Gary Miron

• Ph.D. Stockholm University, Sweden
• Professor at Western Michigan University

Virtual Schools in the U.S. 2023 is NEPC's ninth comprehensive report on the performance of U.S. virtual schools. It provides scholarly analyses of the characteristics and performance of full-time, publicly funded K–12 virtual schools; reviews the relevant available research related to virtual school practices; provides an overview of recent state...

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed virtual schooling to the forefront of the national educational landscape. Long-time proponents of this technology quickly positioned digital programs and platforms as the obvious solution for schools that had to close buildings to avoid transmitting the virus. The pandemic exacerbated a trend that NEPC virtual scho...

This study seeks to understand the relationship between observable characteristics of schools operated by education management organizations (EMOs) and their organizational attributes. Most of the prior research on the relationship between EMO-operated schools and neighborhood and school sociodemographic characteristics considers the effect of orga...

Charter schools were originally designed to be small, locally-run, innovative, and highly accountable. A key premise of charter schools was the tradeoff of increased autonomy in exchange for increased accountability. Unfortunately, charter schools have not lived up to original policy objectives. Evaluations reveal that student performance in charte...

As proponents continue to make the case that virtual education can expand student choices and improve the efficiency of public education, full-time virtual schools have attracted a great deal of attention. Advocates contend that this potential for individualization allows virtual schools to promote greater student achievement than can be realized i...

This study examines the relationship between charter mission statements, academic programs, and their site-specific geographic characteristics using a sample of more than 3,000 charter schools operated by for-profit (EMOs) and nonprofit organizations in forty-one states. The study combines market-based school reform, institutional theory, and resou...

Over the last five years, the National Education Policy Center has published a Virtual Schools in the U.S.: Politics, Performance, Policy, and Research Evidence report. As an extension of the data collected for the Virtual Schools in the U.S. 2017 report (Molnar et al. 2017), the lead authors produced case studies for five states (i.e., Ohio, Wisco...

This study uses logistic and multinomial logistic regression models to analyze neighborhood factors affecting EMO(Education Management Organization)-operated schools’ locational attributes (using census tracts) in 41 states for the 2014–2015 school year. Our research combines market-based school reform, institutional theory, and resource dependency...

Charter schools, nonsectarian public schools of choice that are free from many regulations, are one of the fastest growing forms of school choice in the United States. I begin with a brief description of the history of their evolution in the United States. Next, follows a description of the way in which the conceptual premises of the charter school...

The Flemish Community shows strong overall achievements in international student assessments, with both a high share of top performers and a small proportion of low performers. But international assessment results also confirm the persistence of profound inequities within the Flemish school system, with socio-economic factors influencing students’...

This brief details some of the prominent ways that individuals, companies, and organizations secure financial gain and generate profit by controlling and running charter schools. To illustrate how charter school policy functions to promote privatization and profiteering, we explore differences between charter schools and traditional public schools...

This section provides a detailed overview and inventory of full-time virtual schools. Such schools deliver all curriculum and instruction via the Internet and electronic communication, usually asynchronously with students at home and teachers at a remote location. Although increasing numbers of parents and students are choosing this option, we know...

The irony of a recent report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is that it purports to separate fact from fiction” about charter schools. Unfortunately, in addressing 21 “myths,” it embraces fiction whenever useful to push advocacy goals, thus perpetuating its own myths and fictions about charter schools. Since it relies overwhel...

Charter schools nationally serve far fewer students with disabilities—8 to 10 percent of their students on average—than district schools, which serve 13.1 percent. Some state funding formulas encourage charter schools to enroll students with disabilities, while in other states there are clear financial disincentives. In a few states, expenses for s...

We thank Mr. Rhinesmith and the Journal of School Choice for calling readers’ attention to our new volume (Miron, Welner, Hinchey, & Mathis, 2013). For us, this was a labor of love—a way for us to bring together a tremendous amount of expertise about the wide variety of forms of school choice and the issues they raise. It is gratifying to see that...

