Charter Schools: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Parental Choice and Heuristics in North Carolina

ByJonathan J. Pullin

A Dissertation Submitted to the Gardner-Webb University School of Education

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirementsfor the Degree of Doctor of Education

Gardner-Webb University2016

Approval Page

This dissertation was submitted by Student Name under the direction of the persons listed below. It was submitted to the Gardner-Webb University School of Education and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education at Gardner-Webb University.

Dr. Kelly Clark___________________________ ________________________Ed.D. DateCommittee Chair

Dr. Adriane Mingo________________________ ________________________Ed.D. DateCommittee Member

Dr. John Balls____________________________ ________________________Ed.D. DateCommittee Member

Dr. Steve Laws__________________________ ________________________Ed.D. DateCommittee Member

Dr. Jeffry Rogers________________________ ________________________Ph.D. DateDean of the Gayle Bolt Price School of Graduate Studies

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Acknowledgements

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Abstract

Charter Schools: A Mixed-Methods Study of Why Parents Choose Them Over Traditional Public Schools. Pullin, Jonathan, 2016: Dissertation, Gardner-Webb University, Choice/Decision-Making/Heuristics/ Traditional Public School/Parental Choice

Table of Contents

PageChapter 1: Introduction........................................................................................................1History of Charter Schools...................................................................................................3Statement of the Problem.....................................................................................................4Theoretical Framework......................................................................................................10Purpose of the Study..........................................................................................................12Significance of the Study...................................................................................................12Research Questions............................................................................................................14Types of Schools................................................................................................................14Traditional Public Schools.................................................................................................14Charter Schools..................................................................................................................15Magnet Schools..................................................................................................................16Private Schools...................................................................................................................17Definition of Terms............................................................................................................17Limitations and Delimitations............................................................................................18Summary............................................................................................................................19Chapter 2: Literature Review.............................................................................................20Overview............................................................................................................................20Theoretical Framework......................................................................................................20The Sequential Approach to Decision-Making..................................................................21The Non-Sequential Approach to Decision-Making.........................................................23Heuristics and the Decision-Making Process....................................................................25Cues....................................................................................................................................27Endorsement and Visual Heuristics...................................................................................28The History of Charter Schools in North Carolina............................................................29Traditional vs Charter Schools...........................................................................................32Reasons for Parental Choice and Attitudes........................................................................35The Fedewa Study..............................................................................................................37Summary............................................................................................................................38Chapter 3; Methodology....................................................................................................39Overview............................................................................................................................39Purpose of Study................................................................................................................39Research Questions............................................................................................................40Research Design.................................................................................................................40Confidentiality...................................................................................................................41

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Conflict of Interest.............................................................................................................42Participants.........................................................................................................................42Selection of Focus Group...................................................................................................43Selection of Interviews......................................................................................................44Quantitative Instrument.....................................................................................................45Pilot Test............................................................................................................................46Readability of Survey Instrument......................................................................................47Qualitative Instruments......................................................................................................48Focus Group.......................................................................................................................48Interview Instrument..........................................................................................................49Data Collection Procedures................................................................................................49Survey................................................................................................................................49Focus Groups.....................................................................................................................50Interviews...........................................................................................................................50Data Analysis.....................................................................................................................51Summary............................................................................................................................54References..........................................................................................................................55Appendix A........................................................................................................................63Appendix B........................................................................................................................65Appendix C........................................................................................................................73Appendix D........................................................................................................................76

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Today in the U.S. there are 2.9 million students being served by over 6,700

charter schools across 42 states and the District of Columbia (Charter School Laws,

2015). An average of 239 children are waiting to enter each charter school in America,

demonstrating a 21 percent surge in parental demand for charters over last year (Another

5000 Charter Schools, 2015). Across the country students are on waiting lists – with

most schools reporting waiting lists of nearly 300 students each – and demand continues

to outstrip supply suggesting that charter schools could grow significantly faster to serve

more students if the policy environment were more supportive (Charter School Laws

Across, 2015). In Texas alone, it is estimated that 40,000 children are on waiting lists for

charters schools. In Boston, the number is 8,000 (Another 5000 Charter Shools, 2015).

In theory, parental demand and educational supply should work together to

produce a satisfactory product for the market. The supplying of an abundance of charter

schools will not necessarily improve the demand of satisfaction from parents and students

for better educational services at their institutions of learning (Buckley & Schneider,

2009). In a market setting with only one supplier, consumers have no incentive to search

for choices because there is only a single source. In a market where there is only one

supplier, there is no incentive to improve services or respond to the demands of the

clientele. “Informed consumers (parents) demand that suppliers (schools) improve the

quality of the services (education) they provide to the consumers” (Buckley and

Schneider, 2009, p.42).

In the last 15 years, charter schools have been increasing across the country as

parents are choosing to place their children in an alternative educational setting that is

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different than a public school (Miron & Nelson, 2001). Charter schools are a hybrid form

of school, combining elements of traditional public schools with those associated with

private schools (Miron & Nelson, 2001). According to the National Charter School

Resource Center, charter schools are publicly funded, independently operated schools

that are allowed to operate with more autonomy than traditional public schools in

exchange for increased accountability (National Charter Resource Center. n,d,). At the

core of the charter school model is the idea that charter schools should be autonomous

and held accountable for student learning (National Charter Resource Center). In an

attempt to achieve acceptable levels of student learning, charter school leaders are being

given freedom to do whatever it takes to help students achieve academically (National

Charter Resource Center). Hence, parents are deciding if charter schools are providing a

better education to their children than assigned traditional public schools. This is a

national phenomenon that is causing the educational system to rethink the approach of

how to provide a quality education to its clientele (National Charter Resource Center).

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that between 1999–2000 and 2011–

12, the percentage of all public schools that were public charter schools increased from

1.7 to 5.8 percent, and the total number of public charter schools increased from 1,500 to

5,700 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012-2013) In addition to increasing in

number, charter schools have generally increased in enrollment size over time (National

Center for Education Statistics, 2012-2013). For instance, the percentages of charter

schools with the largest enrollment sizes (500–900 students and 1,000 or more students)

increased from (11%-22%) 1999–2000 to 2011–12, and the percentage of charter schools

with the smallest enrollment size (under 300 students) decreased from 77 to 56 percent

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(National Center for Education Statistics, 2012-2013). The most recent data from the

National Alliance for Public Charter School estimates that more than 600 new public

charter schools opened 2013-14 school year. Compared with the 2012-13 school year, an

estimated 288,000 additional students are attending public charter schools in the 2013-14.

History of Charter Schools

It appears that the term charter was a thought from the minds of Dr. Ray Budde and Mr.

Al Shanker. They had the idea of the term charter early, but not as a type of school, but as

a way to develop a platform for developing different schools (Saulny, 2005). Dr. Budde

was assistant professor at the school of education at the University of Massachusetts,

Amherst. He first suggested the term "charter" for use in education in the 1970's to

describe a novel contracting arrangement designed to support the efforts of innovative

teachers within the public school system. He espoused that the charter arrangement could

produce a school giving teachers more curriculum control in exchange for more

accountability over student achievement. In 1988, he wrote the booklet Education by

Charter: Restructuring School Districts (Budde, 1988). Dr. Budde delineated various

ideas using a model school system that allowed groups of teachers to receive charters

from the school board, granting them the authority to manage schools and try new

educational approaches within the existing structure of their home districts (Budde,

1998). In 1988, at a meeting of the National Press Club in Washington, American

Federation President Albert Shanker first proposed the creation of charter schools—

publicly funded institutions that would be given greater flexibility to experiment with

new ways of educating students. His vision included small groups of teachers and parents

that would submit research-based proposals outlining creative ways to educate kids. A

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panel of local school board members and teachers’ union officials would review

proposals and schools would be left alone for a period of 5 to 10 years (Budde, 1998).

This did occur and lead to the opening of the first charter school in America, City

Academy Charter School in 1992 (Resources on Minnesota Issues, 2015). Schools would

be freed from certain collective bargaining provisions such as class-size limitations being

waived to merge two classes and allow team-teaching. (The Charter School Idea Turns

20, 2008). Shanker’s idea was to use teacher expertise to try new ideas in the classroom.

He wanted teams of teachers making suggestions on how to best educate students (The

Charter School Idea Turns 20, 2008). President Shanker, working with Minnesota

legislators, created the nation’s first charter school legislation in the 1990’s. In 1991,

Minnesota became the first state to pass a charter school law (Resources on Minnesota

Issues, 2015). The idea behind this revolution was to pass a law that granted parents,

teachers and others in the community the opportunity to start and run new public schools

outside the direct control of local school districts (Resources on Minnesota Issues, 2015).

Statement of the Problem

Students are assigned to a local public school annually, but parents are becoming

increasingly more interested in enrolling their children into charter schools (Strum et al.,

2005). Prior to choosing a charter school, some parents are not performing due diligence

on charter schools prior to the enrollment of their children (Strum et al., 2005). If parents

do not research the charter school before enrollment of their children, the possibility

exists that having incomplete information could prove to be detrimental to the learning of

the children (Islandpacket, 2014). The problem is that this could lead to unforeseen

circumstances such as a changing national demographic, pervasiveness of racial

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separatism, unequal patterns of poverty, the political divisiveness of the educational

system (Meeks, et al., 2000).

Furthermore, as more parents choose charter schools, the traditional public

schools will be increasingly populated with low performing students that come from low

socioeconomic backgrounds. This monolithic population will lack diversity in social

environments and have limited exposure to economic prosperity (Strum, 2005). A major

change in the education system of the United States occurred in 1954 with the Supreme

Court in Brown v. Board of Education (Meeks, et al., 2000) when the Supreme Court

recognized, in a 9-0 decision the important roles that fiscal, sociological, and

psychological factors play in the public schools and their critical place in the

sustainability of a democratic society (Meeks, et al., 2000). As court-ordered

desegregation began to take hold, the avenues of escape for white parents from enrolling

their children in largely minority and poor schools have been identified as choice options

(Meeks, et al., 2000). These avenues include magnet schools; vouchers; privatization of

public schools or charter school, for-profit schools; and home schooling. These choice

options, which were initiated in the 1970s, provided an alternative to forced busing

(Meeks, et al., 2000). They were particularly significant for middle-class families who

could not afford to reside in affluent neighborhoods with well-financed, predominately

white schools nor afford the tuition of private schools (Meeks, et al., 2000). Such

separation in the educational system may cause a change in the economic base of the

country, as well as shifts in the racial composition of communities and cities (Meeks, et

al., 2000).

