Eprg charter schools for new zealand report

• Another study of the Swedish system, undertaken to promote free
schools in Britain, argues that there have been significant benefits
from Swedish free schools, especially for-profit schools. It
therefore advises the British government to reverse its policy of
prohibiting for-profit schools.
• Swedish for-profit free schools have become big business. One
analysis illustrates how the companies that operate for-profit
schools have become tradable commodities in a global battle for
supremacy among trans-national corporations and private
investment funds.
• In England, charter school equivalents, currently known as
‘academies’ have been operating since the late 1980s. Some
schemes have required such schools to secure partial business
sponsorship. Successive government initiatives have encouraged
secondary schools to become specialist schools (with expertise in
particular curriculum offerings) or academies (directly funded by
central government rather than administered via local government).
Many of the academies that have been set up by businesses
specialise in entrepreneurial education.
• Since the election of the coalition government in 2010 ‘free
schools’ have been introduced in England to permit parents,
teachers, charities and businesses to apply to establish a primary or
secondary school outside local government control. The new free
schools in England have not been operating long enough for
thorough evaluation to take place.
• The English experience overall suggests that: (i) many schools
which seek and are granted the equivalent of charter status do not
serve the most disadvantaged students; (ii) reported achievement
gains are largely the result of managed changes over time in the
school’s student composition; and (iii) less academically able
students are often excluded from the new school.
• Charter schools began in the USA in the 1990s in response to
perceived weaknesses in many urban schools. There are now some
4,000 charter schools in 40 states and they enrol more than a
million students.
• Numerous studies have been funded or conducted by groups that
either support or oppose charter schools. Typically, the findings of
charter school supporters are vehemently criticised by their
opponents, and vice versa. Where study findings are based on the
analysis of official databases of student characteristics and
achievement outcomes, the statistical methods are invariably
criticised as incomplete, misleading or flawed. For example, the
Stanford University CREDO study has been widely cited as
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