In this Policy Memo, Kevin Welner and Gary Miron outline nine reasons that policy makers, reporters and others should be skeptical about reports that purport to show that large numbers of students are on charter school “waitlists”. Undoubtedly many students who wish to enroll in popular charter schools and are unable to do so; however, the overall...

This section provides a detailed overview and inventory of full-time virtual schools. Full-time virtual schools deliver all curriculum and instruction via the internet and electronic communication, usually asynchronously with students at home and teachers at a remote location. Although increasing numbers of parents and students are choosing this op...

Retrieved from http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/virtual-schools-annual-2014

The 2011-2012 school year marked another year of growth in both the for-profit and nonprofit education management sectors. In the previous three years we saw some signs of slowing growth in the for-profit sector, but the changes between 2010-2011 and 2011-12, demonstrate that there is still room for growth. The nonprofit management sector’s growth...

Virtual full-time K-12 schools, also known as cyber schools or online schools, are schools that deliver all curriculum and instruction via the Internet and electronic communication, usually with students at home and teachers at a remote location, and usually with everyone participating at different times. Although increasing numbers of parents and...

The Kalamazoo Promise was announced in the fall of 2005, offering free college tuition at any public state college or university for graduates of the district who have gained acceptance to a postsecondary institution. This program was funded through the generous support of anonymous donors, and a federally-funded evaluation is underway to examine p...

Student goals and aspirations are an important determinant of success in secondary schools and promote access to post-secondary education. This paper reports on changes in student attitudes, goals, and aspirations that result from the implementation of a universal scholarship program. The Kalamazoo Promise is an innovative reform effort that provid...

High teacher expectations are an essential component of quality education and are known to lead to positive outcomes for students. The authors examined perceived changes in teacher beliefs, expectations, and behaviors that result from the introduction of the Kalamazoo Promise, a universal postsecondary scholarship program. These perceptions were ac...

While past annual "Profiles" reports have focused on either for-profit EMOs (education management organizations) or nonprofit EMOs, this is the first annual "Profiles" report to cover both categories in a single report which allows for easier comparisons. The 2010-2011 school year marked another year of relatively slow growth in the for-profit educ...

While several studies have considered the outcomes related to KIPP schools, this study examines two key inputs: students and funding. The study finds that while KIPP serves more students that qualify for free and reduced lunch than local schools districts, it serves fewer students with disabilities and students classified as English language learne...

The report summarizes evidence from five studies of student achievement in oversubscribed charter schools and two studies on charter school revenues and outlines a number of recommendations relevant to the federal role in charter schools. While many recommendations are reasonable, those related to charter school facilities and charter school financ...

Academic optimism has unlocked and unleashed the aspirations of teachers, parents, and students in an urban district in the Midwest.

This is the third Profiles report to examine nonprofit education management organizations (EMOs). This report is modeled after the 12 annual reports that cover for-profit EMOs. While the number of schools operated by for-profit EMOs grew rapidly in the 1990s and is now leveling off, the data contained in this report illustrate how the number of sch...

The 2009-2010 school year marked another year of relatively slow growth in the for-profit education management industry. The greatest increase in profiled companies occurred in the category of small EMOs (i.e., EMOs that manage three or fewer schools). We believe our key finding from the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 report, i.e., that the growth of the...

Although charter schools were designed to be highly accountable, after nearly two decades of existence, there is still no clear consensus among researchers regarding how charter schools' performance compares with that of traditional public schools. Some observers claim there is still insufficient evidence, a notion that contradicts, or at least que...

Advocates and opponents wrangle continuously over whether charter schools receive too little or too much funding. This study of available national data provides a comprehensive and detailed review of charter school finance and uncovers patterns in both income and expenditures. Charter schools managed by education management organizations (EMOs) rec...

The primary purpose of this study is to examine how Education Management Organizations (EMOs) appear to affect the segregation or integration of schools by race, economic class, special education status, and language. This is accomplished through examining differences in enrollment patterns between schools operated by EMOs and schools run by their...