The literature supports and continues to draw attention to the fact that there are

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also racial disparities in charter schools. Evans and Renzulli (2005) state that whites get

social status from their neighborhoods and the schools that their children attend. The

authors studied the circumstances surrounding why charter schools enroll a high

percentage of white students. They researched how the distribution of nonwhite students

in a school district influenced the patterns of white enrollment in charter school. They

argue that racial competition in school districts result in white flight into charter schools.

Evans and Rezulli (2005) posit that national statistics tell us very little about (1) the local

concentrations of whites and nonwhite in charter schools and (2) how the racial

composition and distribution of charter schools compare with composition and racial

distribution of local schools. The relative ease in which whites can find a mostly white

educational district, suggests that white flight is positively related to the presence of

lower minority populations in a district, even though this may be obtained at a higher

residential cost and increased commute to work (Evans & Rezulli, 2005). This is

important because white flight could promote segregation of the educational system (both

charter and public) and prevent cross-cultural learning between various ethnicities of

students. Evans and Rezulli (2005) found that segregated school districts are prime

targets for segregated charter schools since they have a larger percentage of non-white

students.

In Minnesota, the percentage of students of color in charter schools were higher

than the hosting school districts by 20 percent, while in Mississippi charter schools were

almost 60% whiter than hosting school districts (Twin Cities, 2008). In each of these

instances, a segregated school system is apparent to the casual observer. The Twin Cities

report found that by 2002, more than half of the charter schools were non-white

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segregated, compared to only 18% of traditional public schools. The charter school

integration numbers remained about the same through 2008, while the public school

numbers increased to 39% (Twin Cities, 2008). In the Twin Cities, in 2008, 89% of

black charter school students were in segregated settings in comparison to 38% black

traditional public school students. Hispanics and students of color were twice as likely to

be located in a segregated charter school setting when compared to a traditional public

school (Twin Cities, 2008). In St. Paul, 88% of all students of color in charter schools

attended non-segregated schools compared to 73% of students of color in traditional

public schools. In Minneapolis, over 96% of all students of color in charter school had a

segregated environment compared to 80% in traditional public schools (Twin Cities,

2008). Student poverty rates were higher in the charter schools when compared to

traditional public schools in the Twin Cities area (Twin Cities, 2008). In Minnesota,

almost all white-segregated charter school were located in white suburban school

districts, while non-white segregated charter schools were located in either urban school

districts or racially transitioning inner suburbs (Twin Cities, 2008).

Work by Frankenburg and Lee (2003) point out the following factors that

influence the segregation of charter schools by race; (1) many charter schools recruit

students they believe would be successful or adopt their mission. They have screening

procedures that are not permitted in the public school sector (as public schools must

provide an education to all students).

Evans and Rezulli state that urbanicity is key because those students that are

likely to relocate to a charter school often live in areas that have subpar performance.

Evans and Rezulli also point out that the type of curriculum or attributes of a school may

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impact minority enrollment. Specialized curricula may include marine biology or fine arts

while others may offer direct instruction or “Back to the Basics” curricula. Evans and

Rezulli (2005) point out that the type of curriculum or attributes of a school may impact

minority enrollment. Specialized curricula may include marine biology or fine arts while

others may offer direct instruction or “Back to the Basics” curricula.

Bifulco, et al. (2008) found similar results in their analysis of charter school

transfers in North Carolina. Black students, on average, transferred to schools that were

proportionally more black, while white students, on average, transferred to schools that

were more white. Customary attendance patterns- feeder systems or schools previously

attend by siblings- also impact school choice; one study found that customary attendance

patterns of middle class parents tend to include higher quality schools than those of their

lower-income counterparts (Bell, 2006). According to American Renaissance, charter

schools in North Carolina tend to be either overwhelmingly black or

overwhelmingly white–in contrast to traditional public schools, which are

more evenly mixed (American Renaissance, 2015). “When researching

student grades 4-8, it was found that the regular public school population

in North Carolina has become less white over the past 15 years; from

64.1 percent white to 53 percent white while the charter school

population has grown more white (from 58.5 percent white to 62.2

percent white” (American Renaissance, 2015). “At the national level, seventy

percent of black charter school students attend intensely segregated minority charter

schools (which enroll 90-100% of students from under-represented minority

backgrounds), or twice as many as the share of intensely segregated black students in

traditional public schools. Some charter schools enrolled populations where 99% of the

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students were from under-represented minority backgrounds. Forty-three percent of black

charter school students attended these extremely segregated minority schools, a

percentage which was, by far, the highest of any other racial group, and nearly three

times as high as black students in traditional public schools. Overall, nearly three out of

four students in the typical black student’s charter school are also black. This figure

indicates extremely high levels of isolation, particularly given the fact that black students

comprise less than one-third of charter students” (Frankenburg, et al., 2010).

Latino students are also impacted by the demographics of charter schools.

According to a study by the Center for American Progress, Latino students

continue to lag behind their non-Latino counterparts in most

educational indicators of success despite a rooted history and growing

presence in the United States. The underperformance of Latino

students and their staggering dropout rates have galvanized the civil

rights community to take action and rally support behind

comprehensive and transformative school initiatives. The prolific

growth of charter schools in the Latino community is one outcome of

this reformative action (Next Generation Charter Schools, 2010). In the

Southwestern portion of United States, there is a large Latino population. A report by the

organization Quality Charters states that English Language Learners (ELLs) may be

from homes where a language other than English is spoken or where English is spoken

with difficulty. ELLs may speak any one of more than 400 languages, although Spanish

is the most widely spoken native language, accounting for 75 percent of all ELL students.

Latinos represent the greatest number of ELL students nationwide, with first- and second-

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generation students from North, Central, and South America (Charter Schools and ELL,

2014). The report goes on to discuss the fact one-fifth of all children in the Midwest are

born into homes where the parents don’t speak English (the vast majority Spanish-

speaking), and a tenth of all students are classified as English language learners (ELL)

students (Frankenburg et al., 2010) This selection bias could have a positive impact on

the academic performance of a charter school (Frankenburg & Lee, 2003), yet limit the

number of minority student that are enrolled into the school. (2) Charter schools often

lack the expertise to teach English Language Learners students and students with Special

Needs. This is important because these students (ELL and Special Needs) tend to score

lower on standardized tests and without their tests scores, the academic statistics of the

school tend to be higher than traditional public schools.

Furthermore, if the charter school does not have an ELL program (which may not

be required by the charter), this further re-segregates the student population and promotes

racial imbalance among charter schools (Gill, 2001). The absence of an ELL program

will eliminate the enrollment of Hispanic/Latino students, thereby limiting the

multicultural exposure and interaction between different demographics of students (Gill,

2001). An additional critical factor that may influence school demographics includes the

attributes of a charter school and its urbanicity.

To place emphasis on the problem, a seven percent growth in the number of

operating charter schools and 13 percent growth in charter school student enrollment are

demonstrations of parents’ demand for high-quality educational options (Estimated

number of Charter Schools, 2014). The problem is that a continued increase in the growth

charter schools could result in demographic shifts within K-12 education, racial

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separation among K-12 student populations and political division among parents, which

may result in the resegregation of society.

Theoretical Framework

A heuristic is a mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make

judgments quickly and efficiently. These rule-of-thumb strategies shorten decision-

making time and allow people to function without constantly stopping to think about their

next course of action (What is a Heuristic, n.d.). While heuristics can speed up our

problem and decision-making process, they can introduce errors (What is a Heuristic,

n.d.). Just because something has worked in the past does not mean that it will work

again, and relying on an existing heuristic can make it difficult to see alternative solutions

or come up with new ideas (What is a Heuristic, n.d.). Decision theory is all about

studying how decisions are made (Shah & Oppenheimer, 2008). It focuses on only some

aspects of human activity. In particular, it focuses on how we use freedom. Our choices,

in many situations, are goal-directed activities. Hence, decision theory is concerned with

goal-directed behavior in the presence of options ( Shah & Oppenheimer, 2008).

According to Buckley and Schneider, little is known about how parents (1) gather

information about schools; (2) use that information to find an appropriate school for their

child and (3) allow demographic factors such as race and socioeconomics influence

resulting patterns of parental choice behaviors. They argue that information gathering

from local schools is expensive, the nature of the good is more complex and the quality

of the product is more difficult to assess. They continue this line of reasoning by writing

that rather than exhaustively gathering information about local schools, parents often take

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shortcuts to collecting information or heuristics (Buckley &Schneider, 2009). This study

will consider if parental choice was based upon them performing due diligence on the

selected charter school, or by determining that it was an easily available educational

option.

Purpose of the Study

The primary purpose of this mixed methods research is to investigate why

parents, who have no previous experience in the educational system (other than their

own), are choosing to enroll their kindergarten children into charter schools over assigned

traditional public schools. The secondary purpose of this research is to determine if

parents use heuristic decision-making behavior when selecting a charter school for their

children. Attitudinal data (e.g., aesthetic and facility features of the charter school and

classroom size) will be examined to determine the level of importance parents placed on

selection factors when choosing a charter school. This quantitative data will be collected

using a survey instrument and analyzed for frequency. The study will incorporate

quantitative and qualitative data collection methodologies in order to gain a deeper

understanding of the decision-making processes behind parental selection of charter

schools over assigned traditional public schools. These two forms of data will give a

richer and more inclusive description of the phenomenon of parental choice and

heuristics under study. Additionally, multiple sources of data will strengthen the validity

of the study by providing layers of evidence that can corroborate reported findings.

