Out of the Debate and Into the Schools

Conducted by the American Institutes for Research for the Boston Foundation, this May 2010 report compares disadvantaged students who attend charter and traditional schools in Boston, finding significant improvement among charter students and identifying time spent in school as the critical factor driving academic gains.

Along with additional time spent in school, the report underscores autonomy as a defining structural element in successful schools, particularly in the areas of staffing, scheduling and time, governance and leadership, curriculum and instruction, professional development, and budget.
The report’s authors recommend that policymakers:

• grant additional autonomy to all schools, while creating provisions for monitoring outcomes and holding schools accountable for student performance;
• increase school time;
• allow for more flexible staffing models;
• create school-level systems to monitor student needs;
• engage teachers in decisionmaking; and
• provide professional development with a focus on building capacity for distributed leadership.

Download an executive summary here, or use the link above to download the full report.