The Kalamazoo Promise was announced in the fall of 2005, offering free college tuition at any public state college or university for graduates of the district who have gained acceptance to a postsecondary institution. This program was funded through the generous support of anonymous donors, and a federally-funded evaluation is underway to examine p...

The latest policy train gathering steam in education focuses on lifting caps, or limits, to charter school expansion. Currently, 24 states and the District of Columbia have some type of limit on charter school growth. These limits, some charter school supporters say, interfere with the goal of a thriving school marketplace. The latest institution t...

This is the second Profiles report to examine nonprofit education management organizations (EMOs). This report is modeled after the 11 annual Profiles that cover for-profit EMOs. While the number of schools operated by for-profit EMOs grew rapidly in the 1990s and is now leveling off, the number of schools operated by nonprofit EMOs has been growin...

The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University conducted a large-scale analysis of the impact of charter schools on student performance. The center’s data covered 65-70% of the nation’s charter schools. Although results varied by state, 17% of the charter school students have significantly higher math results than thei...

Education management organizations, or EMOs, emerged in the early 1990s in the context of widespread interest in so-called market-based school reform proposals. Wall Street analysts coined the term EMO as an analogue to health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Proponents of EMOs claim that they bring a much needed dose of entrepreneurial spirit and...

This Buckeye Institute policy brief sets out to document problems and inequities in charter school finance in Ohio, but it falls short in providing a comprehensive presentation of evidence. It ignores relevant research literature and extensive findings from the official state evaluation. It incorrectly assumes that charter schools serve the same ty...

The commentary contains a brief overview of the original goals of charter school reforms and summarizes evidence regarding these goals. The case is made that charter schools are currently being used to pursue goals other than those originally intended and that policymakers should revisit the goals and intended purpose of charter schools. Recommenda...

Privatization has long been debated and has become a part of the landscape in education—both in the United States and abroad. The movement is based on the notion that private sector forces can be harnessed to improve the delivery of essential public services. But privatization also calls into question basic notions of accountability and “publicness...

This policy brief closely examines and summarizes the evidence regarding school choice and its impact on student achievement. After surveying studies across various choice forms, we selected 87 based on specific criteria. Each of these has been analyzed and assigned impact and quality ratings. Impact ratings indicate whether the choice schools’ stu...

This chapter examines one of the fastest growing and increasingly controversial forms of privatization in education -- contracting out the management and operation of public schools to private companies called educational management organizations (EMOs). The growth and prevalence of EMOs is occurring against the backdrop of a large movement toward...

Charter schools have become one of the most sweeping school reforms in the United States in recent decades. Charter schools seek to reform public education through a blend of elements found in public schools (universal access and public funding) and elements often associated with private schools (choice, autonomy, and flexibility). While the defin...

The for-profit education management industry has, based on the available data, entered a period of relative stability. The industry's actual condition, however, is more difficult to determine than ever. This is because companies that dominate the industry are privately held and do not have to provide information to the public that they choose not t...

The for-profit education management industry has, based on the available data, entered a period of relative stability. The industry's actual condition, however, is more difficult to determine than ever. This is because companies that dominate the industry are privately held and do not have to provide information to the public that they choose not t...

While several studies have examined teachers’ reasons for seeking employment in charter schools, few have asked why teachers are leaving them. This study of teacher attrition takes up that question, analyzing existing data from teacher surveys administered during state evaluations. Survey results were compared and re- analyzed based on teachers’ de...

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of charter schools on student achievement in the Great Lakes states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. This evaluation addresses two specific questions: • How does student achievement in charter schools compare with student achievement in demographically similar, traditional...

In 2003, The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University was awarded a contract by the Delaware State Board of Education and Delaware Department of Education to evaluate the charter schools and the charter school reform in Delaware over the period 2003-2006. The major objective of the evaluative study was to determine the effectiveness, progre...

This review provides a brief description and overview of a new study that looks at specific charter school types. A unique typology is developed and then used to compare charter schools types by their enrollment, demographic background of students, and performance. This review identifies and explains a number of limitations in the study in terms of...