Significance of the Study

Mindful of the purpose of the study, as noted above, the researcher hopes to

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provide an in-depth understanding of the most important selection factors and associated

decision-making processes involving parental choice of charter schools over traditional

public schools. According to current research educators, elected officials, business

leaders and parents are not producing 21st Century citizens that will be able to compete in

the global economy (Balls, Eury & King, 2011). Research shows that charter schools

have become one of the fastest developing public education sectors (National Center for

Education Statistics, 2013-2013). In her dissertation, Green (2012) explored various

influences that may drive a parent to select the charter school as their educational site of

choice. Her study found sufficient evidence that the charter school phenomena could be

attributed to like characteristics in the responding families rather than to differences

based on income or race/ethnicity. There were no significant differences in satisfaction

when the data was stratified using income and ethnicity characteristic factors. However,

she did not study data on the parental decision-making process of when choosing a

charter school (Greene, 2012). A study by the Cowen Institute for Public Education

researched the accuracy of parental information, selection criteria and the prioritization of

preferences when choosing a charter school in New Orleans (Spotlight on Choice, 2013).

The study found that the parents in the study obtained most of their information and made

school choice based on information from friends, and that misinformation about the

schools was rampant. Selection criteria and prioritization were based on school reputation

and proximity to home, while race was also a consideration (Spotlight on Choice, 2013).

This study hopes to make a significant contribution to the body of knowledge by

providing information on why parents are making school choices within the context of

providing the best available education for their children so that they can compete in the

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global market upon completion of their secondary education. This study is significant

because it will examine whether or not heurism plays a role in the decision making

processes of reasons why parents are choosing to enroll their children into charter schools

as opposed to assigned traditional public schools. Furthermore, if parents are not

performing their “due diligence” when selecting a charter school, this could prove to be

detrimental to the learning of the child and increase the disillusionment of parents with

the entire educational system (Braddock, 2009). There is a paucity of information in this

area, and there is a need for mixed methods research to explore the decision-making

process of parents when they choose to enroll their children into a charter school over an

assigned traditional public school.

Research Questions

1. Which selection factors (e.g., academic quality; administrative factors and

program elements) are most influential in parental choice of charter schools?

2. How do cues, endorsement and visualization heuristics play a role in the

decision-making process when a choosing Charter School for the first time?

3. How are parental attitudes influencing the choice of Charter Schools over

Traditional Public Schools?

Types of Schools

Parents can select from a variety of public school choice options beyond their assigned

educational facility (Hoffman, 2005). School choices include traditional public school

choice plans, charter schools, private schools and magnet schools (Hoffman, 2005).

Charter schools are public schools that to provide free elementary or secondary education

to students (Hoffman, 2005). A magnet school is typically designed to attract students of

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different racial/ethnic backgrounds or to provide an academic or social focus on a

particular theme (Hoffman 2005). Private schools (religious or secular) and home schools

offer parents an alternative choice of education for students (Hoffman, 2005).

Traditional Public Schools

Tuition is free. Traditional public schools are funded by federal, state, and local tax

dollars. These schools (elementary, middle and high schools) must be aligned with state

guidelines in curriculum, instruction and methods of student/teacher evaluation standards

as determined by each state (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2012-2013). In

fall 2014, about 49.8 million students will attend public elementary and secondary

schools. Of these, 35.1 million will be in prekindergarten through grade 8 and 14.7

million will be in grades 9 through 12. An additional 5.0 million students are expected to

attend private schools (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2014). In 2011–12,

there were about 13,600 public school districts with over 98,300 public schools,

including charter schools. (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2012-2013).

Charter Schools

Charter schools are free. Charter schools reflect their founder’s varied philosophies,

programs, and organizational structures, serve diverse populations and are generally

committed to improving education (Hadderman, 1998). Charter schools are not under the

same restrictions as traditional public schools and are reimbursed by the state for each

student that attends (National Conference of State Legislatures). The charter schools are

then expected to achieve (usually within 3-5 years) prescribed achievement outcomes or

face having their charters revoked by the authorizer (National Conference of State

Legislatures).

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In North Carolina, charter schools receive funds from the federal government, state

and the school districts where their students reside (National Conference of State

Legislatures). As publicly funded schools, charter schools receive money for the students

they enroll. When a student enrolls in a charter school, the money follows him or her

from the resident school district. A main difference between charter schools and

traditional schools

is that charters are granted budgetary autonomy in exchange for educational results

(National Conference of State Legislatures).

Magnet Schools

Magnet schools are free public elementary and secondary schools of choice that

are operated by school districts or a consortium of districts. Magnet schools are typically

more hands on – minds on and use an approach to learning that is inquiry or

performance/project based. They use state, district, or Common Core standards in all

subject areas which are taught within the overall theme of the school. Most magnet

schools do not have entrance criteria, but rather, embody the belief that all students have

interests and talents that families and educators believe are better cultivated in a magnet

school. They often use a random computer-based lottery system for admission. Diversity

is an important element of a magnet school. Since student interest in a theme is the only

eligibility criteria to attend a magnet school, students from a wide array of backgrounds

attend magnet schools. As a result, they promote higher level cognitive and social

learning. Curriculum is also clear and transparent for families so they can more fully

engage in the learning of their students. Magnet schools serve all students including

English learners as well as students receiving Special Education services. Transportation

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is typically also provided for no cost to families (Magnet Schools of America).

Private Schools

Private schools are tuition driven. Sources of tuition include parents, grants,

donations, endowments, alumni, businesses, and community organizations. If the school

is associated with a religious organization, the organization itself may be the primary

source of funding. In some jurisdictions with a voucher system, some private schools are

funded by tuition paid for by a voucher from the state. Tuition can be expensive. Some

K-12 boarding schools approach the cost of some private universities. A survey of over

1,100 schools belonging to the National Association of Independent Schools found that

the national average tuition for day schools is about $19,100. Tuition tends to be lower in

elementary grades and higher in high school. Boarding schools where students live and

attend school charge a much higher premium, about $45,400 on average, but can range

up to $60,000 or more. Private schools are free to offer religious education, or curriculum

not regulated by state standards (Public vs. Private. vs. Charter Schools, n.d.).

Limitations and Delimitations

There are several limitations to this study that inhibit the drawing of broad-based

conclusions from the findings of the data. This research is a modification of previous

work by Fedewa, 2005. This study is limited to the selection of participants which

consists of parents with first time enrollment of a child into any school. No parents from

home schools, private schools or parochial school will be asked to participate in the

study. A delimitation of the study is the selection of three schools located in the Piedmont

Region of North Carolina. Due to small sample population, this study may not be

generalizable. Despite the above limitations and delimitations, this study hopes to provide

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a more in-depth understanding of parental choices and the heuristic decision-making

behavior associated when choosing a charter school over their assigned traditional public

school.

Definition of Terms

Charter: A performance contract that details the school’s mission, its program

and goals, the population served, and ways to assess success or failure. (Buckley &

Schneider, 2009).

Charter School: These are publicly funded entities that operate free from either

some or most of the regulations that apply to most traditional public schools (Vergari,

2014).

Decision Theory: Concerned with goal-directed behavior in the presence of

options (Hansson, 2005).

Heurism: Describes the simple processes that replace complex algorithms (Shan

& Oppenheimer, 2008).

No Child Left Behind Act: The legislation was proposed by President George

W. Bush on January 23, 2001. The act requires states to provide “highly qualified”

teachers to all students. Each state sets its own standards for what counts as "highly

qualified". No Child Left Behind requires all public schools receiving federal funding to

administer a state-wide standardized test annually to all students. This means that all

students take the same test under the same conditions. (U.S. Department of Education,

No Child Left Behind Act, 2001).

School Choice: Any policy designed to break the link between residential

location and school attendance zones in order to reduce the geometric constraint inherent

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in traditional public schooling. (Goldhaber & Fide, 2002).

Parental Involvement: Parenting behaviors directed towards children’s

education. (Gonzales-DeHass, Williams & Holbein, 2005).

Public School: Elementary or secondary schools supported by public funds.

They provide a free and appropriate education for all children in the United States. These

schools are organized by public authorities and provide public access without regard to

race, sex, creed or religion (Public Schools of North Carolina, n.d.).

Summary

Charter schools continue to grow across the United States (Estimated number of

Charter Schools, 2014). The ideas of Dr. Budde and Al Shanker continue to inspire

parents and educators to experiment with improving the educational system. The problem

that will be addressed in this study is that charter populations are increasing at a greater

rate than in past years. The primary purpose of this mixed methods research is to

investigate why parents, who have no previous experience in the educational system

(other than their own), are choosing to enroll their kindergarten children into charter

schools over assigned traditional public schools. Heuristics are the theoretical framework

that will be used in this study; specifically cues, endorsement and visual heuristics. The

significance of this study will hopefully explain the decision-making processes involved

when parents are selecting an educational facility for their children.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

Overview

The presence of charters schools is increasing on a national basis. The ideas of Dr.

Ray Budde and Al Shanker are continuing to flourish in different communities parents

are not satisfied with the local educational system. Parents view charter schools as an

affordable alternative to private schools and in some cases, they avoid the lottery system

that is associated with magnet schools. However, parents that do not perform due

diligence a charter school prior to enrolling their children risk may risk possibility of

being disappointed and frustrated with the organization. Issues such as academics, school

administration, demographics, free lunch, transportation and ELL services could be very

important in the successful education of a child (Strum, 2005). The primary purpose of

this mixed methods research is to investigate why parents, who have no previous

experience in the educational system (other than their own), are choosing to enroll their

kindergarten children into charter schools over assigned traditional public schools. This

research hopes to find whether parents are making heuristic decisions or performing

research on charter schools before enrolling their children.

Chapter 2 will discuss the theoretical framework for study, which includes (1)

decision-making processes, (2) parents and information and (3) heuristics and the

decision-making process. It will review the impact of charter schools on traditional

public schools, parental attitudes toward public schools, and summarize the current state

of charter schools in North Carolina.

