Charter Schools in California, Michigan and Arizona: An Alternative Framework for Policy Analysis. Occasional Paper.

This paper uses the charter-school legislation of three states-Arizona, California, and Michigan--as a lens to understand the policy values embodied in school--choice reforms. It questions the prevailing rubrics of the Center for Education Reform and the American Federation of Teachers. Briefly stated, the former ranks laws as either "strong" or "weak," and the latter identifies laws as either "good" or "bad." This paper examines the legislation in light of an alternative framework. Specifically, it considers how the laws incorporate choice, productive efficiency, equity, and social cohesion. It also considers what policy tools-such as finance, information, and regulation-are provided in the legislation to achieve these values. The paper finds this framework more comprehensive than current normative frameworks that pervade charter-school research. Although the paper emphasizes the need for continued research at the local charter-school level to understand the connection between legislation and implementation, this framework enables observers to move beyond value-laden descriptors of charter-school laws. Further development of this framework will combine an analysis of political values in the laws with a look at the political context of education reform in each state, as well as implementation of the laws at the local charter-school level. (Contains 42 references.) (Author/WFA)