The Delaware charter school reform dates back to 1995 when legislation was initially passed that allowed the creation of charter schools. Two schools opened in 1996, and 13 charter schools are currently operating in the state. They enroll more than 6,500 students, which accounts for nearly 5.5 percent of all public school students. Four additional...

In academic circles, considerable attention is given to sophisticated approaches and methods for working with less than desirable data like those contained in the School-Level State Assessment Database (SSASD). In practice, however, many of the sophisticated approaches are not applied due to cost and time restrictions and sometimes because methods...

The Delaware charter school reform dates back to 1995 when legislation was initially passed that allowed the creation of charter schools. Two schools opened in 1996, and 13 charter schools are currently operating in the state. They enroll more than 6,200 students, which accounts for nearly 5.4 percent of all public school students. Another charter...

There is actually considerable disagreement about what makes a strong charter school law. The purpose of this paper is to argue that strong charter school laws should be judged by their positive outcomes and not by the amount of autonomy they grant or the structural conditions present that lead to increased numbers of charter schools. Another purpo...

While charter schools1 can work as intended, this 3 year–largely qualitative–study of four Cleveland charter schools sheds light on the barriers that charter schools face during their establishment and development. Before outlining our study’s findings, portraying the schools’ obstacles, and the describing safeguards that should be considered, we d...

To date, most of the scholarly and policy debate regarding charter schools has focused on two questions: (a) whether charter schools are using their autonomy to engage in innovative practices and (b) whether students in charter schools, taken as a group, perform better or worse than similar students in noncharter public schools. For the most part,...

This report was commissioned by the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN) and focuses specifically on the performance of charter schools in Connecticut.1 Performance gains made by charter schools on standardized tests relative to gains made by traditional public schools are examined. Also, a brief analysis looks at the extent to which...

The Evaluation Report Checklist has two intended applications that are related to evaluation management: (1) a tool to guide a discussion between evaluators and their clients regarding the preferred contents of evaluation reports and (2) a tool to provide formative feedback to report writers. Evaluators can self-rate their own progress during the w...

One of the many uses to which proponents hope charter schools will put their autonomy is the development of enhanced professional opportunities for teachers. One charter school statute phrases the goal as follows:“to create new professional opportunities for teachers, including the opportunity to be responsible for the learning program at the schoo...

Central to the charter school theory of action has been the idea that, through various mechanisms, charter schools would lead to improved student achievement. 1 Education is largely a nonroutine, nonrepetitive task (Rowan, Raudenbush, & Cheong, 1993). Thus, the enhanced autonomy granted to charter school teachers, administrators, and other stakehol...

While macrolevel forces, such as the expansion of the European Union, increasing globalization, and the spread of mass culture, are increasingly dominant forces that shape education systems, this book sets out to examine the role of local communities in forming education policy. Few have examined the role played by local communities because—like me...

In 1997, the Connecticut State Department of Education awarded a grant Western Michigan University to evaluate Connecticut's charter schools and charter school initiative from 1997-2002. The study used existing databases, site visits, focus groups, and surveys to gather data regarding the movement's effectiveness, progress, and impact, examining th...

Education systems and schools have changed considerably in recent years. There has been a shift from steering schools by planning inputs and monitoring processes to steering through the measurement of outcomes. Connected to this have been trends toward decentralization, increasing autonomy for schools, increasing reliance on market mechanisms to de...

In 2001, the Pennsylvania Department of Education contracted with Western Michigan University to evaluate Pennsylvania's charter schools and charter school initiative over two years. The study used site visits, work sample review, document review, focus groups, portfolios and surveys to gather data regarding the movement's effectiveness, progress,...

Charter schools seek to reform public education through a blend of elements traditionally found in public schools, such as universal access and public funding, and those traditionally associated with private schools, such as choice, autonomy, and flexibility. This represents an important shift in the definition of the "public" in public education,...