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Theoretical Framework

When discussing parental choice, the theory on cognitive heuristics or “mental

shortcuts” that people use when making complex decisions (Sturm et al., 2005) is of

particular interest in this study. Behavioral-based decision theory is about making

decisions (Hansson, 2005). A major part of daily life is about making decisions such as

whether or not to eat breakfast. Decision theory, according to Hanson, is concerned with

goal-directed behavior in the presence of options (Hansson, 2005). Hansson also

discusses two decision theories; normative and descriptive. Normative theory involves

how a decision should be made in order to be rational. Descriptive theory discusses how a

decision is actually made by an individual. Normative issues include questions

about making a decision when a person is unsure how to proceed due

to insufficient information, how a person can synchronize decisions,

and how groups can socially coordinate their decisions. Descriptive

issues revolve around making decisions with empirical data (Hansson,

2005).

As found in the work of Hansson (2005), the French philosopher

Cordecet discussed the three stages of the decision making process. In

stage one, a person examines the principles and various aspects of the

issue. In stage two, the question being discussed is clarified, various

opinions combine to a small number of alternatives. In stage three, an

actual choice is made from the alternatives (Cordecet, 1847). Prior to

an individual making a choice, a decision-making process occurs.

The Sequential Approach to Decision-Making

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Herbert Simon has been called the “father of the sciences of decision” and he won

the Nobel Prize in economics in 1978 (Pomerol & Federic, 2004). Simon coined the term

satisficing, a portmanteau of satisfy and suffice, in 1956 to explain the behavior of

decision makers under circumstances in which an optimal solution cannot be determined

(Simon, 1977).

In 1977, Simon wrote that decision-making consists of four principal phases:

intelligence, design, choice and review (Simon, 1977). Simon was clearly interested in

the mechanics of the decision making process, in that he considers how a decision maker

evaluates all the consequences and compares them with each other. He observed that

decision is a matter of compromise; i.e., all decision makers have several more or less

contradictory objectives in mind (Pomerol &Federic, 2004). Thus, Simon was the first to

stress the multicriterion aspect of decision making (Pomerol & Federic, 2004). The work

of Cordecet, Simon and Brim are each noted for advancing the idea that decision-making

occurs in sequential orderly steps. Brim et al. (1963) “describe the relevance of decision-

making studies to the investigation of social and personality variables and the

significance of a sociological approach to the study of the decision process” (p. 202-203).

Brim further delineated Simon’s three decision processes into six phases:

1. Identification of the Problem

2. Obtaining necessary Information

3. Production of possible Solutions for Performance

4. Selection of a Strategy for Performance

5. Evaluation of such solutions (Stopping Rule)

6. Actual performance of an Action or Actions and Subsequent Learning and

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Revision (Brim, 1963)

This is the opposite of heuristic decision-making. Heuristics involves making a

decision without process. Sequential decision making describes a situation where the

decision maker makes successive observations of a process before a final decision is

made. In most sequential decision problems there is an implicit or explicit cost associated

with each observation. The procedure to decide when to stop taking observations and

when to continue is called the stopping rule. The objective in sequential decision making

is to find a stopping rule that optimizes the decision in terms of minimizing losses or

maximizing gains, including observed costs (Diederich, 2002).

The Non-Sequential Approach of Decision-Making

There is research that disputes the sequential order of decision-making. In 1972,

Witte examined decision-making and offered further insight into the process. He argued

that “a more realistic model should allow the various parts of the decision process to

come in different order in different decisions” (Witte, 1972). He believes that humans

cannot collect information without simultaneously immediately evaluating alternatives.

This process forces humans to make a decision and represents the total decision-making

process (Witte, 1972). This process is more aligned to heuristics. Mintzberg,

Raisinghani, and Théorêt (1976) proposed a non-sequential model in which decision-

making occurred in interconnected phases and routines rather than in linear progression.

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.

Figure 1. MRT Nom-Sequential Model for Decision-Making Process (Mintzberg, Raisinghani, and Théorêt. Reprinted from The Structure of “Unstructured” Decision Processes (p.253). by Mintzberg, Henry., Raisinghani, Duru., & Theoret, Andre. (1976, June). Administrative Science Quarterly, Volume 21. Number 2. Pages 246-275.

They renamed Simon’s three phases as identification, development and selection,

each with multiple routines. The authors posit that in the identification phase there are

two routines. The first routine consists of the “identification of problems and

opportunities through verbal data received by the decision makers " (Mintzberg, et al., p.

25

253). During the second routine a diagnosis, or "the tapping of existing information

channels and the opening of new ones clarify and define the issues of concern"

(Mintzberg, et al., p. 254).

In the second phase, development, options are defined and clarified by the

decision-makers. The two routines in this phase are search and design. The search routine

seeks to discover ready-made solutions, and the design routine seeks to discover new

solutions or modifying ready-made ones (Hansson, 2005). This is the phase that is most

closely related to heuristics.

The third phase introduced by Mintzberg, et al. (1976) is the selection phase

which has three routines. First, the screen routine is applicable only when "when search is

expected to generate more ready-made alternatives than can be intensively evaluated" (p.

257). Secondly, the evaluation-choice routine is the actual choice between the

alternatives. The final routine, authorization, seeks approval for the solution selected

(Mintzberg, et al., 1976).

Heuristics and the Decision-Making Process

In discussing the decision-making process, the term “heuristic” was brought to

wide attention in psychology when A. Newell and Simon (1972) used the word to

describe simple processes that replace complex algorithms. A heuristic is a mental

shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and

efficiently. It is a rule-of-thumb strategy or mental shortcut that shortens decision-making

time and allows people to function without constantly stopping to think about their next

course of action (What is a Heuristic, n.d.). By definition, heuristics must allow decision

makers to process information in a less effortful manner than one would expect from an

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optimal decision rule (Shah & Oppenheimer, 2008). According to Shah and

Oppenheimer, heuristics are methods for arriving at satisfactory solutions with modest

amounts of computation, suggesting that people seek to reduce the effort associated with

decision processes. “Heuristic processing is conceptualized as a more limited mode of

information processing that requires less cognitive effort and fewer cognitive resources.

Such processing is not predicated on message comprehension, and it suggests an

orientation in which people rely primarily on that subset of incoming information that

enables them to use simple decision rules to form their judgments” (Ratneshwar &

Chaiken, 1991. p. 53). Shah and Oppenheimer also mention that in judgment and

decision making, a complex algorithm (weight additive rule) is used to obtain optimal

decisions and judgments (Shah & Oppenheimer, 2008). This weight additive rule

requires a lot of effort and cognitive ability from people (Shah & Oppenheimer, 2008).

Therefore, heuristics permits people to make either a decision or choice using rule of

thumb techniques (Shah & Oppenheimer, 2008). As the demands on limited cognitive

resources increase, people may employ methods or strategies that reduce the effort they

expend on computation.

Heuristics can be referred to as methods that use principles of effort-reduction and

simplification (Shah & Oppenheimer, 2008). “At its core, the weighted additive rule

describes how decision makers use and integrate relevant information” (p. 208). The

authors posit that the heuristics people use will reduce their cognitive demands in the

decision-making process. The literature discusses many related areas of heuristics that are

centered on the decision making process. To name a few, the idea of attribute substitution

discusses how people make judgments and decisions by using a limited amount of

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information. This idea states that decision makers may substitute a piece of readily

available information for information that might be difficult to access but more likely to

yield accurate judgment; hence they use the answer to an easy question to solve a related

problem (Kahneman & Frederick, 2002). Brand name heuristics states that people more

favorably evaluate products with positively intrinsically attractive brand names

(Maheswaran, Mackie, & Chaiken, 1992).

The endorsement heuristic suggests that people will find messages more

convincing if a positively regarded organization endorses them (Forehand, Gastil, &

Smith, 2004). The expertise heuristic states that experts will convince people more

effectively than novices (Ratneshwar & Chaiken, 1991). Shah and Oppenheimer posit

that all the framework of heuristics depends on one or more of the following:

1. Examining fewer cues.

2. Reducing the difficulty associated with retrieving and storing cue values.

3. Simplifying the weighting principles for cues.

4. Integrating less information.

5. Examining fewer alternatives (Shah and Oppenheimer, 2008).

They continue to hypothesize that people may use them, even if they are not

consciously aware of having adopted the heuristic framework. Shah and Oppenheimer

indicate that such a framework allows us to understand heuristics by highlighting the role

of reducing the effort required by a task, thus simplifying the decision-making process.

Because heuristics provide cognitive efficiency, they should be relied upon more heavily

in more cognitively complex situations, and/or for decisions that involve more difficult

choices (Lau, Richards and Redlawsk, 1991).

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Cues.

The decision-making process is typically based on available information or a cue.

The traditional definition of a “cue” is a piece of information (Shah &Oppenheimer,

2008). According to Kahneman and Frederick (2002) cues can be broken down into

subparts. Shah and Oppenheimer use the example of sportscasters that refer to the

“athleticism” of players in various sports. They state that this cue (or piece of

information) can be broken down into more basic elements or subsets of cues such as

speed, strength, and height. They posit that in many cases only a subset of the available

cues is actually used when making a decision, and this behavior could be described as

heuristic.

Endorsement and Visual Heuristics.

Endorsements are a type of information that has heuristic value which can weaken

the correctness of decision-making. A person could learn of a relevant interest group’s

endorsement for a particular issue and rely on that endorsement in making a decision,

thus deferring the required tough cognitive effort and entrusting it to others prior to

making a decision. (Lau & Redlawsk, 2001). However, that decision may not have the

heurist’s desired results. Another example of endorsement heuristics would be visual

images. Appearances or visual images can be heuristically important when making

important decisions. “Visual images are so pervasive in the social world that researchers

rarely consider their heuristic value. A single picture or image provides a tremendous

amount of information including gender, race, and age, and often general likableness,

which immediately brings many social stereotypes into play (Lau & Redlawsk, 2001).

Visual images can illicit emotions and therefore judgments about various situations; this

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can sometimes be misleading in the determination of accuracy and value of information.

When certain images become disproportionately available even otherwise reliable

personal judgments could be mistaken (Lau & Redlawsk, 2001). Hence, appearances or

visual images have the potential to cause a person to make an inaccurate heuristic

decision regarding an important decision, such as choosing an educational facility for a

child. Cues, endorsement and visual heuristics are the focus of this study due to the

decision(s) being made by parents.

