studied. A third significant implication of the current study concerns the Texas Charter School Association claims that open enrollment charter schools achieve better student assessment outcomes on lesser school funding amounts than do traditional public schools ( Mike Morath, Commissioner of Education, Texas Education Agency, et al. v. Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition, et al., 2016; Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition, et al. v. Michael Williams, Commissioner of Education, Texas Education Agency, 2014). As illustrated previously, almost all open enrollment charter schools cited in the current study receive lesser school funding amounts than do their geographically paired traditional public schools. A review of the mean assessment scores analyzed in each cohort group on the Grade 8 STAAR Mathematics and Reading assessments indicates mixed results with regard to traditional public school and open enrollment charter school student success. In Mathematics, traditional public school students outperformed their open enrollment charter school peers in four of the five student cohort groups with the difference between mean scores ranging from -31.720 to 3.980. Only Black charter school students performed minimally better than their paired traditional public school peers posting mean scores on the Grade 8 STAAR Mathematics assessment of 1608.680 and 1604.700, respectively. Results differed significantly in student performance on the Grade 8 STAAR Reading assessment in the current study. In each of the five cohort groups analyzed, open enrollment charter school student scores outpaced results from their traditional public school peers on the Grade 8 STAAR Reading assessment. Differences between the mean assessment scores registered by the cohort groups ranged from 3.700 to 44.640, all to the benefit of students at open enrollment charter schools. Recommendations Several recommendations arise from review of the findings in the current study. The first recommendation seeks to broaden the study and increase the research scale to more fully understand school funding and its impact on and relationship with student academic achievement across Texas. The current study included school funding and student achievement data from 14 open enrollment charter schools and their geographically paired traditional public schools in Education Service Centers Regions X and XI. The researcher’s initial interest in the topic of school funding and student achievement emanated from the Texas Charter School Association’s decision to join the Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition, et al. v. Michael Williams, Commissioner of Education, Texas Education Agency in 2014, which sought an increase in maintenance and operation funding as well as facility funding. The proposed, broader study of open enrollment charter school and traditional public school student performance on STAAR assessments should include all schools in the state, encompass all grade levels and end-of-course STAAR examinations, include all students at each grade level tested, and be constructed in a longitudinal fashion to render results over several years. A second recommendation resulting from the outcomes of the current study seeks review of the sort of students who exercise public school choice by attending open enrollment charter schools and those who choose to remain at traditional public schools. Results from the current study partially confirm the Texas Charter School Association’s claim that open enrollment charter school students experience strong academic achievement at a lower school funding cost than do traditional public school students. Additional research must be conducted to determine the type of students who exercise choice and leave traditional public schools in favor of open enrollment charter schools. A further recommendation resulting from the current study seeks to determine the most cost effective educational inputs available to increase student learning. Findings Buddy Bonner, EdD