Educación

CMOs are generally free to restrict their school and classroom sizes as they choose. Because their organizational mission often focuses on personalized learning and a strong, intimate school culture, one might expect CMOs to have smaller school and class sizes.

Indeed, CMO schools are much smaller than nearby schools in their districts (Figure II.18). The CMOs in our study average 389 students per school compared to 982 students per school in nearby district schools. CMO schools have approximately the same number of grades per school as their district counterparts so the difference in total enrollment is largely due to a smaller number of students per grade.

Class sizes and student-to-teacher ratios are also somewhat smaller in CMO-run schools than in their host districts, although the average differences are not as great as the school size differences. The average pupil-to-instructor ratio in math and reading are about 20.9 students; by contrast in comparison schools this ratio is 23.5 in math and 23.2 in reading. These CMO-district differences are statistically significant in math but not in reading.

20% 19% 17% 16% 9% 7% 5% 4% 4% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Percent of FTEs in Various Functional Areas

Majority of FTEs Directed at Educational Supports and Operations

Development/Fundraising

Technology

Marketing/Enrollment

School data collection and analysis HR Other Finance/Accounting Operations Educational supports

Figure II.18. Enrollment Per School in CMOs Compared to Nearby District Schools

Source: Principal Survey

- 2000 - 1500 - 1000 - 500 0 D if fe re nc es i n N um b er o f St ud ent s Pe r Sc h ool i n E ac h C M O C omp ar ed to N ea rb y D is tr ic t Sc h ool s

III. CMO Practices and School Outcomes

III. CMO PRACTICES AND SCHOOL OUTCOMES Key Findings

• Relative to district principals, CMO principals report that their schools provide more instructional time, are more likely to have a comprehensive school-wide behavior policy, practice more frequent teacher coaching and monitoring, and place more emphasis on performance-based compensation.

• According to principals, CMOs are less likely than districts to prescribe a particular curriculum, behavior policy, or staff evaluation approach; however CMO principals are more likely to report implementing a school-wide behavioral strategy than their district counterparts.

• Different groups of CMOs tend to adopt distinct sets of practices: those emphasizing behavior policies also tend to have longer instructional time while those emphasizing performance-based compensation tend to make frequent use of formative assessments; both of these groups provide intensive teacher coaching.

A. Introduction

In this chapter, we describe the policies and practices of CMOs and CMO schools. Any effects that CMOs have on student achievement presumably occur through their influence on their schools and on students’ educational experiences. Our study is configured to identify some of the ways that CMO school practices and policies differ from those of nearby district schools. We also explore the differences among CMOs in their central office-level and school-level practices. Drawing upon CMO central office, principal, and teacher surveys, this chapter addresses the following questions:

1. How do CMO school policies and practices differ from district schools? What are the key elements that distinguish CMO instructional systems, human capital strategies, and their approach to school culture and parental involvement?

2. To what extent do CMOs centralize decisions about school-level practices? Are CMOs more or less prescriptive than districts? How does prescriptiveness vary across CMOs? To what extent are schools within CMOs consistent in their implementation of specific practices?

3. How much variation is there in CMO practices? Is it possible to identify types of CMOs that place more or less emphasis on specific sets of practices?

4. To what extent do CMO practices appear to influence the instructional coherence and organizational health of their schools?

Any differences in practices among CMOs (relative to nearby district schools) could potentially contribute to differences in their impacts on student achievement. Before estimating CMOs’ achievement impacts, we identified a number of practices and structures that might be associated with impacts. These practices were selected using the following three criteria. First, we attempted to identify characteristics that CMOs or researchers believe is a promising practice or structure that is important to improving achievement. Second, using our surveys, we looked for practices where

there is substantial variation across CMOs in the characteristic and, most importantly, in the differences between each CMO and its comparison schools. Third, using the principal survey, we sought to identify practices that distinguish CMOs schools from nearby district-operated schools.

The practices included among our seven “primary hypotheses” are the focus of our descriptive analyses in this chapter. We also describe some additional practices that distinguish CMO schools from district schools and could impact student outcomes. The seven primary hypotheses focus on whether impacts are associated with the following seven CMO characteristics:

1. Amount of instructional time

2. Consistent educational approach, including curriculum and instructional materials 3. Student behavior policies that include specific rewards, sanctions, and commitments 4. Intensive teacher coaching and monitoring

5. Performance-based teacher evaluation and compensation

6. Frequent review and analysis of student formative assessment data 7. Number of CMO schools

The first six characteristics are practices that are discussed in this chapter; Chapter V examines how these practices relate to impacts on student achievement. Chapter II contains information on the number of schools in each CMO and Chapter IV examines how this variable relates to impacts.

We also hypothesized that CMO practices may have an effect on student achievement indirectly via two mediating factors: (1) instructional coherence—the degree to which different aspects of the school’s instructional program reinforce one another, and (2) organizational health—the degree to which the school is efficient and effective in maintaining a stable environment with few administrative problems. Instructional coherence might be impacted by whether a CMO has a consistent educational approach, for example. Organizational health may be influenced by factors such as centralization of decisions at the CMO level or the CMO’s size.

Methods

Several of our measures of CMO practices are composite variables. These composites were created by combining closely related survey items into a single measure, reducing measurement error and capturing the breadth of a construct. See Appendix A for details on how these composites were created.

To measure the CMO characteristics described in this chapter, we chose to rely primarily on the principal survey, rather than on our central office staff survey or teacher survey, for several reasons. First, relative to the central office survey, the principal survey reflects the perceptions of respondents who are closer to the implementation of CMO practices in schools. Second, the principal survey provided a unique opportunity to contrast practices in CMO schools with those in nearby district schools. Each CMO principal eligible for the survey was matched with the principal of the district school with the same grade range in closest geographic proximity, and we attempted to survey all matched comparison principals in addition to all CMO principals.

III. CMO Practices and School Outcomes

Our unit of analysis is the CMO.1 _{Some of our measures incorporate survey questions that ask} about policies and activities of the CMO central office. However, we also rely on principal survey responses about school activities to infer overall CMO-level characteristics, averaging principal responses within each CMO and within the group of comparison schools associated with that CMO using weights to adjust for nonresponse.2

We acknowledge that our measures of CMO practices rely on principal reports of CMO

practices and not on direct observation of these practices in CMO schools. Given that the surveys were conducted for a study of CMOs, it is possible, for example, that CMO principals tended to report school-level practices in the most positive light. We examined correlations between similar teacher and principal survey responses and confirmed that all correlations were positive and, on most individual items, substantial. In addition, when measuring school-level intermediate outcomes in the domains of instructional coherence and organizational health, we used the teacher survey exclusively for all measures of instructional coherence and for a measure of teacher satisfaction in the organizational health domain.

There is substantial consistency within CMOs in these practices relative to the variation between CMOs (see Appendix A.).

In this chapter, we begin by describing average differences in CMO and district school practices in the following areas, in turn: instructional time, educational approach, student behavior strategies, and teacher effectiveness. We also describe the variation across CMOs in the emphasis on these practices in their schools. Next, we use cluster analysis to explore whether CMOs can be classified into groups based on their management strategies and bundling of key practices. Finally, we describe associations between the intermediate school outcomes in instructional coherence and organizational health and the school practices identified in the first part of the chapter.