The History of Charter Schools in North Carolina

Rep. Steve Wood (R–Guilford) and Sen. Wib Gulley (D–Durham) introduced

charter school legislation in 1994. The North Carolina Family Policy Council (NCFPC)

focused on the ineffective education policies including substantial increases in public

education funding that failed to raise test scores or lower illiteracy rates (North Carolina

Primer on Charter Schools, 2010). Over the next year, parents and conservative leaders in

the state called for education reforms and parental choice. The NCFPC worked with

Senator Wib Gulley and Representative Steve Wood and developed charter school

legislation acceptable to the leadership of the North Carolina House and Senate. A

compromise proposal, which included a 100-school cap was drafted in 1996 and

Republican Speaker Harold Brubaker and his counterpart in the Senate, Democrat

President Pro Tempore Mark Basnight, agreed to the provisions in the bill, and North

Carolina’s charter school legislation passed on June 21, 1996 (North Carolina Primer on

Charter Schools, 2010). The 100-school cap was reached in 2001 and during that time,

the state’s Charter School Advisory Board recommended raising the cap by 10% each

year. In 2002, the State Board of Education asked the General Assembly to raise the cap

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by 10 schools. During the 2001-2002 session of the General Assembly, Representatives

John Blust (R-Guilford) and Leo Daughtry (R-Johnston) introduced a bill to eliminate the

cap altogether. However, anti-charter school forces such as the North Carolina

Association of Educators (NCAE) worked successfully to block this and similar bills

(North Carolina Primer on Charter Schools, 2010). Between 2002 and 2007, parents

began to increasingly seek charter schools as an alternative to traditional public schools

(http://johnlocke.org/acrobat/policyReports/10yrsncchartersexcellence.pdf).

Parents welcomed the educational opportunities, diverse curriculum and instructional

methods offered by the state’s charter schools. Parents were more satisfied by the

disciplinary policies at charter schools and felt that they were safer that public schools

(Ten Years of Excellence, 2007). Also, NC DPI’s 2005-06 Annual Study of Suspensions

and Expulsions revealed that short-term suspensions in charter schools decreased by 30

percent from 2004-05 to 2005-06 (Annual Study of Suspensions and Expulsions, 2007),

Specifically, short-term suspensions received by black students in charter schools

decreased 34.3 percent, and suspensions received by white students decreased 19.9

percent (Annual Study of Suspensions and Expulsions 2007). These factors helped to

promote the increased presence of charter schools in

North Carolina. In the 2007 study by Robert Bifulco and Helen Ladd (Bifulco & Ladd,

2007), it stated that charter school students lag behind public school students on end-of-

grade tests and the 2007 report by the North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research

(Bifulco & Ladd, 2007) came to a similar conclusion. NCCPPR also warned that charter

schools were racially imbalanced. They reported that more than one-third of North

Carolina charter school students are black and that fourteen charter schools have a

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student body that is more than 95% black (Bilfulco & Ladd, 2007).  This has led critics

like Bifulco and Ladd to accuse charter schools of resegregation (North Carolina Primer

on Charter Schools, 2010).

Presently, there are 148 charter schools in North Carolina, according to the North

Carolina Department of Public Instruction. In January, 2015, the State Board of

Education granted final approval to 11 charter applications at its regularly-scheduled

January meeting. These charter schools will be opening to serve students in August 2015:

Charlotte Lab

Excelsior Classical

Ignite

KIPP: Durham Preparatory

Winterville Charter Academy (formerly Patriot Academy)

PAVE SE Raleigh

Piedmont Classical

Queen City STEM

Shining Rock Classical

VERITAS Community School

Youngsville Academy

In February 2015, the State Board of Education granted final approval to the two

applications for the Virtual Pilot Program at its regularly-scheduled February meeting.

These charters will be opening to serve students in August 2015:

NC Connections Academy

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NC Virtual Academy

In March 2015, the State Board of Education granted final approval to the

following accelerated charter application at its regularly-scheduled March meeting. This

charter will be opening to serve students in August 2015.

Northeast Academy of Aerospace and Advanced Technologies

Traditional versus Charter Schools

A Nation at Risk indicated that our students and school systems were

academically behind our international competitors and that our educational system must

change in order for our students to compete globally (A Nation at Risk, 1983). According

to Buckley and Schneider (2009) charter schools are expected to create innovative

educational programs in order to meet the challenge of global competition. In February,

2015, President Obama unveiled his proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2016, which

includes $375 million for the Charter Schools Program – a 48 percent increase over the

$253.1 million included in the FY2015 Omnibus Appropriations Act (National Alliance

Applauds President Obama, 2015). This showed that the Obama administration supported

the growth of charter schools by providing additional financial support for this sector of

education in the United States. Charter schools are changing public and private school

enrollment patterns across the United States (Buddin, 2012). “Charter schools are likely

to have their most direct effects on traditional and private schools with students in similar

grades. A new charter elementary school is likely to have a more direct effect on

enrollments at nearby traditional and private elementary schools, but charter competition

may also have indirect effects on other schools as well. For example, the success of an

33

elementary school charter may encourage groups to start charters at the middle or high

school level. Similarly, if charters are deemed successful in one community, then parents

might promote new charters in their own community” (Buddin, 2012, page 5,). Buddin

found that while most students are drawn from traditional public schools, charter schools

are also taking significant numbers of students from the private education market and

present a serious impact on the private education market (Buddin, 2012). He found that

the shift of students from private to public schools represents a significant shift in the

financial burdens for education from the private to the public sector (Buddin, 2012). In

his dissertation, Cedric Stone stipulates that class size, academic performance, attendance

rates, suspension rates, student-to-teacher ratio and teacher ratio have caused great alarm

in the academic community (Stone, 2010). Parents may believe that the Charter school

atmosphere is more conducive to enhancement of their child’s academic performance.

School attendance is another important comparison point between traditional public

schools and charter schools. According to Hoffman, Llagas and Snyder (2003) when

absenteeism increases the learning opportunities for students decrease. This is a critical

point since the school environment is a primary place where children learn the

importance of obtaining an education. If a child does not attend classes, then it becomes

more difficult for that child to achieve academically. In a 2015 report, the website Public

School Review listed the 10 major challenges facing public school. These include the

following:

1. Classroom size. Classroom sizes are increasing as budgets are being cut. Most

teachers indicated that they cannot effectively teach if the population in the

classroom exceeds 30 students.

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2. Poverty: Students that get less sleep or not enough to eat are less likely to

perform at a high academic level. These students typically have a high

dropout rate.

3. Family factors: What is going on at home will impact student performance.

Divorce, domestic violence, drugs and other concerns are things that students

bring with them to the classroom on a daily basis and will impact academic

performance.

4. Technology: Technology at school is not keeping pace with what students are

learning. Also, some students do not have access to technology at home.

5. Bullying: Technology has given bullies even more avenues to torment their

victims – through social networking, texting and other virtual interactions.

Cyberbullying has become a major issue for schools, as evidenced by the

number of suicides that can be directly traced to bullying events.

6. Student Attitudes and Behavior: Many public school teachers cite student

attitudes, such as apathy and disrespect for teachers, as a major problem

facing schools.

7. No Child Left Behind: Although the current Obama Administration is

working to reform NCLB policies, the focus in education on both the national

and state level continues to be on the testing process. Student test scores are

now being used by a number of states as a way to evaluate teacher

performance, putting even more pressure on faculty in schools to teach to the

tests.

8. Parent Involvement: Some parents won’t be seen for the entire school year, no

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matter what sort of issues might arise. Others never seem to go away,

hovering over the child and teacher and interfering with the education process.

9. Student Health: Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the U.S., and the

same poor eating habits that led to the obesity problem may also be

contributing to lower student achievement. Obesity also increases a student’s

risk for other conditions, like diabetes and high blood pressure, which could

result in higher absenteeism and more academic issues.

10. Funding: have created huge problems for most public schools in recent years.

Less funding means smaller staffs, fewer resources and a lower number of

services for students (10 Major Challenges, 2015).

Charter schools are seemingly addressing most, if not all of these critical parental

concerns as this sector of the educational systems continues to grow nationally (Stone,

2010) . Some charter schools have smaller student to teacher ratios, they have modern

technology, some require parental involvement and funding is provided through student

enrollment. Parents are responding, positively, by making the decision to enroll their

children into charter schools (Stone, 2010).

Reasons for Parental Choice and Attitudes

In theory, parents will choose a school that provides the best available and

affordable education for their children. Hence, market forces should prompt traditional

public schools to implement changes to improve their student outcomes and avoid losing

students (Twin Cities, 2008). This argument assumes that parents are motivated. School

choice is irrelevant if parents do not act to move their children from failing schools;

expanded choice options are not important in such a scenario (Twin Cities, 2008).Only

36

one in three percent of the 3.5 million parents that had the choice to move their children

from failing school in the No Child Left Behind Act have actually done so (Bell, 2005).

The argument also assumes that parents make school choices based upon academic

achievement (Twin Cities, 2008). When parents choose schools based upon income and

race, as opposed to academic achievement, it leads to segregation rather than improved

academic outcomes (Schneider & Buckley, 2007).

But if parents are making choices based on limited information or bad information

they run the risk of becoming disappointed with the entire educational system. It is

important to understand, as this research hopes to show, why parents are choosing charter

schools and the heuristic behavior associated with their choice. The 46th Annual

PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitude toward the Public Schools (2014) found the

following facts:

1. 32% of Americans believed that lack of financial support is one of public

school’s biggest problems.

2. A majority of Americans reject using student scores from standardized tests to

evaluate teachers.

3. 12% Americans would give their public school the grade of A, 38% a grade of

B, 31% a grade of C , 11% a D and 6% a grade of E (The Public’s Attitude

toward the Public Schools, 2014).

This poll is conducted on an annual basis. The goal of this poll was to elucidate

the opinions of Americans, 18 years and older, about the nation’s educational system.

