Are Charters Different?: Public Education, Teachers, and the Charter School Debate Paperback - 2017

From the rear cover

Zachary Oberfield investigates the question of whether charter schools cultivate different teaching climates from those found in traditional public schools by examining hundreds of thousands of teacher surveys from across the nation. The result is a trenchant analysis that deepens our understanding of what the charter experiment means for the future of US public education. Are Charters Different? argues that the choice between charter and public schools should be more about what we value in public education and what we consider as acceptable trade-offs.

"Oberfield offers a welcome reprieve from the rampant polemics of the current charter school debate. With balance and nuance, the book takes us deep inside charter schools to understand, from the teacher perspective, how these schools are--or aren't--taking advantage of their unique flexibilities and accountability arrangements to meet their public purpose. Lots of food for thought here for charter advocates and skeptics alike."
--Robin Lake, director, Center on Reinventing Public Education

"Subjecting large teacher surveys to rigorous statistical assessment, Zachary Oberfield cuts through the rhetoric for and against charter schools to deliver a dispassionate, illuminating analysis. For scholars and policy makers, this book should prove indispensable."
--Samuel E. Abrams, director, National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

"Oberfield's deft examination of teachers' own descriptions of their work climates offers some much-needed nuance to a public debate often characterized more by ideological heat than empirical light."
--Jason A. Grissom, associate professor of public policy and education, Vanderbilt University

"By looking at the social, political, and organizational contexts of schools, Oberfield takes significant steps in moving forward school choice research, policy, and practice."
--Mark Berends, professor of sociology and director, Center for Research on Educational Opportunity, University of Notre Dame

Zachary W. Oberfield is an associate professor of political science at Haverford College and winner of the 2015 Best Book Award from the Public and Nonprofit Division of the Academy of Management. Jeffrey R. Henig is a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University.