One goal of charter school laws is to foster enhanced professional opportunities for teachers. Given the properties of charter schools (small size, teachers selecting schools on the basis of educational philosophy, and so on), charter schools might have a unique opportunity to create, nurture, and sustain professional autonomy in their teachers. Th...

This book contains evidence about charter schools that can provide important data on evaluating this new public-private hybrid and its success at serving the core purpose of public education. The book focuses on charter schools in Michigan, which is regarded as having one of the most permissive charter laws in the country. The first three chapters...

Student achievement is central to the policy debate over charter schools. This paper reviews what is currently known about charter schools' impact on student achievement. After documenting the surprising dearth of systematic empirical studies on the topic, the paper combines the findings of existing research into an overall impact rating, weighted...

This paper examines the major findings of the evaluation of student achievement outcomes of students enrolled in Edison Schools Inc. that were opened in 1995 and 1996 (Miron & Applegate, 2000). The principle aim of that evaluation was to determine whether or not the Edison model worked-over approximately a 3-year period-to improve student performan...

Charter schools offer unique opportunities for mainstreaming evaluation in public schools. Indeed, the need to secure renewal of their contracts creates substantial pressures for the schools to gather, analyze, and report evidence of progress to external constituencies. Moreover, because most charter schools are start-up operations, they have uniqu...

This is the first-year interim report of a 3-year study of Pennsylvania charter schools. The Evaluation Center has conducted this evaluation pursuant to a contract with the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) and in fulfillment of a mandate in the Commonwealth's charter school law. Specifically, the law calls for an evaluation of the charter...

In 1999, The Cleveland Foundation developed a strategy to support community schools as part of its larger focus on supporting public schools in Cleveland and its surrounding districts. The Foundation's support of community schools focused on start-up funding, a resource center, and evaluation. Start-up funding was provided to four schools, three cu...

This evaluation’s principal aim was to determine whether or not the Edison model worked–over approximately a 3-year period–to improve student performance on norm- or criterion-referenced standardized tests in the 10 Edison schools that were opened in 1995 and 1996. This report is intended for a wide audience including policymakers, researchers, dis...

This is the final report of the 17-month initial study of Pennsylvania charter schools. The Western Michigan University Evaluation Center has conducted this evaluation pursuant to a contract with the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE). The initial study is a key research component of the Commonwealth’s overall accountability plan for charte...

The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University has been engaged in evaluating the charter school movement for a number of years now. In 1995, evaluators at the Center began informal discussions with a small group of persons from the private and public sectors about evaluation and accountability of this new type of publicly supported school in...

Charter schools have provided an efficient path for private educational management organizations (EMOs) to enter the public school sphere. Close behind EMOs are venture capitalists and private investors. Since the K-12 education market in the U.S. in estimated to be more than $350 billion per year (including higher education and other forms of scho...

This is the first annual report of the 17-month initial study of Pennsylvania charter schools. The document contains interim information about the status and development of the state's charter schools and the charter-school initiative as a whole; it is not intended to be a summative evaluation of individual schools or the initiative, and it is not...

This is the final report of a one-year evaluation of the Michigan Public School Academy (PSA) initiative. The evaluation involved both formative and summative evaluations and used both qualitative and quantitative methods. The study was conducted between October 1997 and December 1998. Data-collection methods included a charter-school survey and a...

In recent years, reforms in the Swedish education system have gained considerable international attention. While Sweden was far behind other countries in restructuring educational services, one can now say that-in many respects-it has taken the lead. While school voucher schemes have been tested in other countries, they have typically existed on a...

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss appropriate uses of qualitative and quantitative research methods in educational studies, particularly in the context of developing countries. A lively methodological discussion among researchers existed during the 1970s and 1980s, kindled by sharp conflicts between differing approaches to conducting educat...

This text contains the country reports which resulted from a research project entitled: "Restructuring Education in Europe: A Comparative Study of Changes in Response to European Integration and Pressure from Economic, Political, and Social-Cultural Factors." The main aim of this research undertaking has been to provide a general overview of the re...