During telephone interviews, 1,001 adults were surveyed with at 95% Confidence

Interval with a sampling error of +/- 4.6%. More than 70% of Americans said new

37

teachers should spend at least a year practice teaching under the guidance of a certified

teacher before assuming responsibility for their own classrooms (The Public’s Attitude

toward the Public Schools, 2014). More than 80% of Americans said teachers should pass

board certification in addition to being licensed to practice, similar to professions like

medicine and law (The Public’s Attitude toward the Public Schools, 2014). Four of 10

Americans agree that the school year should be longer and include a shorter summer

break with longer breaks at other times of the year. About three of 10 Americans support

a longer school day (The Public’s Attitude toward the Public Schools, 2014). Six of 10

American public school parents agree that their child’s school supports higher levels of

well-being, and over half said their child’s school encourages their child to build strong

relationships with friends and family members (The Public’s Attitude toward the Public

Schools, 2014). This is indicative of the various reasons why parents are choosing charter

schools over traditional public schools.

The Fedewa Study

Michael Fedewa’s dissertation, North Carolina Charter School Choice: Selection

Factors and Parental Decision-Making (2005) illuminated and isolated those qualities

that parents sought and desired in their children’s charter school. His quantitative study

was designed to examine the decision-making process used by parents who selected

charter schools. He investigated the 16 selection factor including curriculum, class size

and school size (Fedewa, 2005). He employed these 16 factors as research questions and

showed that parents organized these selection factors into three categories: (1) academic

quality; (2) administrative factors and (3) program elements. He also found that the race

of the parent, income of the parent and education level of the parent could influence the

38

decision of the parent (Fedewa, 2005). Sixteen charter schools in North Carolina were

invited to participate and thirteen agreed to participate in his study. They represented the

piedmont, central and western regions of the state and were kindergarten to grade eleven.

He distributed 2,325 surveys with 903 being completed; a return rate of 39%. He found

that a large number of respondent’s children had not attended school prior to enrolling in

a charter school. He also found that school size and the perception that charter schools

had better teachers were chosen most frequently by parents as most important to them in

the selection of a charter school. Of the 16 factors elucidated above, parent indicated that

teacher quality was most important, followed by academic standards, and the amount of

individual attention provided by teachers (Fedewa, 2005). These data support the

research by Noblit & Corbett (2001) and Vanourek, e. al,. (1997) which found that

parents felt charter schools were better than other types of school options relative to class

size (69%), individual attention by teachers (69%) and school size (68%). Fedewa’s

research helps to explain the growth of charter schools in North Carolina but does not

address the role of heuristics in the parental decision making process in the selection of a

charter school to educate their children, which this study hopes to address.

Summary

This chapter will introduce the theoretical framework of the decision-making

process. It will delineate the various aspects of heuristics and the role it has in how a

person makes decisions. Next, the history of charter schools in North Carolina will be

discussed and a description of how the legislative process evolved that led to the eventual

lifting of a cap on charters schools. An explanation of charter schools versus traditional

schools will be explored which included how parents feel about public schools and how

39

charter schools are addressing different areas of parental concern. Finally, the Fedewa

study will be discussed which provided qualitative reasons why parents choose charter

schools.

40

Chapter 3: Methodology

Overview

Chapter 1 discussed the increasing national presence of charter schools on a

national basis. Parental due diligence and the ideas of Dr. Ray Budde and Al Shanker

were delineated relative to the idea of parental due diligence in choosing a charter school

over a traditional public school. Academics, school administration, demographics, free

lunch, transportation and ELL services were explored as potential factors in the long-term

impact that charter schools could have on society.

Chapter 2 will discussed the theoretical framework for study, which includes (1)

decision-making processes, (2) parents and information and (3) heuristics and the

decision-making process. It will review the impact of charter schools on traditional

public schools, parental attitudes toward public schools, and summarize the current state

of charter schools in North Carolina.

This chapter will discuss the selection of participant, focus groups and

interviewees. It will delineate instrumentation and readability of the survey, research

design as well as the procedures for data collection and analysis.

Purpose of Study

The primary purpose of this mixed methods research is to investigate why

parents, who have no previous experience in the educational system (other than their

own), are choosing to enroll their kindergarten children into charter schools over assigned

traditional public schools. The researcher is investigating how cues, endorsement and

visual heuristics played role (if any) in their decision-making process.

41

Research Questions

1. Which selection factors (e.g., academic quality; administrative factors and

program elements) are most influential in parental choice of charter schools?

2. How do cues, endorsement and visualization heuristics play a role in the

decision-making process when a choosing Charter School for the first time?

Research Design

The research methodology selected for this study is an explanatory mixed methods

design. “This approach involves a two-phased project in which the researcher will collect

quantitative data in the first phase, analyzes the results and the uses the results to plan (or

build on) the second, qualitative phase. The quantitative results will inform the types of

participants to purposefully selected for the qualitative phase and the types of questions

that will be asked of the participants. The overall intent of this design is to have the

qualitative data help explain in more detail the initial quantitative results” (Creswell,

2014, page 224). This approach is appropriate for this study because the researcher hopes

to inform the quantitative phase (survey) using qualitative data (focus groups and

interviews). This two-phased study will begin with a quantitative data collected through a

web-based survey and followed by qualitative data collected through focus groups and

interviews to elaborate on the quantitative data (Creswell, 2014). Phase I of this study

will use a web-based program to conduct a survey with parents that have a child enrolled

in a charter school. The purpose of the survey is to identify the frequency associated with

various selection factors when choosing an educational facility for a parent’s child.

42

Parents will be asked to choose the selection factors in terms of importance in choosing a

charter school. Phase 2, focus groups and interviews with parents, will explore the

decision-making actions that led to frequency of the selection factors by parents when

choosing a charter school. The focus group and interview questions will provide rich

details not available in the quantitative surveys. The focus groups and interviews will

delve deeper into the decision-making processes of the parents, and determine if either

cues, endorsement heuristics or visual heuristics were was a part of their selection

process. This research is a modification of previous doctoral work performed by Michael

Fedewa in his dissertation entitled “The North Carolina Charter School Choice: Selection

Factors and Parental Decision-Making” (2005). The current researcher did obtain written

permission from Fedewa to modify his dissertation (see Appendix A). In his work,

Fedewa quantitatively explored parents’ decision-making processes and those items that

attracted them to enroll their children into a charter school. He performed data analysis

on information collected from thirteen charter schools located in various counties across

North Carolina. The schools included grade levels kindergarten to eleventh grade, they

were racially mixed and varied in student population. Fedewa did not perform any

qualitative analysis of the survey respondents. The addition of qualitative analysis (focus

groups and interviews) to Fedewa’s research will be the primary modification to his

work, as this will increase the body of knowledge surrounding why parents made their

choices and the heuristics involved during the decision-making process.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality will be maintained on the online survey by aggregating all of the

responses to identify trends in intervention selections. Focus group and interview

43

participant names will be kept separate from reporting forms and data will be recorded in

the database according to a numerical identification code. Focus group and interview

participant data will be reported by a lettering system to maintain anonymity. For

example, the schools will be lettered A, B and C while focus group and interview

participants will be assigned a distinctive number. Survey, focus group and interview

confidentiality will be maintained during the reporting phases of this research by storing

the recordings and the researcher notes on an encrypted USB device in a secure location

inaccessible by any unauthorized person.

Conflict of Interest

The researcher worked as the Director of Science, Technology, Engineering and

Mathematics for a charter school for six months. The Conflict of Interest could be the fact

that the researcher has previously worked in a charter school and may view the data,

interviews and focus groups with bias. This bias will be overcome by having an SME

review the survey instrument, focus group instrument and interview instrument.

Participants

The selection of survey participants for this research will be done using

purposive selection. According to Creswell, “…to purposefully select participants or sites

means that qualitative researchers select individuals who will best help them understand

the research problem and the research question” (Creswell, 2014, page 246). In this

study, three charter schools will be purposively selected from the Piedmont area of North

Carolina. In order to provide anonymity, a limited general description of the schools is

provided in this study. The schools will be selected based upon having, at a minimum, a

kindergarten grade level. The schools will have been in operation for at least 2 years. The

44

schools will have different demographics, socioeconomics and curriculums. This is

critical to the study, since all parents will be enrolling their kindergarten children into

school for the first time. Parents will meet the following specific criteria: (1) their

children will be enrolled in the selected charter school; (2) parents had the option of

choosing an assigned public school to enroll their child; (3) the parent had no previous

experience with either charter schools or traditional public schools. The surveys will be

sent to approximately 300 participants with an expected return rate of 32% or 96

participants. Demographic data of the participants will be provided in Chapter 4.

Selection of Focus Group

Focus group members will be randomly selected from convenience samples.

Randomization helps ensure a nonbiased cross-section, essentially giving everyone in the

pool an equal chance of selection. Randomization is an effective strategy to minimize

selection bias. A convenience sample is simply one where the units that are selected for

inclusion in the sample are the easiest to access (Convenience Sampling. n.d.). The

researcher will draw names out of a hat to select from a list of parents from the principal

of the school. This process will be repeated until 6 names have been selected. Those

participants will be contacted in the same manner as the survey in an email that will be

blind-copied. This will be done at the design of the researcher to minimize participant

knowledge of focus group members. The researcher will give the requested participants

5 business days to respond, then will send a follow-up email. If no response is returned

within 2 additional business days, another name will be selected using the original

selection procedure. This procedure will be repeated, as necessary, until a focus group

composed of 6 parents who have no previous experience in the educational system, other

45

than their own has been attained or all participants have been exhausted. Focus groups

will be conducted at three charter school sites between 1-4 weeks after the end of the

survey. The focus groups will last between 45 minutes and one hour. The researcher will

request, from the school administrator, a conference room at each school that will be used

to provide a comfortable environment for the parents. This space will allow participants

to sit comfortably and still create an intimate environment for discussion among the

participants. The researcher will facilitate the discussion among the participants using

questions and protocol generated by the researcher. The researcher will take notes during

the session. Audio recordings of the sessions will be taken on a recording device to

ensure that all information will be captured for review by the researcher.

Selection of Interviews

Parents will be randomly selected from convenience samples via a list provided

by the principal of the school. According to Creswell (2013), sample size depends on the

qualitative design being used. He suggests that for interviews four participants is

sufficient (Creswell, 2014) Hence, the researcher will interview four parents from each

school for this study. The interview will last between 45 minutes and one hour. The

researcher will request, from the school administrator, a conference room at each school

that will be used to provide a comfortable environment for the parents. This space will

allow participants to sit comfortably and still create an intimate environment for

discussion among the participants .Interviewees will meet the following specific criteria:

(1) their children will be enrolled in the selected charter school; (2) parents had the option

of choosing an assigned public school to enroll their child; (3) the parent had no previous

experience with either charter schools or traditional public schools. Interview questions

46

will be developed after coding focus group data for themes. The researcher will take

notes during the session. Audio recordings of the sessions will be taken on a recording

device to ensure that all information will be captured for review by the researcher.

Quantitative Instrument

The data collection instruments will be designed specifically to facilitate the

development of credible, valid, and reliable findings that would address the research

questions. The first instrument is a survey. Respondent fatigue is a well-documented

phenomenon that occurs when survey participants become tired of the survey task and the

quality of the data they provide begins to deteriorate. It occurs when survey participants'

attention and motivation drop toward later sections of a questionnaire. Tired or bored

respondents may more often answer "don't know," engage in "straight-line" responding

(i.e. choosing answers down the same column on a page), give more perfunctory answers,

or give up answering the questionnaire altogether (Respondent Fatigue, 2008). To

address this threat, the web-based survey will be designed to take 30 minutes or less to

complete. This will address the tendency of participants to not complete the survey or to

answer the questions without careful consideration. A quantitative web-based survey will

be used to determine the selection frequency of following parental choice factors: (1)

curriculum, (2) individual attention by teachers, (3) class size, (4) school size, (5)

program elements, (6) other extracurricular activities, (7) administrative qualities (8)

people running the school, (9) opportunities to participate, (10) how much the school

expects from parents, (11) academic standards for students, (12) academic quality (13)

quality of teaching, (14) academic standards for students, (15) technology, (16) school

facilities, (17) transportation/location of school (18) food (19) accessibility and openness.

47

Fedewa’s survey instrument is a modified version of the original 1997 national study

entitled “Charter Schools in Action” (Vanourek, e. al., 1997). The survey instrument used

in this study is located in Appendix B. As modified by this researcher, Fedewa’s survey

instrument was redesigned to determine the selection frequency of various choice factors,

by parents, when deciding on an educational facility for their children. The instrument

survey will ask the participants to select each factor in their decision to enroll their

student into a charter school using a 5-point Likert scale. Text boxes for each selection

factor will gather data on how important these factors were when parents were making an

enrollment decision. To ensure validity and reliability, the survey instrument will be

validated by two SMEs in charter administration. The validation will focus on

insufficient definitions, variable measures, and whether the data collected will provide

the information needed to answer the research questions (Creswell, 2014). Feedback from

the two SMEs on the survey will help reduce the threats to the validity and increased the

reliability of the instrument.

Pilot Test.

Tracking undeliverable emails will inform the sampling procedure and response

rate (Kaplowitz, 2004). The pilot test was conducted by the researcher meeting with the

principal to explain the purpose of the research and asking for permission the survey

kindergarten parent population at the school. The principal agreed and asked that the

researcher to email the survey to his office so that he could distribute it to the

kindergarten parents. The survey was emailed via SurveyMonkey to the principal and he

forwarded it to 100 parents and 60 responded. Thus, the pilot study generated a 60%

response rate. This is unusually high for an online survey, but could be attributed to the

48

fact that the researcher is a parent at the charter school where the pilot survey was

conducted. According to the website Super Survey.com, an acceptable response rate is

32% (Response Rates, n.d.). The researcher will expect at 32% response rate for this

study, since the researcher will have no historical affiliation with the schools. Emails will

be sent (via school administration) to announce the survey in advance, to explain the

purpose of the survey, and to identify the benefits of participation. Emails will also be

used as reminders to complete the survey. The survey will be conducted using a web-

based program to collect quantitative data on the relative importance parents place on

certain categorical factors regarding school choice. For those parents that do not have

access to the internet, but volunteer to participate in the study, surveys will be

administered and collected at the school by administration.

Readability of the Survey Instrument.

The researcher determined the readability of the survey instrument since

understanding the questions being asked will be essential to eliciting honest and complete

responses. The researcher’s implementation of this specific readability assessment was

influenced by the continued use by the U.S. Department of defense and U.S. Navy

(Flesch Ease Readibility, (n.d.). According to the website ‘The Writer” the Flesch-

Kincaid Reading Ease Score is the most widely used readability checker when compared

to other readability tests like the Gunning Fog Score and the SMOG (Simple Measure of

Gobbledygook) (The Writer, n.d.). The Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease Score provides a

numerical score on a scale of 1 (low readability) to 120 (high readability) and an

associated grade level (K-12) that a parent would need to be at in order to clearly

understand the quantitative phase of this research project. (Plain Talk, n.d.). According

49

to the results of Dr. Flesch’s research, 83% of Americans scored in the range of 60-70

(Flesch, 1946). In order to determine the readability of the survey instrument used in this

study, the current researcher performed a readability test to ensure that his questions

would be understood by a universal audience of parents that have children enrolled at

charter schools. The current researcher inserted the instrument into the Reading Ease

Assessment (this is an online process) and obtained as score of 59.1. This readability

score indicates that parents who participate in the qualitative portion of this research will

have an education level equivalent to the 8th-9th grade level (Readibility Score, n.d.).

Based upon the readability score of the survey instrument that will be used in this

research, parents should be able to read and comprehend the questions being asked in

Phase I of this study.

Qualitative Instruments

Focus Group.

The focus group questions will be constructed from the answers provided in the

survey instrument. The researcher will ask the participants to comment on their responses

to the survey instrument used in the quantitative phase of this study. The focus group

instrument will include the heuristic decision-making processes of cues, endorsement and

visualization. This is appropriate because since they completed the survey, these parents

will represent the characteristics being studied and will be able to contribute to the goals

of the study (Arcury & Quandt, 1999). The survey will provide data regarding the

frequency of parental selection factors. The focus groups will explore the role cues,

endorsement and visual heuristics played in the decision-making process. To ensure

validity and reliability, the focus group instrument will be validated with a SME in

50

charter administration. The validation will place emphasis on insufficient definitions,

variable measures, and whether the data collected will provide the information needed to

answer the research questions (Creswell, 2014). The Focus Group Protocol and Consent

forms are located in Appendix C.

Interview Instrument.

The researcher will ask the participants to comment on responses from the focus

groups. The interview instrument will include the heuristic decision-making processes of

cues, endorsement and visualization. This is appropriate because interviewees will be

able to expound on the views of a similar population and provide a deeper understanding

of parental choices and heuristics. To ensure validity and reliability, the focus group

instrument will be validated with a SME in charter administration. The validation will

place emphasis on insufficient definitions, variable measures, and whether the data

collected will provide the information needed to answer the research questions (Creswell,

2014).The interviews will last between 30 minutes and 45 minutes. The Interview

Protocol and Consent forms are located in Appendix D.

Data Collection Procedures

Survey.

Providing the participant with information about the purpose of the study and

targeting the survey to people with salience has been shown to increase survey response

rates (Bean & Roszkowski, 1995). The data will be collected using a web-based program.

The participants will be emailed a link to the survey by the principal of the school. The

information provided to the participants will explain that individual responses are

confidential and that results will be reported only in an aggregate form. In addition, the

51

information will assure participants that the web-based survey should take no longer than

30 minutes to accurately complete. Upon completion of the survey, the participants will

submit their survey via the web-based program. To increase the response rate, two

reminder emails with the link to the survey will be sent by the principal of the school to

the participants over the subsequent two weeks (Heberlein & Baumgartner, 1978).

Focus Groups.

Focus group questions will be designed to gather pertinent data from the

participants in an effort to answer the research questions that guided this study. Focus

groups will be used as a means to conduct a systematic search for meaning (Hatch, 2002).

The researcher will conduct the 3 focus groups which will include 6 participants per

focus group. The semi-structured focus groups will follow an open framework and

encourage conversational communication (Spradley, 1979). The focus groups in this

study will consist of questions that are both open-ended and structured. This will allow

for questions to be rephrased, added, or emphasized as needed during the interviews. The

focus groups will be recorded using a digital audio recorder in combination with

handwritten notes. The digital recordings will be transcribed, as suggested by Merriam

(1998), and saved as a Microsoft Word document. Handwritten notes will be recorded in

a notebook by the investigator during focus groups. Focus group sessions will last 30-45

minutes. Transcriptions from the focus groups will be used to identify emerging topics

and themes important to this study.

Interviews.

Interview questions will be designed to gather pertinent data from the participants

in an effort to answer the research questions that guided this study. Interviews will

52

be used as a means to conduct a systematic search for meaning (Hatch, 2002). The

researcher will conduct 4 parent interviews per school. The information collected

from interviews will be analyzed to identify reoccurring themes, discover

relationships, develop explanations, and generate theories related to parental

selection of charter schools as opposed to traditional public schools. Interviews

with individual parents will be conducted to gather pertinent data from the

participants in an effort to answer the research questions that guided this study.

The interview questions will be developed from the answers provided in the

survey instrument and focus groups. The semi-structured interviews will follow

an open framework and encourage conversational communication (Spradley,

1979). The interviews in this study will consist of questions that are both open-

ended and structured. This will allow for questions to be rephrased, added, or

emphasized as needed during the interviews. The interviews will be recorded

using a digital audio recorder in combination with handwritten notes. The digital

recordings will be transcribed, as suggested by Merriam (1998), and saved as a

Microsoft Word document. Handwritten notes will be recorded in a notebook by

the investigator during interviews with each parent to assist with pattern

identification and reflection of communications with school leaders. Interviews

will last 30-45 minutes. Transcriptions from interviews will be used to identify

emerging topics and themes important to this study.

Data Analysis

According to Creswell quantitative and qualitative databases are analyzed

separately in the Explanatory Sequential Mixed Methods Design (Creswell, 2014). He

53

also indicates that because analysis proceeds independently for each phase of the

research, it can be easier to accomplish for the researcher since the data builds upon the

other and collection can be spread over time (Creswell, 2014). The survey instrument

response options on the 5-point Likert Scale will be given the following numbers; 1-

strongly agree; 2-agree; 3-neutral, 4-disagree; 5-strongly disagree. Descriptive statistics

will be used in this study to measure the frequency of selection. Descriptive statistics is

the term given to the analysis of data that helps describe, show or summarize data in a

meaningful way such that, for example, patterns might emerge from the data

(https://statistics.laerd.com/statistical-guides/descriptive-inferential-statistics.php). The

Likert scale responses will be measured at a 0.5 significance level (or p-value of 0.5)

using chi square. The measure of central tendency the researcher will be using in this

study will be the mode. The mode is the most frequently occurring score or value

( http://www.fgse.nova.edu/edl/secure/stats/lesson1.htm ). The mode is used for

categorical data when a researcher wants to know what is the most common category

(https://statistics.laerd.com/statistical-guides/measures-central-tendency-mean-mode-

median.php). Data computation and analysis will be conducted using the SPSS statistical

package. This data will be used as a launching pad for the study (focus groups and

interviews).

The researcher will use the following seven (7) steps in determining codes and

themes that emerged in this study (via surveys, focus groups and interviews), as

postulated below by Creswell (2014).

1. Raw Data: The researcher will collect of field notes, transcripts, images, etc.

54

2. Organizing and Preparing Data for Analysis: The researcher will transcribe

interviews, optically scanning material, typing field notes, cataloging and

sorting and arranging data into different types.

3. Reading through all Data: The researcher will read each transcript and review

hand written notes in order to determine what general ideas are participants

saying; what is their tone; what is the overall depth, credibility and use of the

information.

4. Coding the Data: The researcher will color code words and phrases that were

repeated during the interview process with parents. Data will be organized by

chunks or brackets and writing a word that represents a category.

5. Theme and Discussions: The researcher will use the coding process to

generate a description of the setting or people as well as categories or themes

for analysis: (description means a detailed explanation of information about

people, places or events in a setting). The researcher will generate major

themes that will be used as major headings in the Findings sector of this

document. Each theme will be supported with diverse quotations and specific

evidence.

6. Interrelated Themes/Description: The researcher will use figures, tables, etc.

to convey the findings of the analysis. This will be accompanied with a

discussion of themes, specific illustrations, multiple perspectives from

individuals and quotations.

55

7. Interpreting the Meaning of Themes/Descriptions: The researcher will ask

“What lessons were learned?” “What questions need to be asked?” (Creswell

2014, page 197 ).

The insights obtained from the focus groups will provide richer details about why

parents frequently chose specific selection factors identified in quantitative phase of the

explanatory mixed methods design, and what role did heuristics play a role during their

decision-making process. Triangulation of data (e.g., surveys, focus groups and

interviews) will be used to establish valid themes once they have been coded. A

triangulation approach to the mixed methods design will assist the researcher in

identifying relationships or links between the data and draw complementary patterns and

themes of the phenomena being investigated through comparing and contrasting of

quantitative results and expand on the qualitative data (Creswell, 2014).

Summary

A survey instrument will be employed in this study to gain a deeper

understanding of why parents, with kindergarten-aged children, are choosing charter

schools over assigned traditional public schools. These quantitative results will hopefully

provide a better understanding regarding what parent’s value most when considering the

education of their children. Three schools were chosen from the Piedmont area of North

Carolina. Participants for the study were randomly selected from a convenience sample.

Instrumentation for the study will include a pilot test, survey, focus groups and

interviews. The mixed methods research design will provide a modification the research

preformed by Fedewa and hopefully improve the understanding of the decision-making

process of parents when selecting an educational facility for their children.

56

57

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NC DPI. (2007). “Annual Study of Suspensions and Expulsions, 2005-2006”.

New and Closed Schools Report. (n.d., n.p.). Retrieved from http://www.publiccharters.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/February-20141.pdf.

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Pomerol, Jean-Charles, & Adam, Federic. NEED YEAR

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Appendix A

Fedewa’s Permission

Jonathan Pullin <jpullin12@gmail.com>

6/16/14

to Michael

Hello Dr. Fedewa:

My name is Jonathan Pullin and I am a doctoral candidate at Gardner-Webb University-Charlotte Cohort.

I am interested in replicating your dissertation; taking you suggestion for further research implications (#5) and applying your study to several small charter local charter schools located within the Charlotte regional area.

My cell number is 980-829-7304 if you would like to discuss my research interests further.

Thank you for your time and consideration of my request.

Mike Fedewa <Mike.Fedewa@raldioc.org>

6/16/14

to me

Sure Jonathon. Feel free.  Good luck.

Mike Fedewa.

Sent from the iPhone ofDr. Michael J. Fedewa

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Appendix B

Survey Instrument

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Parental Choice Survey Instrument

 

1. How important was "Curriculum" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important was "Curriculum" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot ImportantNot Very Important

2. How important was "Individual attention by teachers" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important was "Individual attention by teachers" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot importantNot very Important

3. How important was "Class size" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important was "Class size" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot importantNot very Important

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4. How important was "School size" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important was "School size" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot ImportantNot Very Important

5. How important were "Programs" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important were "Programs" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot importantNot very Important

6. How important were "Extracurricular activities" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important were "Extracurricular activities" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot ImportantNot very Important

7. How important were "Administrative Qualities" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important were "Administrative Qualities" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot importantNot very Important

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8. How important were "People running the School" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important were "People running the School" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot importantNot very important

9. How important were "Opportunities to participate" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important were "Opportunities to participate" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot importantNot very Important

10. How important was "School expectations of the Parent(s)" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important was "School expectations of the Parent(s)" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot ImportantNot very Important

11. How Important were "Academic standards for students" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How Important were "Academic standards for students" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very important

ImportantNeutralNot ImportantNot very Important

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12. How important was "Academic quality" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important was "Academic quality" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot ImportantNot very important

13. How important was "Quality of teaching" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important was "Quality of teaching" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot ImportantNot very Important

14. How important was "Technology" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important was "Technology" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot importantNot very Important

15. How important was "Transportation/ School Location" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important was "Transportation/ School Location" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot ImportantNot very Important

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16. How important was "Food" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How Important was "Food" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot ImportantNot very Important

17. How important were "Accessibility and Openness" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important were "Accessibility and Openness" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very  important

ImportantNeutralNot ImportantNot Very Important

18. How important were "School facilities" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important were "School facilities" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot ImportantNot very Important

19. How important were "Academic Standards" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?

How important were "Academic Standards" in your decision to enroll your child into a Charter School?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot ImportantNot very Important

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20. How important was the name of the School in your selection process?

How important was the name of the School in your selection process?   Very Important

ImportantNeutralNot ImportantNot very Important

21.

As a Parent, at what grade would you consider moving your child to another school if their present school was not working out?   Elementary School

Middle SchoolHigh SchoolOther (please specify)

22. Do you consider a Charter School education equivalent to a Private School Education? Please comment below.

23. If you had the opportunity, would you like to join the Board of Directors of a Charter School? Please comment below.

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24. Would you, as a Parent, prefer to be informed on a regular basis about financial status of this Charter School? Please comment below.

25. In your opinion, what is the top reason Charter Schools are failing? Please comment below.

26. Are there any comments or concerns that you have which were not addressed in this survey? Please comment below.

Done

 

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Appendix C

Focus Group Protocol and Consent

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Focus Group Protocol and Consent Form

Thank you for coming today. The purpose of this focus group is to further explore the

reasons you chose to enroll your child into a charter school as opposed to a traditional

public school, and to examine the role of heuristics (rule of thumb) in your decision-

making process. We need your input and want you to share your honest and open

thoughts with us.

We've brought you together so that we can learn from each other about what is

really going on in in charter schools This is a `'no holds barred" discussion. We want to

know what you're seeing, even if it looks bad. That is the only way we are going to learn.

Of course, we also want to know where things are going well, but where they are not

going well we really need to hear that message.

We are focusing on your selection criteria and decision-making processes prior

enrolling your child into a charter school. However, if you have comments or concerns

that span a longer time period, please do not hesitate to bring them up.

We are taping this session so that we can study what you have said, but it goes no

farther than this group. Anything you say here will be held in strict confidence; we won't

be telling people outside this room who said what. When you have something to say,

please repeat your name each time. When we are listening to the tape again we will not

be able to see who is speaking, and we'll need to be able to relate comments you made at

different times.

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By signing this consent form, you are indicating that you fully understand the above information and agree to participate in this Focus Group.

Participant's signature: ___________________________________________ Printed name: ________________________________________ Date: _____________________________________________ If you have any questions or concerns about this study, please contact Jonathan Pullin at jpullin12@gmail.com].

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Appendix D

Interview Protocol and Consent

78

Interview Protocol and Consent Form

Thank you for coming today. The purpose of this interview is to further explore the

reasons you chose to enroll your child into a charter school as opposed to a traditional

public school, and to examine the role of heuristics (rule of thumb) in your decision-

making process. We need your input and want you to share your honest and open

thoughts with us.

We've brought you together so that we can learn from each other about what is

really going on in in charter schools This is a `'no holds barred" discussion. We want to

know what you're seeing, even if it looks bad. That is the only way we are going to learn.

Of course, we also want to know where things are going well, but where they are not

going well we really need to hear that message.

We are focusing on your selection criteria and decision-making processes prior

enrolling your child into a charter school. However, if you have comments or concerns

that span a longer time period, please do not hesitate to bring them up.

We are taping this session so that we can study what you have said, but it goes no

farther than this group. Anything you say here will be held in strict confidence; we won't

be telling people outside this room who said what. When you have something to say,

please repeat your name each time. When we are listening to the tape again we will not

be able to see who is speaking, and we'll need to be able to relate comments you made at

different times.

79

By signing this consent form, you are indicating that you fully understand the above information and agree to participate in this Interview.

Participant's signature: ___________________________________________ Printed name: ________________________________________ Date: _____________________________________________ If you have any questions or concerns about this study, please contact Jonathan Pullin at jpullin12@gmail.com].

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